Tag Archives: Department of Parks Heritage and Tourism

May 7 Architeaser

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hamMay is Arkansas Heritage Month.  As a way to celebrate it, the next few Architeasers will focus on facilities connected to the Department of Arkansas Heritage.

Today’s Architeaser features architecture from the past and present.  These structures sit side by side on the city block which is home to part of Historic Arkansas Museum.  The center of the photo is anchored by the 2001 expansion to the museum which was designed by the firm of Polk Stanley Yeary (now Polk Stanley Wilcox). Framing the building on either side of the photo are some of Little Rock’s oldest structures.

Historic Arkansas Museum opened in July 1941 as the Arkansas Territorial Restoration.  It includes Little Rock’s oldest structure, the Hinderliter Grog Shop, built in 1827.  In 2001, the name was changed to Historic Arkansas Museum in conjunction with the opening of a 51,000 square foot museum center which capped off a three phase capital building program.

May is Arkansas Heritage Month

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HM 2013This year’s theme is: Saving our Heritage: Arkansas’s Historic Structures.

Arkansas is fortunate to have preserved so many historic structures. Homes, businesses, churches, bridges, courthouses, banks, log cabins and even entire historic districts have been preserved and protected. But there may be structures in your town that need attention and resources so they can be saved.

A wealth of assistance is available through the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program to help save important places in Arkansas, including educational materials, federal tax credit program information, and technical resources to name just a few.

From local museums and historical societies to private homes and businesses, preserving our past is something Arkansas does well.

For more information, visit the Department of Arkansas Heritage at www.arkansasheritage.com.

Arkansas Literary Festival This Weekend!

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litfestlogoThe Arkansas Literary Festival, the premier gathering of readers and writers in Arkansas, has expanded to include over 90 authors in many locations on both sides of the river from April 18-21, 2013.

The Central Arkansas Library System’s Main Library campus, other venues in the River Markets and Argenta Arts districts are the sites for a stimulating mix of sessions, panels, special events, performances, workshops, presentations, opportunities to meet the authors, book sales, and book signings. Most events are free and open to the public.

Festival authors include:

Salma Abdelnour, David Abrams, Mary Stewart Atwell, Beth Ayer, Jenni B. Baker, Jan Barry, Carolyn Briggs, Kevin Brockmeier, Sam Calvin Brown, Oliver Burkeman, Mary Bucci Bush, Drew Cameron, Raquel Cepeda, Da Chen, Joseph Crespino, James Daily, Lela Davidson, Edmond Davis, Sylvia Day, James W. Erwin, Richard Ford, Ben Fountain, Tim Gallagher, Tim Gallagher, Paula J. Giddings, Kay Collett Goss, Jessica B. Harris, Ruth Hawkins, Roger D. Hodge, Ty Jaeger, Jay Jennings, Ben Katchor, Janis F. Kearney, Jeannette Keith, Brian and Terri Kinder, Steve Kistulentz, Christi Shannon Kline, Jon Krampner, Travis Langley, Carlotta Walls LaNier, Dorothy R. Leavell, Domingo Martinez, Ayana Mathis, Carla Killough McClafferty, Rosetta Miller-Perry, Lydia Millet, Pat Mora, Linda Murphy, Sara Nesson, Cynthia LeJeune Nobles, Harry Ostrer, Darcy Pattison, Lori Perkins, Leonard Pitts Jr., Garry Craig Powell, Padgett Powell, Joe Queenan, Karen Russell, Eric Rutkow, Courtney Miller Santo, Rosie Schaap, Martha Silano, Heather Sutherlin, Steve Teske, Chuck Thompson, Charles Todd, Caroline Todd, Duncan Tonatiuh, GB Tran, Dennis Vannatta, Frank X Walker, John Corey Whaley, Steve Wiegenstein, David Wesley Williams, Johnathon Williams, Rita Williams-Garcia, Christian Wiman, Jan Wolfe, Ron Wolfe, C.D. Wright, Steve Yates

This year’s Festival authors have won an impressive number and variety of distinguished awards, such as the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, Pulitzer Prize for Journalism, James Beard Foundation Award, PEN/Hemingway Award, Newbery Honor, National Book Critics Circle Award, a Coretta Scott King Honor, PEN/O.Henry Prize; Pushcart Prize; Barnes and Noble Discover Prize for Fiction, Roger Ebert’s Film Festival Thumbs Up Award, Pure Belpré Award, International Griffin Prize for Poetry, International Documentary Association Best Documentary Short, Gold Medal from the Society of Illustrators, and several National Book Award Finalists. Many of the presenters’ works have been translated into multiple languages and made into films.

Special events for adults during the Festival include a cocktail reception with the authors, food, wine, and spirits workshops, films, a play, and Spoken Word LIVE!, a city-wide poetry competition. Panels and workshops will feature topics such as fiction, memoir, screenwriting, super hero psychology & law, Warrior Writers Project, erotica, and more.

Children’s special events include a storytime on the lawn of the Governor’s Mansion, a book fiesta, the artmobile, plays, outdoor activities, and Super Hero Activity Afternoon. Festival sessions for children will take place at both the new Children’s Library, 4800 10th Street, and the Youth Services Department at the Main Library, 100 Rock Street.

At Level 4, the Main Library’s teen center, teens can meet authors and illustrators, participate in ComiCALS, activities and panels such as a cosplay contest, video game tournament, a writing workshop, and zombie survival activities.

Through the Writers In The Schools (WITS) initiative, the Festival will provide presentations by several authors for Pulaski county elementary, middle, and senior high schools and area colleges.

Support for the Literary Festival is provided by sponsors including Central Arkansas Library System; Friends of Central Arkansas Libraries (FOCAL); Department of Arkansas Heritage; Little Rock Convention & Visitors Bureau; Fred K. Darragh Jr. Foundation; Arkansas Democrat Gazette; Mosaic Templars Cultural Center; Regions; ProSmartPrinting; MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History; Historic Arkansas Museum; Clinton Presidential Center; Hendrix-Murphy Foundation; Wright, Lindsey & Jennings LLP, Arkansas Times; Christ Church, Little Rock’s Downtown Episcopal Church; Witt Stephens Jr. Central Arkansas Nature Center; Arkansas Library Association; Henderson State University; University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service; Arkansas Shakespeare Theatre; Arkansas Governor’s Mansion; Hendrix College Creative Writing and the Hendrix-Murphy Foundation Programs in Literature & Language; Hendrix College Project Pericles Program; Hendrix College; University of Arkansas at Little Rock, English Department; University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Department of Rhetoric and Writing; Pulaski Technical College; Jewish Federation of Arkansas; Arkansas Arts Center; Power 92 Jams; Central High School National Historic Site; National Park Service; Literacy Action of Central Arkansas; Capital Hotel; Little Rock Film Festival; and LuLav. The Arkansas Literary Festival is supported in part by funds from the Arkansas Humanities Council and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Author! Author!, a cocktail reception with the authors, will be Friday, April 19 at 8pm on the fifth floor of the CALS main library building.  Tickets are available at the door.

The Arkansas Literary Festival is a project of the Central Arkansas Library System. The Festival’s mission is to encourage the development of a more literate populace. A group of dedicated volunteers assists Festival Coordinator Brad Mooy with planning the Festival. Jay Jennings is the 2013 Festival Chair. Other committee chairs include Katherine Whitworth, Talent Committee; Lisa Donovan, Youth Programs; and Amy Bradley-Hole, Moderators.

Mysteries of the Old State House today at 3pm

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3goddessesThree goddesses once sat atop the Old State House. Sculptures representing Law, Justice, and Mercy were brought to Little Rock from the Arkansas exhibit at the Philadelphia Centennial of 1876 and later installed on the State House roof.

In 1928, the Little Rock Garden Club had the statues removed. What happened to the three goddesses?

Find out, and hear other Old State House mysteries tomorrow at 3 p.m. This is one of the free programs offered at the Old State House Museum each Saturday.

The Old State House Museum hours are from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday.

The Old State House is the oldest surviving state capitol building west of the Mississippi River.  In 1947 it was designated as a museum by the Arkansas General Assembly and continues to serve in that capacity.

The Old State House Museum is a museum of the Department of Arkansas Heritage and shares the goal of all seven Department of Arkansas Heritage agencies, that of preserving and enhancing the heritage of the state of Arkansas. The agencies are Arkansas Arts Council, Arkansas Historic Preservation Program, Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission, Delta Cultural Center in Helena, Historic Arkansas Museum, Mosaic Templars Cultural Center, and the Old State House Museum.

Sandwiching in History at St. John’s Seminary today

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Today the Sandwiching in History program visits the St. John’s Seminary, located at 2500 N. Tyler Street.  Sandwiching in History is sponsored by the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program.

StJohn3This campus was built in 1916 to house Little Rock College for Boys until it closed in 1929. From 1930 until it closed in 1967 St. John Home Mission Seminary was located at this site.

In 1968, the campus was renamed St. John Catholic Center when it became the home of the Diocese of Little Rock offices. Today it also serves as a retreat center and residence for retired diocesan priests.

The “Sandwiching In History“ program is a series of tours that seeks to familiarize people who live and work in central Arkansas with the historic structures and sites around us. The tours take place on Fridays at noon, last less than an hour, and participants are encouraged to bring their lunches so that they can eat while listening to a brief lecture about the property and its history before proceeding on a short tour.

The Arkansas Historic Preservation Program is an agency of the Department of Arkansas Heritage.

Distinguished Laureate Lecture tomorrow at Mosaic Templars Cultural Center

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The Mosaic Templars Cultural Center, a museum of the Department of Arkansas Heritage, welcomes world-renowned physicist Dr. Oliver Keith Baker for a Arkansas Black Hall of Fame Distinguished Laureate Lecture tomorrow.

Dr. Baker, a McGehee native , will lecture on his ground-breaking research on particle physics, also referred to as Higgs Boson and the ‘God particle.’  He was inducted into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame in 2006. Dr. Baker is a Professor of Physics at Yale University.  He is also Director of the Arthur W. Wright Nuclear Structure Laboratory at Yale.

To bring students, educators should contact our Education Department at 501-683-3592.

The Mosaic Templars Cultural Center honors the story of the Mosaic Templars of America and all of Arkansas’s African American history.  The museum is dedicated to telling the story of the African American experience in Arkansas. The Center’s name is taken from the Mosaic Templars of America, a black fraternal organization founded in Little Rock in 1883 whose headquarters sat on the prominent West Ninth and Broadway location.

The mission of the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center is to collect, preserve, interpret and celebrate Arkansas’s African American history, culture, and community from 1870 to the present, and to inform and educate the public about African American’s achievements – especially in business, politics, and the arts.The center’s exhibits highlight fraternal organizations, African American entrepreneurs as well as integration.

Sandwiching in History at Capital Hotel today

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Capital Hotel frontThe Arkansas Historic Preservation Program’s “Sandwiching in History” program pays a visit this month to a location which is accustomed to receiving visitors — The Capital Hotel.

Built in 1872-1873 by businessman William P. Denckla, the Denckla Block, as it was then called, housed various shops on the first floor with offices and gentlemen’s apartments on the upper floors. The building featured a distinctive cast-iron façade with a projecting cornice, arched window openings, and engaged columns with Corinthian capitals. In 1877 the Denckla Block was converted into an hotel and quickly became the center of political and social activity in Little Rock. Over the years the building has been expanded upward and southward.

By the late 1960s, it fell into disrepair.  But through two extensive renovations, the Capital Hotel has been restored to its original beauty and continues to provide luxury accommodations in the capital city.

The “Sandwiching In History” program is a series of tours that seeks to familiarize people who live and work in central Arkansas with the historic structures and sites around us. The tours take place on Fridays at noon, last less than an hour, and participants are encouraged to bring their lunches so that they can eat while listening to a brief lecture about the property and its history before proceeding on a short tour.

The Arkansas Historic Preservation Program is an agency of the Department of Arkansas Heritage.