The museum was founded in 1968 on the basis of the A. M. Gorky Palace of Culture as a museum of the history of the Chapayevsk Chemical Fertilizer Plant. The first exhibitions were created by factory workers who were tasked with organizing and filling the museum. Among them were P. A. Kudryavtsev, M. N. Zvorikin, E. K. Bolshakova, V. I. Marulin, and P. P. Mokhnachev.

On September 30, 1999, the museum received legal entity status and became municipal. Its collections and exhibitions, now a local history museum, included exhibits from the history museum of the ChZHU plant. The first director was the young historian and local historian M. S. Chigrinev.

In 2005, as a result of reorganization, the museum became part of the Municipal Institution "A. M. Gorky Palace of Culture," and since 2011 it has been part of the Municipal Budgetary Institution "Sociocultural Leisure Complex" of the Chapayevsk urban district.

The museum is located in the building of the A. M. Gorky Palace of Culture at: Ordzhonikidze St., 18. The total area of the premises is 142 sq. m, of which 115 sq. m is allocated for exhibitions and displays.

As of September 2016, the museum's collections number 4,147 storage units. The hall features 12 permanent exhibitions covering the history of the city, events of the revolution, the Civil War, and the Great Patriotic War, the activities of factories, and the cultural and historical heritage of the city. The museum's collection includes items of ethnography, numismatics, phaleristics, banknotes, photographs, documents, letters, orders, as well as personal belongings of participants in the Great Patriotic War and notable citizens.