Cotati Museum turns 5 with a party

The smallest incorporated city in Sonoma County boasts a museum all its own. And boasting is well in order, since the five-year-old Cotati Museum offers a portal to the past through intriguing exhibits collected and lovingly displayed by a group of local volunteers.

Beginning with “the early days” exhibit, the well-organized displays are easy to follow in the one-room museum.

Interested in Cotati families? There are relics from the peaceful Miwoks who lived here for generations.

And there are documents and photographs of the Page family, who in 1893 laid out the town with its distinctive hexagonal plaza. Ever wonder about the downtown street names: Charles, Arthur, George, William, Olof and Henry? They’re named after the seven Page sons.

There’s an array of photos and articles about the town’s famous identical triplets: Melba, May and Marie Andreoli.

Interested in education? Check out the collection of class photographs stretching from 1921 to the 1950s. You might see your grandparents when they were younger than your grandchildren.

Interested in Music? Peruse posters and newspaper articles on yesteryear musicians like Janis Joplin, Van Morrison, Carlos Santana, Huey Lewis and the News and others who jammed downtown at the Inn at the Beginning.

Auto racing more your style? You can view photos of the famous wooden racetrack of the 1920s, and the drag racing track of the ‘60s.

From churches to business organizations and local service groups, Cotati Museum has a treasure trove of information about them all, displayed in glass cases, scrapbooks or files.

And, in fact, the museum is itself a historical gem.

Located inside City Hall, the 770-square-foot museum was once a Cotati School classroom and, later, a police office. From its handsome polished fir floor to its high ceilings, the room and its contents draw history-loving visitors like a magnet draws iron filings.

Cotati Historical Society President Marie McNaughton said people of all ages visit the museum and seem delighted with what they find there.

“We see car clubs, students, Cub Scout troops, people who used to live in Cotati and current residents,” she said. “And a lot of the people like to tell us their Cotati stories.”

McNaughton, who wrote her master’s thesis on Cotati, said she loves “the combination of old and new buildings, the bohemians and bourgeois. This town formed as a community during the Arts and Crafts period. I love that architectural style. And I like the agricultural element (of the area). Cotati’s like a country village with all these various elements interacting. It’s intriguing.”

The seeds of the museum were planted decades ago when Prue and Lloyd Draper published the weekly newspaper, The Cotatian. People from throughout the town kept bringing the Drapers archives from clubs and organizations and individuals who no longer could keep the stuff. When the Drapers retired, they had an entire bedroom filled with historical memorabilia.

In 2004, the Drapers authored the book “Cotati,” which was published in Arcadia Publishing’s “Images of America” series. Three years later, the Cotati Historical Society came into being. And in 2010, the society opened the Cotati Museum, happily transferring all the long-stored treasures from the Draper’s spare bedroom to the museum.

Today the Cotati Historical Society owns and operates the museum, and Draper is the Society’s historian.

“This whole thing was started with no money at all,” Draper said. “We’ve had absolutely fantastic support from the community. The old timers bring us artifacts and good-sized donations. The younger people set up a Facebook page, ‘I grew up in Cotati.’ They send us lots of photographs.”

On Sunday, April 12, the Cotati Historical Society will celebrate the museum’s fifth anniversary from noon to 4 p.m. at the museum, inside City Hall at 201 W. Sierra Ave. The party will include live music, a vintage car show and a chicken barbecue at the adjacent Miller Community Center..

“We plan to have a movie on the development of Cotati running continuously throughout the afternoon in the museum,” McNaughton said. “And there will be a silent auction.”

She said the museum exists because of dedicated volunteers and a supportive community.

“Cotati is a funky little town, a special place,” she added. “There are still signs of what it used to be. Just look at the chickens in the Walgreen’s parking lot, or the sheep grazing across the street from city hall. I think Cotati has maintained its cultural integrity.”

Museum hours are 1–4 p.m. Saturdays and 5–7 p.m. the second Tuesday of each month. For more information, call 794-0305 or visit cotatihistoricalsociety.org.

EDITOR’S NOTE: An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified the number of children in the Pages’ family.