The Primorsko-Akhtarsk Historical and Local History Museum began its history as a public museum. Its creation was proposed in 1959 by history teachers at a meeting of the "History" section of the district department of public education. By that time, each participant had already collected extensive local history material on the history of the Primorsko-Akhtarsk district. The idea was supported by the department of culture and the district executive committee, and on June 6, 1960, the Primorsko-Akhtarsk Council of Workers' Deputies made the decision to establish a district historical and local history museum on a public basis.

Initially, the museum was located in the House of Pioneers. Its opening took place on May 19, 1962, coinciding with the 40th anniversary of the pioneer organization named after V.I. Lenin. The first director was one of the organizers, Pyotr Kuzmich Pichugin.

At first, the museum occupied one, and then two rooms in the House of Pioneers. The museum's collection was formed from materials collected by the founders, including archaeological finds, paleontological items, and exhibits related to the pre-revolutionary past, the Civil War, and the Great Patriotic War.

Gradually, the number of exhibits increased thanks to finds by local residents, schoolchildren, and fishermen. By the mid-1970s, the museum expanded and moved to an old building that previously belonged to merchant V.V. Malyshev. For some time, the museum was managed by the field crop collective farm named after V.I. Lenin. On December 23, 1980, the museum was awarded the title of "People's Museum" by the order of the Minister of Culture of the RSFSR. Currently, the collection includes 6,431 items.

The paleontological collection includes a variety of samples, among which stand out the bones of giant animals that lived in the area millions of years ago. The bones of a southern elephant were discovered in 1953 on the shore of the Azov Sea. Although many of them were destroyed, thanks to paramedic I.I. Pleteshkov, the preserved fragments made their way to the museum. In the 1970s, a fragment of a tusk was found on Yasenka Spit.

The museum's archaeological collection contains unique exhibits, such as a Byzantine amphora from the 6th and 7th centuries with a Christian cross. There is also a two-handed urn from the 17th and 18th centuries, found by fishermen in the Kerch Strait in 1979.

Among other interesting exhibits is a two-handed vessel with inlay and a clay tablet with inscriptions, found in 1991. The tablet is believed to date back to modern times and requires further attribution.

Another significant exhibit is a medieval stone sculpture found in the 1970s by students of school No. 8. The sculpture requires further study and may date back to the Polovtsian period or an earlier time.

The museum's collection is constantly being replenished and includes items from paleontology, archaeology, mineralogy, Cossack life, as well as exhibits related to the Caucasian, Civil, and Great Patriotic Wars and the Soviet period.

Since 2002, the museum has been granted the status of a municipal cultural institution, and since 2013, the status of a municipal autonomous cultural institution.