The Manteca Museum marks its 25th year this July. Not only has it become one of the most prolific repositories of local history in the Northern San Joaquin Valley but the Manteca Historical Society actively engages school children and community members to provide them with a deeper understanding of how a discarded box car that served as the de facto first train station in 1870 ended up morphing into a city of 75,000 some 147 years later. The museum run by volunteers is located in the now 100-year-old church that once housed both Episcopalian and Methodist congregations.