Landscape Information
Situated on 200-acres of rural land spanning both sides of the curvilinear Tom Bowes Road along the eastern shore of South Hyco Creek, this museum commemorates Cornell “Shorty” Lawson, an African American sharecropper who lived on and stewarded the property. Through outsider art and oral histories, the museum— located in Lawson’s former residence—interprets Lawson’s contributions to his community and the role African American sharecroppers played in the American South. The museum includes six-themed rooms distinguished with artwork by Arbon Lane, Bernice Sims, and Black Joe Jackson.
Originally owned by Tom Bowes, the property was purchased in the early 1950s by Randolph Hester, who concurrently hired Lawson and his wife Annie to manage the land. The Lawsons resided in an existing, modest L-shaped wood frame house east of the main road, opposite a larger residence—both constructed in the early twentieth century from timber harvested on site. Lawson cared for the property until his death in 1974 and in the 1980s, several of the property’s tobacco fields were converted to pastures. In 2009 Hester’s son, landscape architect and educator, Randolph “Randy” Hester— who grew up working alongside Lawson— began rehabilitating the property. Six years later, in 2015, he established the museum.
Today the museum, set back from the road, occupies a rectangular sloping lawn enclosed by a utilitarian wood and wire fence. The building is flanked by outbuildings, vegetable gardens, and beds planted with forsythia, iris, and daffodils. Two naturalistic ponds are located to the south and northwest of the museum, used for irrigation and recreation by the Lawson family. The ponds are nestled within second-growth oak and hickory woodland expanses, framed by rolling pastures often dotted with cattle, and contour-terraced fields planted with corn, watermelon, and pumpkin. Earthen trails traverse the property, affording borrowed views of the countryside.
