The institution was established in stages from 1959 when its current patron began gathering the collection. Over the years, the collection grew despite local difficulties. Since 2014, the museum is housed in a renovated bourgeois tenement from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries on Łukasiewicza Street. The museum holds relics of local history, focusing on the 19th and 20th centuries as the most significant for the contemporary consciousness of the city's residents. Interestingly, not only military and ethnographic themes are commemorated here but also the history of local sports. The Museum's units include a railway tunnel under Żarnowska Hill, a city gallery, and a synagogue serving as a library.