COQUILLE — Trains don’t run around Coquille much these days. But they used to. Right through the middle of town. In fact, transportation infrastructure of all sorts looked much different a century or so ago.

Such a scene is captured in a photo on the wall of the Coquille Valley Museum. Looking at the photo, you can almost hear the train’s whistle and slowing chug, chug of the train coming to a stop, the turning of the newspaper pages and thud of the car wheels over the wood planks.

“We’re adding pictures all the time,” said Bob Taylor said.

Taylor’s a volunteer (and former president of the Coquille Valley Historical Society) for this town’s fledgling museum, which is holding onto pieces of the past, since town’s changing.

 The city just poured new asphalt for streets and concrete for sidewalks on Central Boulevard and First and Second streets this October, but at one point in Coquille’s history, road crews would have worked with timber, not asphalt.

One museum photo shows both the trains and the wooden streets — an image of a quiet, yet prosperous town taken last century. It shows a train stopping right in front of a hotel. A car, perhaps made in the 1920s, is parked on the opposite side of a wooden street. People stand on the sidewalk. One man reads a newspaper leaning on a street light pole, as the train bellows steam.

There are tools and old household items. Old clothes and high school annuals and arrow heads. Heck, there might even be an old kitchen sink among the numerous items local people have donated since the small museum opened in December 2005.

People love to thumb through the old yearbooks, museum board member Leland Simpson said.

“They find pictures of grandpa and grandma and teachers they didn’t like,” he said.

Taylor and Simpson jokingly described themselves as antiques, but really they are some of the energy and passion behind preservation of the history of the Coquille area. They and the rest of the volunteers have plenty historical knowledge to share.

The North Central Boulevard museum is arranged by type of artifact, not by time period and the collection is growing so rapidly volunteers are in the process of opening another room in the building that Taylor donated to the museum. Some areas are definitely a work in progress. The small back room is a maze of items on display and some that are not quite ready to be viewed.

A Coquille Women’s Club cookbook from 1926 is a wealth of “recipes that please,” and humor as well.

A City Meat Market advertisement in the cookbook pokes fun at the business of meat cutting: “We are so expert in our line that we can kill joy or butcher the English language.”

In addition to individual donations, businesses also have contributed. A Coquille Valley Sentinel printing press and type collection are a main feature on the museum floor as is an ancient dentist’s X-ray machine. The relic resembles one of the overhead lights currently used in dentist offices more than an X-ray.

“It probably did more harm than good,” Taylor said with a laugh.

Currently about 15 volunteers keep the museum open and collect and prepare the sometimes odd and obscure items. At times even the history buffs don’t know what some of the stuff that comes in was used for.

Taylor said the museum could can always use more volunteers and donations — Taylor himself has served as a board member, past president  major donor and tour guide — but he is quick to acknowledge the support of the community.

“I can’t say enough about the generous people who have given to the museum,” he said. “It’s always a surprise.”