Baltimore man seeks help to open salvage museum in Fells Point

BALTIMORE — Evan Woodard is an explorer and historian who enjoys finding rare items in Baltimore.

He created a non-profit called the Salvage Arc Foundation .

It all started in the pandemic with privy digging, then after a while he took to magnetic fishing.

Thursday, Evan and a group of friends were at Baltimore's Inner Harbor doing just that.

He says it's a hobby they like to do once a week.

"It's a great community. I've met a lot of awesome people, and at the end of the day we're really just pulling trash out of the harbor, but sometimes you get lucky, and you never know what you're going to find," says Evan Woodard.

Over the years, Woodard says he has found some incredible things, so he decided to put those on display.

"Craziest probably a shipping hook from the mid 1800s that I pulled out in fells point. Fully restored it, cleaned it up, then there is also a late Victorian bench that I pulled out of the fells point as well, cleaned that up, and it's actually sitting in the museum right now," says Evan.

The group pulled out 2 bikes, several electric scooters, a shopping cart, and even a table and chair.

Although those things are not going in the museum, it still attracted many people who were walking by as the group pulled out each item.

He says the reaction people have is one of the reasons he wants to have a museum.

"Well, I came up with the idea to open up the museum and community center after I had basically been collecting all of these artifacts over the last four years, and I really wanted to share everything with people and have people come there see them learn about the community learn about Baltimore."

Woodard says he has the space but just needs a bit of help transforming it to what he wants it to look like. So he turned to go fund me to get the communities help for the cost of renovations.

Changes that will cost him around $90,000.

So far he has around $28,000 from GoFundMe and other donations.

"I'll keep it looking old; honestly, it's an older warehouse, and so I've been going through renovating it, putting up drywall, studs, and stuff, and at the end of the day, I still want people to walk through and feel like they are transported back in time, almost."

In the meantime, he says he will keep searching the waters for other items to add to the collection of Baltimore's history, hoping to tell an even bigger story by the time the museum opens, and he invites the community to join him.

"If anyone wants to get involved, we do the magnet fishing every Thursday night at Fells Point. This is a one-off night here at the inner harbor, but we might be coming back here."

Woodard says he plans to open the museum at the beginning of 2025.

He also has other plans for the donations, which include community engagement, education, and preservation of the artifacts he is able to find.