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Hours of Operation
Open Daily: 10:00am - 5:00pm
Closed: New Year's Day, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day
Call Us: (800) 991-2338
(509) 427-8211
Questions?: email us
Address Information
Columbia Gorge Interpretive Center Museum
990 SW Rock Creek Drive
P.O. Box 396
Stevenson, WA 98648
Driving Directions
History of the Don Brown Rosary Collection
- Chapter 1: Brief History of the Rosary
- Chapter 2: About Don Brown
- Chapter 3: A One-of-a-Kind Spiritual Collection Finds a Home
- Chapter 4: About the Rosaries
The Don Brown Rosary Collection, the world's largest of its kind, is displayed in the Spiritual Quest Gallery of the Columbia Gorge Interpretive Center Museum in Stevenson, WA. under the aegis of the Skamania County Historical Society.
Nearly 4,000 rosaries are exhibited along with other religious artifacts identified with Pacific Northwest history. The collection represents the life's work of the late Donald A. Brown of North Bonneville, WA , a founder of the Skamania County Historical Society.
The Rosary Exhibit is not maintained as a place of worship but rather as a display of an almost universal art form. In the Western world, the rosary is used in Roman Catholic devotions and in Eastern religions similar prayer beads are employed as an aid to pious meditation by Mohammedans, Buddhists and other religious groups.
It is said perhaps three-quarters of the human race are given to their use. In the simplest of terms, the beads of the rosary are a means of counting the number of times a repetitive prayer has been recited.
Before the Christian era, the Jews were accustomed to reckon their prayers on beads, and this custom was probably adopted by early Christians long before the time of the priest Dominic (1170-1221), founder of the Dominican Order, who first propagated the rosary as it is now employed.
According to Catholic legend, St. Dominic was admonished by the Virgin Mary to preach the rosary as a special defense against heresy and vice. The Feast of the Rosary of the Blessed Virgin (Duplex Major, first Sunday in October) was instituted by Clement XI to commemorate the success of the Christian arms against the Turks in 1716, and has reference also to the Battle of Lepano in 1571. Our Lady of the Rosary observance remains on the Catholic calendar.
NEXT: About Don Brown
