Johnson-Humrickhouse Museum: A World in One County

In Coshocton, Ohio, the Johnson-Humrickhouse Museum holds one of the most eclectic collections in rural Ohio, and it got there because two brothers couldn't stop collecting things. David and John Johnson were born in Coshocton County in the nineteenth century, moved to the Pacific Coast, and spent decades traveling and buying: American Indian baskets and beadwork, Asian fine arts, European ceramics, and weaponry from three continents. When they died, they left everything to their hometown.

In nineteen thirty-one the collections were shipped across the country to Coshocton, and the museum opened to the public in May of that year. It remains one of those quietly surprising small-city museums that rewards a stop.