The Irwin District Museum is located at the Old Police station in Waldeck St, Dongara. It is open on Mondays and Wednesdays between 9:00am and 12:00 noon. Mail, Fax and e-mail inquiries or appointments are also welcome.

The building as seen today is the result of extensive restoration carried out by The Old Police Station restoration Committee, a voluntary group, in 1984 through 1986. The building is listed on the Western Australian State Register of Heritage Places. See below for a brief record of events for this historical building.

Built from locally quarried limestone, the walls are some 450 mm thick and are constructed in the coarsed random rubble style. The roof was originally wooden shingle and there were no ceilings.

Extensions in 1873 saw the addition of a three roomed lean-to against the north wall of the cell passageway. This was used a telegraph and Post Office, it was not a popular location and a newspaper correspondent reported, "The telegraph shanty is completed…. A poking (sic) hole of a window with a dozen iron crowbars…in short I consider it quite an insult to respectable settlers to stand in front of a prison window….to write a telegram."

The original L-shaped building had a rear courtyard enclosed by high stone walls and included stables and toilets. The walls were demolished c1955 and the only remnant of the stables is the wall at the rear of the complex.

The living quarters for the police were two separate two-roomed apartments with a communal timber-framed kitchen in the courtyard adjacent to the well. The justice section consisted of the courtroom, magistrate’s room and charge room.

The gaol comprised the prisoner day room a long passage with three cells for European prisoners, a fourth large cell for "native" prisoners and a roofless exercise yard with a prisoner toilet in one corner. The "native cell" and exercise yard was demolished in c1955.

The present day ceilings in the building were added in c1912. By creating doorways between the living quarters, conversion of the magistrate’s room into a kitchen and inclusion of the charge room as part of the living area, resulted in self-contained quarters for a policeman and his family.

The prisoner day room became the police operations room and as such the complex continued to function until 1983. Today the building is seen as a result of restoration and used as a museum for exhibits of the local Irwin District history.