Visitors enter Marsh’s Free Museum on Monday, June 28 in Long Beach.

LONG BEACH — For the past 100 years a family-owned business in Long Beach has continued to amuse and awe thousands of visitors each year.

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Marsh’s Free Museum

409 Pacific Ave., Long Beach

360-642-2188

Marshsfreemuseum.com

There’s a shrunken head from South America, hundreds of antiques and dozens of oddities and curios, and that’s not even mentioning Marsh’s Free Museum’s biggest celebrity and attraction — Jake the Alligator Man.

Each trip to the museum, located at 409 Pacific Avenue in Long Beach, reveals something new, according to co-owner Mandy Marsh. Soon, visitors will be able to spy a new totem pole-style carving along the museum’s famous roof line.

Carrying on the tradition

Marsh, 40, is the great-granddaughter of the original owner, Wellington William Marsh Sr., who started the business in 1921. Marsh Sr. passed in 1979, but the tales of his exploits in amassing a rare and unique collection — often through trades — still resonate today.

“I never met him, but I hear stories,” Mandy said. “When my grandpa had a restaurant in Grays River, people would offer to trade for stuff.”

Pull Quote

‘I think [William Wellington Marsh Sr.] would be happy it’s still in the family and still going 100 years later.’

Mandy Marsh

Museum founder’s great-granddaughter

Marsh Sr. worked for a circus at one point, which may have been how he acquired some of the items, including the work of the prolific sideshow banner artist Fred Johnson.

Some stories about how items were acquired remain elusive, including the tale of a shrunken head from South America.

“There was a big trade for them in the 1930s, but we were never told how we got it,” Mandy said.

Stars of the show

As for Jake the Alligator Man, he came from San Francisco in 1964 and cost $750, equivalent to about $6,500 today.

Tourists never forget Jake. Long Beach antiques dealer Ray Pryor bought Jake at an auction when Whitney’s Museum in San Francisco, a similar palace of palaver, closed in the ‘60s, according to a 2005 Observer article. Wellington Marsh Jr. “didn’t want to pay $750 for Jake but I talked him into it,” his wife Marian said. That equals about $6,500 in today’s money, and must be one of the best buys ever, considering the invaluable publicity Jake brings to the free museum.

Sometimes customers offer to buy items straight from the walls and ceiling, including a particularly rare glass float, referred to as “The Holy Grail.”

“We’ve been offered $40,000 for it,” Mandy said.

The retail aspect of the museum, including everything from taffy to Jake the Alligator Man t-shirts and bumper stickers, now accounts for 65% of revenue, Mandy said, but a dedication to preserving the original museum mystique remains the same.

“I think [William Wellington Marsh Sr.] would be happy it’s still in the family and still going 100 years later,” Mandy said.