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A bright red sign hanging from a small barn says "People of Color Museum."
The Tablertown People of Color Museum is moving to a new location.

The Tablertown People of Color Museum will break ground on a new site after the land is cleaned up

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TABLERTOWN, Ohio (WOUB) – David Butcher works full time, and when he isn’t at work, he’s at the Tablertown People of Color Museum he made out of an old barn next to his home. 

He won’t be there for much longer. 

“For the first time in my life, I am solely focused on trying to make the Tablertown People of Color Museum successful,” Butcher said. “How we’re hoping to do that is to build a new museum in Tablertown.” 

An assortment of items are lined up on the side of the new museum's plot of land. A little farther down the way is a small shed.
Volunteer Hannah Louck helped sort items into piles to keep, sell or throw out. [Alison Patton | WOUB]
The museum is moving about two miles down the road to a plot of land off State Route 329 in Tablertown, formerly known as Kilvert. It’s also next to an abandoned coal mine and above a former landfill. 

“A lot of people have been dumping over the recent years,” AmeriCorp volunteer Hannah Louck said. “There’s a lot of both trash but also history.”

Butcher said the state route was built over the coal mine, and the road started slipping a few years ago. So the state and township started filling the coal mine with trash. 

“People looked around and said, ‘Oh, this must be the new landfill’,” Butcher said. 

The land has a small structure, piles of antiques and some trash scattered about. 

Louck helped Butcher sort these items into things to keep for the museum, sell for profit or throw away. 

“It’s a lot of just getting things in, getting them covered,” Louck said. “And then getting them a bit more organized so that when it’s warmer, and they have a bit more manpower, we can come back, hopefully, and help serve again with the museum.”

An old and worn looking sawing machine sits in a box under a table next to a lamp.
Some items are being covered outside until there’s nicer weather and helping hands. [Alison Patton | WOUB]
A lot of the items being saved are from the previous landowner, Irene Flowers. 

Flowers loved to can, and Butcher said he’s saving the hundreds of mason jars she left behind to preserve her history in the new museum.

“We literally filled two freezers full of mason jars and we probably have that many more in that other building,” Butcher said.  

The building on the property needs to come down before the Ohio Department of Natural Resources can come in and clean up the landfill. 

The project is supposed to start in October, with an estimated cost of about $500,000, Karina Cheung, ODNR press secretary, said in an email. 

Once ODNR’s job is done, crews can begin constructing the museum. The new building is set to be twice the size of the original. 

A bigger building means Butcher can create more jobs for his community. 

“This museum could potentially be the first jobs in Tablertown since 1950,” Butcher said. “So we’re pretty excited about that.” 

The new museum isn’t expected to open until 2026.