Tag Archives: Little Rock

40th Annual Territorial Fair at Historic Arkansas Museum

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Today from 10am to 4pm, Historic Arkansas Museum is hosting the 40th Annual Territorial Fair.

A festive family event, the Territorial Fair delights all with pioneer music, Maypole dancing, lots of crafts for kids, stilt-walking, hoop-rolling, sack-racing and other frontier fun.

In its 40th year, this year’s Territorial Fair celebrates the 2013 Heritage Month theme, “Saving Our Heritage: Arkansas’s Historic Structures,” with activities highlighting the museum’s historic properties, including the oldest house in Little Rock.

Visitors will be taken back in time, when the now historic houses were brand new or being built. Guests can take part in many hands-on activities, like making bricks and whitewashing a fence, or watch as pioneers shave wooden shingles and forge nails for their houses. It took a lot to build, furnish and care for these early homes and the hard work still shines more than 150 years later.

Little Rock Look Back: Mayor Sam M. Wassell

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IMG_5025On this date in 1883, future Little Rock Mayor Sam M. Wassell was born.  His grandfather John W. Wassell had been appointed Mayor of Little Rock in 1868.  He is the only Little Rock Mayor to be a grandson of another Little Rock Mayor.

Sam Wassell served on the Little Rock City Council from 1928 through 1934 and again from 1940 through 1946.  He is one of the few 20th Century Little Rock Mayors who previously served on the City Council.

Wassell was an attorney.  He practiced law privately and also served as an Assistant US Attorney.  In 1930, he ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination for the US Congress representing the 5th Congressional District, which at the time included Little Rock.

Wassell ran for Mayor in 1947 and was unopposed in the general election.  He was unopposed in his bid for re-election in 1949.  During his second term, President Harry S. Truman visited Little Rock.  In 1951, he sought a third term as Mayor.  No Little Rock Mayor had sought a third consecutive term since 1923.  Though he received the Democratic nomination, the Republican party nominated Pratt Remmel who defeated Wassell by a 2 to 1 margin.

With a new USS Little Rock under construction, it is interesting to note that Mrs. Sam Wassell christened the previous USS Little Rock in 1944.  At the time, she was a City Councilor’s wife.

Mayor Wassell died on December 23, 1954 and is buried at Roselawn Cemetery in Little Rock.

RIP Picnic at Mount Holly This Evening

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MtHollyMount Holly Cemetery is like an aging, but gracious Southern lady. She is in need of ongoing maintenance! Funds raised at the picnic will help maintain this historic landmark. Visitors will walk in Little Rock’s historical footsteps at the 9th Annual Mount Holly Cemetery Picnic.  The Mt. Holly Committee calls this event Rest in Perpetuity. The Culture Vulture lovingly refers to it as Dining with the Dead.

Festivities will include:

  • Appetizers
  • Dinner
  • Wine
  • Turn of the century picnic “delicacies”
  • Live music by the Quapaw Brass Quintet
  • Silent auction of tours, elegant dinner parties and opportunities for exclusive events at Mount Holly Cemetery and many other items.

Guests will have the opportunity to join in a historic tour of the cemetery, featuring famous and infamous residents of Mount Holly Cemetery or guests can enjoy a naturalist tour!

You are invited to join us for a picnic on the grounds of Mount Holly Cemetery, 1200 South Broadway, Little Rock, Arkansas, on the last Sunday of April.

This is our annual fundraiser to raise funds to maintain this historic landmark.
Tickets are $75.00 for adults, $25.00 for children under 12.

Dating to 1843, but with grave sites that date much earlier, Mount Holly is a “living and breathing” historical treasure in the heart of Little Rock’s Historic District.

April 26 Architeaser

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IMG_4940In 1986, the main City Hall building and the former Central Fire Station building were renovated.  A new structure was built to link the two buildings.  The front facade of that structure of that structure is featured today.

The structure is basically an enclosed walkway to connect the two buildings.  Doing any more would have required extensive redesign since the two buildings have different levels for their stories.  The structure mimics the neo-classical style found in both the City Hall and Fire Station buildings without matching either of the original buildings.

With this construction, each of the buildings in the City Hall complex on the corner of Markham and Broadway is now connected.

This complex does not house all of the City offices downtown.  For three blocks to the west of City Hall, there are five other City buildings. In addition there are other City structures downtown and in a variety of locations.

April 19 Architeaser

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IMG_4907The City Hall 105 week of the Architeaser wraps up with this unique perspective of City Hall.  Though there are offices on four levels of City Hall, there is only one spot where one can see all four levels.  The western edge of the central staircase affords the only view from the basement to the third floor.  The central staircase is symmetrical from the first floor up to the third floor. But from the first floor to the basement, there is only one flight of stairs going down (on the west side).

Today’s Architeaser goes from the basement up to the third floor of Charles Thompson’s edifice.  When the building opened, the basement was used but most of the third floor was unfinished.  The ceramic tile pattern on the third floor is different from the other floors.  The eastern stairwell went to the third floor balcony which overlooked the City Council chambers.

Over time a few offices started migrating up there.  In 1929, when the Museum of Antiquities and Natural History (now Museum of Discovery) was “given” to the City and moved into City Hall, the museum had to finish out its own space.  It was not until New Deal programs needed local offices and took up residence on the third floor that all of City Hall was occupied.  At that point the building was over 25 years old.

The balcony in the City Council chambers was removed in the 1960s when additional office space was needed.  At that point in time, the high ceiling in the chambers was lowered and more offices were installed on what had been the balcony level.

Unfortunately photos of the old Council chambers do not seem to exist.

April 18 Architeaser

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IMG_4577There have been many building modifications at Little Rock City Hall over the past 105 years.  One thing has not changed: the Tiffany stained glass window in the rotunda.

Though City Hall once had a dome, the stained glass window has always looked down on the rotunda from the third floor ceiling.  Here are some views of the stained glass in the rotunda.

There was a second, smaller stained glass skylight in the stairwell adjacent to the City Board chamber.  In the 1960s, it was removed.  Records do not indicate what happened to it.

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Little Rock theatre alums making National theatre news

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Some national theatre news with Little Rock connections:

ark repOn Monday, April 15, Douglas Carter Beane’s new play The Nance opened on Broadway.  Japhy Weideman, who was a lighting designer for the Arkansas Repertory Theatre a few seasons back, designed the lighting for this Lincoln Center Theatre production at the Lyceum Theatre.  Earlier this season, he designed lighting for a Broadway revival of Cyrano de Bergerac.  One of the cast members of The Nance was Mylinda Hull, who starred in the Rep’s production of Damn Yankees in 2000.

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Little Rock Hall High graduate David Auburn won a Pulitzer Prize in 2001 for his play Proof.  His latest play, Lost Lake, was just selected for the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s 2013 National Playwrights Conference in Waterford, CT. Wendy Goldberg, the artistic director of the Playwright’s Conference, will direct Auburn’s play on July 26 and 27.   Auburn was invited to submit a new play for this year’s Playwright’s Conference.   While he was growing up in Little Rock, he participated in the Arkansas Arts Center Children’s Theatre.