Coronado Gives community story: How the Coronado Historical Association connects past and present...

The collections committee inspects artifacts in the Coronado Historical Association's Vault.

Initially published by Coronado Times 11/24/2025 Coronado Gives is raising money for Coronado Families and residents through Dec. 31 in partnership with the Coronado Community Foundation, The Coronado Times, and the Coronado Eagle & Journal. Below is a story of community impact.

When Christine Stokes moved to Coronado ten years ago, she knew she was coming to a town steeped in history, and she was determined to help preserve it.

Stokes serves as executive director of the Coronado Historical Association, a young organization despite the city’s storied past: The CHA was founded in 1969, just as the San Diego-Coronado Bridge opened, the Coronado Shores and the Cays were rising, and the community was undergoing sweeping change.

Its mission: to preserve what makes Coronado special.

Today, Stokes leads that effort as the association’s executive director, supported by more than 50 volunteers and a world-class collection of artifacts and archives. For her, the real heart of the work isn’t in the vault, the artifacts, or the exhibitions. It’s in the people.

“Community history is my passion,” she said. “Everyone’s story deserves to be in a museum. You don’t have to be George Washington.”

In the late 1960s, as Coronado shifted from a Navy-centric island to a city more connected to San Diego, residents feared losing the character that defined daily life. After all, when people talk about why they love Coronado, certain reasons are recurrent: Kids can ride their bikes to school, neighbors know each other, it feels like a small town, and yet its history runs deep. The National League of Wives of American Vietnam Prisoners of War organization, for example, began in the Coronado home of Sybil Stockdale.

“The historical association really is community-based, and we were built by the community,” Stokes said. “People were working to preserve what makes Coronado special.”

That ethos carries forward today. The association continues to collect the everyday stories of residents alongside historic artifacts because, Stokes said, the everyday is integral to history.

CHA’s collections rival those found in major institutions. The Stockdale family, for example, has entrusted the museum with artifacts that are also loaned to national institutions such as the Nixon Presidential Library.

“These are items that could be in the Smithsonian,” Stokes said. “But the families know they’re just as safe here.”

The museum’s dedicated collections vault, which was retrofitted in 2011 and is now undergoing further humidity-control upgrades, was specifically designed to protect sensitive items, including POW materials and military history collections.

“Our job is to be a place where these stories and artifacts can be intact,” Stokes said, “not just for now, but for future historians who come after us.”

Stokes’s grandfather loved history, and she grew up in museums. Later, a college professor inspired her career in public history, which examines how people and communities interact with their pasts.

True to her focus on public history, Stokes has moved away from fixed, permanent displays toward an ever-evolving space of learning. The CHA encourages residents to bring in their own histories, whether it’s a family photo, a taped interview, or a handed-down story. Exhibits evolve with new contributions, and even students get to leave their marks by creating their own personal flags as a part of the museum’s educational programming.

“Every child gets to leave their story here,” Stokes said. “History becomes tangible when you understand how it connects to your life, your civic identity, and how you give back.”

Coronado Gives is a project that crowdfunds support for organizations doing good. Learn more, choose your cause, and make your donation here: www.coronadogives.com.

Coronado Gives is a giving campaign sponsored by the Coronado Eagle & Journal and The Coronado Times and hosted by the Coronado Community Foundation. All proceeds benefit the residents of Coronado through 501(c)(3) organizations serving the Coronado community. Donors will receive a 100 percent, tax-deductible receipt from the Coronado Community Foundation via email or U.S. Mail. For more information, contact info@ccfcoronado.com.