How the Douglas Collection Came to the Yakima Valley Museum

Two years after his 1975 retirement, Douglas approached the Yakima County Bar Association and asked if they’d like to have his court chair. As luck would have it, one of the attorneys was a Yakima Valley Museum trustee named George Martin. The Bar Association said they would take the chair and anything else he’d like to donate, but it would have to go to the Museum since they didn’t have any permanent place to house it.
 

When Douglas died in 1980, the chair arrived…along with four tons of other objects and furniture.
 

“In one gallery is an almost-exact re-creation of the Supreme Court chambers of Justice William O. Douglas, furnished with all of Douglas’ original furnishings, from his desk to the pictures on the wall and flowers he pressed in phone directories while exploring the wilderness,” reported the Yakima Herald-Republic in 2019.
 

“The chamber, as well as a collection of Douglas’ personal papers (his legal papers are in the Library of Congress), brings people from around the country who are interested in Douglas—from his spirited defense of personal liberty and his love of the environment, said Mike Siebol, the museum’s curator of collections.”  
 

Come See the Updated William O. Douglas Exhibit at YVM–Opening in Time for the Award Banquet