Exhibitions include information about the gold rush and the unique West Coast stone pounamu (greenstone) and its value to Māori.

Hokitika's population had rapidly increased in the 1860s due to the West Coast gold rush, so it was seen as fitting for it to have a museum.

Fundraising began in 1964 for a museum building to be built behind the Carnegie Library, and the equivalent of $450,000 in 2013 dollars was raised by public subscriptions, service clubs, and a grant from the Department of Internal Affairs.

[3][5] The West Coast Historical Museum opened in the new building on 20 December 1973, the anniversary of Hokitika's founding in 1864.

[7][8] The restoration cost $600,000, and involved internal bracing and replacement of the parapets and roof pagoda with plastered-over plastic for earthquake safety.

[5][3] The building housed a public Carnegie Gallery for community art exhibitions, as well an i-Site information centre.

[9] Staff were rehoused in Drummond Hall, the name for the 1973 storage area, and the Museum Research Facility at 17 Revell Street.

[14] The building continued to be staffed temporarily with limited displays and community exhibitions, and earthquake strengthening was scheduled to begin in February 2021.

In September contractors discovered additional damage to the roof and determined that the decorative external parapets would need to be replaced.

The reasons given were its historical significance as a gift from Andrew Carnegie, the quality and grandeur of the design which highlighted the importance of the town, its high esteem in the community as expressed by the significant effort to restore and keep it, and its scale which made it one of the town's landmark buildings;[17] it has been described as the "most-photographed building in Hokitika".