Placer County Museums Seek Volunteer Docents

Placer County Museums Seeking 10 – 20 additional volunteers

Auburn, Calif. – Do you have passion for Placer County’s history or always wanted to learn more about it? Do you like interacting with people? Placer County Museums are currently recruiting volunteer docents (16 years old or older) eager to have fun and interpret and share stories about Placer’s historic buildings, sites, artifacts and the ghosts who still grace our landscape.

Museum volunteer duties include greeting and engaging visitors, answering questions and providing information on exhibits, programs and amenities. No experience is necessary (we’ll train you); all you need is a willingness to learn and share our history with others.

Placer County Museums is looking for 10 – 20 additional volunteers to serve at any of the following museum locations:

The Placer County Museum
101 Maple Street, Auburn, CA 95603

This museum presents an overview of Placer County history from the early Nisenan inhabitants through the latter half of the 20th century. It also includes the Placer County gold collection, the renowned Pate Collection of American Indian artifacts and the original Thomas Kinkade painting “Auburn Centennial.” The museum occupies the first floor of Auburn’s historic courthouse.

The Bernhard Museum
291 Auburn-Folsom Road, Auburn, CA 95603

The Bernhard Museum complex is home to the oldest buildings in Placer County, including the Traveler’s Rest Hotel, now known as the Bernhard House. Filled with artifacts and furnishings from a bygone era, the Bernhard House transports visitors to a simpler time. The Bernhard Museum also serves as home to the third grade Living History Program.

The Gold Rush Museum
601 Lincoln Way, Auburn CA 95603

Located in the old Auburn Depot Building, this museum offers an overview of how the great Gold Rush swept over Placer County. The museum’s features include a mining tunnel exhibit, interactive indoor panning stream and an operating stamp mill. This site is also home to the Gold Rush Program, a two-hour, interactive program developed for fourth grade state curriculum standards.

The DeWitt History Museum, Auburn
2895 Richardson Drive, Auburn, CA 95603

Scheduled to open this fall, the DeWitt History Museum will showcase the site’s various incarnations as the DeWitt General Hospital during World War II, the DeWitt State Mental Hospital from 1947 to 1972 and as the Placer County Government Center from 1972 to the present. Plans for the museum include an interpretive patient room and Army medical officer’s quarters, as well as a kitchen with World War II-era fixtures and props. A second display room will house exhibits on various topics such as when Waldo and Berenice Pate lived in the house during the psychiatric facility years; the ranching, mining and early airstrip history of the property; and the life of Pike Bell, a famous gold miner who once owned the land the house currently sits on.

The Archives and Research Center
11526 C Avenue, Auburn 95603

The Placer County Archives and Research Center is a repository for records generated by the county and a local history and genealogy research center. The collection includes county records dating from the beginning of the county in 1851. This includes over 15,000 photographs, as well as original bound copies of Placer County’s first newspaper, the Placer Herald.

The volunteer open recruitment will be available through Aug. 31, with the nine-week docent training program set to begin in September.