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On Sunday, September 20, 2025, the Blanchard House was reopened in Punta Gorda. It was a way to celebrate a century of history at the reopening celebration of the House. The house turned 100 years old and has been the home to the Blanchard House Museum for the past 21 years. This is Charlotte County’s only Black history museum.
Andrea Melendez/WGCU
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Dr. Martha Bireda, author & lecturer, and Director of the Blanchard House Museum of African American History and Culture in Punta Gorda.
Mike Kiniry / WGCU
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A woman reads the museum display at the reopening. On Sunday, September 20, 2025, the Blanchard House was reopened in Punta Gorda. It was a way to celebrate a century of history at the reopening celebration of the House. The house turned 100 years old and has been the home to the Blanchard House Museum for the past 21 years. This is Charlotte County’s only Black history museum.
Andrea Melendez/WGCU
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A man reads the museum display at the reopening. On Sunday, September 20, 2025, the Blanchard House was reopened in Punta Gorda. It was a way to celebrate a century of history at the reopening celebration of the House. The house turned 100 years old and has been the home to the Blanchard House Museum for the past 21 years. This is Charlotte County’s only Black history museum.
Andrea Melendez/WGCU
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Martha Bireda, Director, Blanchard House Museum, talks about the museum display. On Sunday, September 20, 2025, the Blanchard House was reopened in Punta Gorda. It was a way to celebrate a century of history at the reopening celebration of the House. The house turned 100 years old and has been the home to the Blanchard House Museum for the past 21 years. This is Charlotte County’s only Black history museum.
Andrea Melendez/WGCU
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— WGCUBlanchardHouse092225AM
A man reads the museum display at the reopening. On Sunday, September 20, 2025, the Blanchard House was reopened in Punta Gorda. It was a way to celebrate a century of history at the reopening celebration of the House. The house turned 100 years old and has been the home to the Blanchard House Museum for the past 21 years. This is Charlotte County’s only Black history museum.
Andrea Melendez/WGCU
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Martha Bireda, Director, Blanchard House Museum gets a hug from her son, Jaha Cummings, after he read a proclamation at the reopening of the museum. On Sunday, September 20, 2025, the Blanchard House was reopened in Punta Gorda. It was a way to celebrate a century of history at the reopening celebration of the House. The house turned 100 years old and has been the home to the Blanchard House Museum for the past 21 years. This is Charlotte County’s only Black history museum.
Andrea Melendez/WGCU
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— WGCUBlanchardHouse092225AM
On Sunday, September 20, 2025, the Blanchard House was reopened in Punta Gorda. It was a way to celebrate a century of history at the reopening celebration of the House. The house turned 100 years old and has been the home to the Blanchard House Museum for the past 21 years. This is Charlotte County’s only Black history museum.
Andrea Melendez/WGCU
Charlotte County's only African American history museum celebrated its 100th anniversary over the weekend.
The Blanchard House Museum recently reopened after a three-year hiatus due to Hurricane Ian and the pandemic. Dozens packed the open house to see the reemergence live in action with Director Martha Bireda, Ph.D., giving a tour of the origins.
"Mrs. Blanchard was a mail-order bride," she said. "[Her husband] put her in a very nice house. He had been a fisherman. She had two daughters, actually, our family, my grandmother, they were friends with them when they died. The house was still just here, because my mother's association with them. She bought this house with the intention of having a museum."
The museum is currently planning an ambitious expansion, which includes a cultural heritage center that would connect the Blanchard House with the nearby Jean Cleveland House. The project aims to foster intergenerational dialogue and sustainable community development. The museum not only shares history but a legacy as well. Jaha Cummings, Bireda's son and president of both the Bernice A. Russell Community Development Corporation and the Cultural Heritage Center of Southwest Florida, emphasized the museum's economic impact.
"As you notice the brown signs, those equal a minimum number of visitors," Cummings said, referring to heritage tourism markers. "By telling untold, untaught history, we also promote basically heads and beds in the communities in which we live."
The Blanchard House Museum operates Thursday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
"My mother was a person who brought community together, and this is what Blanchard House does," Bireda said.
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