Campo Stone Store Museum

03/05/2025

08/07/2024

2024-25 President and Museum Director Wade Rowley welcomes you to the Historical Society and Campo Stone Store Museum.

Dear Members, Associates, Friends and Neighbors,

It is with great appreciation for their sacrifice and service, we announce the retirement of Larry Johnson as President and Museum Director of the Mountain Empire Historical Society Stone Store Museum (MEHS), and Arvy Johnson as the Docent Coordinator. Larry and Arvy will continue to serve on the board of directors and participate at their pleasure. Larry will focus on the archives, and Arvy will still be involved in any functions of her choice.

On 14 July 2024, I was elected by our members as the new President of the MEHS Board of Directors and selected by the Board of Directors as the new Museum Director. My background is twenty-four years with the Army Corps of Engineers, both enlisted and as a commissioned officer. I also just retired from twenty-three years of employment as a Project Manager, Superintendent for federal contractors specializing in heavy construction. I have been a member of the Board of Directors and held the positions of Vice President and Corporate Secretary for ten years.

My interest in accepting this new position at MEHS has been partially motivated by my military service, which naturally piques my interest as a former military officer to the history of the U.S. Army in the local area. Camp Lockett and the "Buffalo Soldiers" are a rich part of our military history, of which I have studied along with many other U.S. Army historical topics over the years. Additionally, I am one of two historians within my own family, as we have traced our genealogy back to the Mayflower and beyond. History comes naturally as my father was also a historian and immersed me in the local history of the northern California Redwood Coast.

It is with considerable pleasure and honor to be selected to serve our very capable MEHS and to help further the goals of the organization into the future. Below is a chart depicting our new structure and organization. If there are questions or comments. Please feel free to contact me at the undersigned.

Wade D. Rowley,
President - Museum Director
Mountain Empire Historical Society
P.O. Box 394, Campo CA 91906
[email protected]
Ph: (619) 980-2013

Send a message to learn more

06/26/2024

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04/11/2023

05/18/2022

https://fb.watch/d4LwyEX7AU/

03/24/2021

We will be opening again on April 10th, 2021 11:00 am - 4:00 pm. Hope to see you there!!

06/10/2020

Shipping and Handling (S&H) is $6.00 per book (for the lower 48 states) and is figured into the price of each book when it is added to the cart.

06/09/2020

The Mountain Empire Historical Society and Campo Stone Store Museum invite you to shop our online bookstore.

https://www.cssmus.org/bookstore.html

Many publications are also available at our Campo Museum Bookstore.

Shipping and Handling (S&H) is $6.00 per book (for the lower 48 states) and is figured into the price of each book when it is added to the cart.

06/05/2020

UPDATE: We will not be opening the museum this weekend. The Governor has shut down museums again. We will keep you posted as to when we will be open. Thank you!

The Campo Stone Store Museum will reopen on Saturday, July 4th (11 am - 4 pm). Looking forward to seeing visitors again! 🙂

05/30/2020

Dear loyal historians,

The Mountain Heritage newsletter is a quarterly publication with reports and stories of historic happenings in the back country. You can receive this newsletter for free when joining the Mountain Empire Historical Society. Or you can pick one up at the museum. To introduce you to this newsletter we have decided to give you a little insight into what you might read. Every so often we will be publishing one of the stories from past or recent editions of the newsletter here on Facebook. More information is given below the story for how to become a volunteer or a member of the Historical Society.

Marbles of Every Shape, Size, and Color

By Larry Johnson

Gary Gulley of Lake Morena recently donated his large collection of marbles to our historical society. After collecting them from Gary, cleaning and storing them, a memory from the distant past sneaked forcefully back into my conscience.

My personal involvement with marbles started when I was in the second grade in North Carolina in 1943. I had gotten about 10 new marbles in a leather bag for Christmas. I proceeded to take them to school where during recess, there were marble games in the corners of the playground. Some kids were already very good shooters, had good oversize “clearies” to shoot with and were clever at introducing the novice to a game of “keeps.” My marbles did not last very long in the 2-foot diameter arena. My opponent cocked and aimed his marble loaded fist/thumb rifle combo at my innocent marbles in the circle, then proceeded to sequentially shoot and knock each of my marbles out of the circle as his oversized “clearie” managed to “stick” in a new optimum location for the next shot on my marbles. He never missed, I never got a shot, and I learned a painful lesson about being careful when dealing with people with more experience than myself.

Back to Gary’s marble donation; there are 21 groups, a wide variety of sizes, colors and ages. We would like to know more about them, such as value, age, origin, history, etc. We thank Gary for his donation of this collection of marbles which triggered an old memory. If you have knowledge and experience in this area, we would appreciate hearing from you.

To get in touch with Larry and offer your marble expertise, please call the museum at (619) 663-1885 or (619) 478- 5566.

The museum is always looking for people who would like to be part of our museum. To volunteer click this link: https://cssmus.org/volunteer_opportunities.html

To become a member please click this link: https://cssmus.org/membership_form.html

If you would like to become a member click this link: https://cssmus.org/donation_form.html

The museum is open each Saturday and Sunday from 11:00 am to 4:00 pm.

03/13/2020

Hello All,

With the fast and extensive developments in the last few days related to the COVID-19 (Corona-virus) in the world, in the US and now in California, we will be closing the Museum to visitors until about June 6. We can then reevaluate the risk to the public and to our Docents at our Museum. I feel that our group of volunteers are more susceptible and we don’t need to take any unnecessary chances. Thank you. Larry Johnson - President

02/29/2020

We explore the ghost town of Buckman Springs, CA and the hidden grave of Amos Buckman. Buckman Springs is located on Historic Route 80 in eastern San Diego C...

01/10/2020

Campo Stone Store is need of volunteers (Docents)! Once a month(Sat or Sun)11am-4pm to welcome visitors. If any history buffs or anyone wanting to get involved in the community, please contact Arvy @ 619-478-5566. Thanks!

08/24/2019