Out of the SHADOWS
Morrilton’s energetic, innovative leaders are intent on raising their city’s visibility
For decades, Morrilton was the place in between. To the west on Interstate 40 is Russellville, home of Arkansas Tech University. Russellville saw its population more than triple from 8,921 in the 1960 census to 28,940 in the 2020 census.
To the east on Interstate 40 is booming Conway, home of three four-year institutions of higher education: the University of Central Arkansas, Hendrix College, and Central Baptist College. Conway’s population went from 9,791 in the 1960 census to 64,124 in the 2020 census. It’s now estimated that more than 70,000 people live in Conway.
Morrilton was stagnant as its population only increased from 5,997 in the 1960 census to 6,992 six decades later. It didn’t have a four-year institution of higher education, but had many of the same advantages as Conway and Russellville, such as busy Interstate 40 on one side and the McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System on the other side.
These days, Morrilton appears to be experiencing a bit of a rebirth under the leadership of Mayor Allen Lipsmeyer, a Conway native who took office in January 2015. Lipsmeyer was educated in the public schools at Conway, graduated from UCA and served on the Conway City Council before moving to Morrilton in 1999. He soon became convinced that Morrilton had the ability to do some of the things Conway and Russellville had done decades ago.
“When I got here in 1999, this place was still reeling from the loss of manufacturing jobs,” he says. “What we did still have were a number of family-owned companies with the ability to succeed. My goal from my first day as mayor was to make things happen and give people here a reason for hope. You can’t take a day off when it comes to building momentum in a city. You have to have things turning all the time. If people lose hope, they don’t have a future.”
The city transformed a building that once housed U.S. Bank into its city hall and moved its offices there in April 2016. The city also purchased the Conway County Community Center, which was owned by a nonprofit organization, for $270,000 in 2017. The city later refinanced a bond issue that allowed it to buy a bowling alley and skating rink. Those efforts sent a message to its residents that Morrilton was a town on the move.
“We may have the only cityowned bowling alley and skating rink in the country,” Lipsmeyer says. “But we’re giving people a reason to spend their money here rather than going to Conway or Russellville.”
The momentum was contagious. In the fall of 2015, voters in the South Conway County School District approved a 3.9-mill property tax increase for $23 million in projects.
Each morning, Lipsmeyer posts something positive on his Facebook page in order to keep the momentum going.
A 2021 interview gives the reader a good idea of his sales pitch. Lipsmeyer said at the time: “Morrilton offers a safe community to raise a family with affordable housing, a community center, a public pool, splash pad and a beautiful city park. We offer a great education path at South Conway County School District or Sacred Heart and have concurrent class offerings at the University of Arkansas Community College at Morrilton.
“For businesses, Morrilton offers a good workforce with several counties to pull from. We have a great chamber of commerce and economic development commission to nurture and expand that opportunity, along with access to Interstate 40 and low land costs. The flagship state park in Arkansas is Petit Jean State Park with more than 800,000 visitors each year.
“We offer a growing downtown with a coffee shop, Point Remove Brewing Co., our Carnegie library, the Depot Museum and the historic Rialto Theater. … Our future is exciting. We’re trying hard to make Morrilton walkable and have built many sidewalks with more to come. We’ve completed a study for a trail system called the Little Dam Bridge from Petit Jean State Park across the Arkansas River to downtown Morrilton. … We have millions of dollars being pumped into downtown revitalization.”
The 22,000-square-foot building that had housed a for-profit bowling alley and skating rink had been empty for years. In 2022, the city purchased the structure for $11 per square foot and renovated it, using a bond issue. The Morrilton Parks and Recreation Department now operates what’s known as Playland. It has a pro shop, cafe, arcade and party rooms.
In 1953, Winthrop Rockefeller began buying land atop nearby Petit Jean Mountain to transform into a cattle ranch. The wealthy newcomer from New York felt Arkansas had a vast amount of untapped potential and wanted to show Arkansans that world-class facilities such as the ranch could exist in the state.
In 1964, Rockefeller founded the Museum of Automobiles on Petit Jean in an attempt to draw more visitors to the area.
Rockefeller also did work in Morrilton, establishing what was considered to be a model school. He helped attract Green Bay Packaging, a company that had been established by George and Marguerite Kress in 1933 at Green Bay, Wis., to manufacture corrugated boxes. In 1965, construction began on the company’s Arkansas Kraft Pulp & Paper Mill near Morrilton. The first paper machine would later be called “Captain George” after George Kress.
In 1977, Green Bay’s Arkansas division expanded with the addition of a second paper machine. During the 50th anniversary celebration in 2015, this machine was named “Jim Dandy” after Jim Kress. The company had announced the previous year that it was spending $30 million to upgrade equipment at the facility.
Green Bay Packaging remains a mainstay of the area economy with more than 600 employees. Last year, the company opened a health and wellness clinic in the Adams Building in downtown Morrilton. The 1930s structure was restored in 2020.
Another product that has helped put Morrilton on the map is Petit Jean Meats. The company that produces Petit Jean products has been family owned since the 1920s.
“In 1922, Felix Schlosser left his native Germany to practice the butchering trade in Arkansas, where some relatives had already established themselves,” Ali Welky writes for the Central Arkansas Library System’s Encyclopedia of Arkansas. “After working at Little Rock Packing Co. and Becker Packing Co., he settled in Morrilton near his cousin, Mary Ruff. He opened a retail meat market with a business partner, Ellis Bentley, who sold his share to Schlosser after two years.
“The small market burned but was reopened with the name Morrilton Meat Market & Sausage Factory in July 1928. In the early 1930s, Mary Ruff’s sons Ed and Lonnie came to work for the company, which had begun using the Petit Jean brand name. The company had wholesale and retail businesses until 1943, when the plant was remodeled and the retail market closed.”
What became known as Morrilton Packing Co. had federal government contracts during the Great Depression to slaughter cattle from several Western states that were suffering from drought. The company processed 15,000 cattle for the government in 1934-35. A grease fire destroyed the plant in 1946, but it was rebuilt in seven months. Morrilton Packing stopped processing beef in 1968 to focus on pork products.
Schlosser died in 1968, and Ed and Lonnie Ruff took over the company. Lonnie died in 1979 and Ed died in 1990. Ed’s son David took over operations. David died in January 2018 and was replaced by his son Ed.
In addition to the continued growth of companies such as Green Bay Packaging and Morrilton Packing, the city received another boost when North Carolina native Mike Miller decided to concentrate on Morrilton after selling Cooling & Applied Technologies in Russellville in 2016. Miller purchased Crow Paving Co. from the Crow family in 2014. The name was changed to Crow Group as the business began to diversify. The name later was changed to TOLM Group.
TOLM offers construction project management and engineering services to clients across the country with commercial, industrial, civil and water-wastewater divisions.
In October 2019, hundreds of people descended on downtown Morrilton for the grand opening of TOLM’s corporate headquarters in a building that was constructed in 1929 as a Coca-Cola bottling plant. It later served as Morrilton City Hall until the U.S. Bank building was purchased by the city. Miller purchased the old bottling plant in 2018.
Miller also donated more than $100,000 to University of Arkansas Community College at Morrilton UACCM for its $15 million Workforce Training Center, which opened in 2018. The 53,843-squarefoot facility was the largest construction project in school history and offers training in areas such as welding, petroleum technology and automotive service.
“I’ve tried to enhance every place I’ve lived,” Miller says. “I own several companies, and our biggest problem is the same as every other employer in Arkansas: getting qualified help. Much of the training going on there aligns with the businesses I have.”
Miller owned a rock quarry near Hattieville. He didn’t have enough local buyers. Since Crow focused on paving, he decided it would give him a buyer for his rocks and a platform from which to expand other businesses. Within a few years, he had added more than 60 employees.
Miller later purchased another former Coca-Cola facility for his Point Remove Brewing Co. In addition to housing a craft brewery, the location along U.S. 64 east of downtown provided space for an event venue.
Lipsmeyer once told an interviewer: “When I moved here in 1999, there was this omnipresent negative attitude around town. We just weren’t selling ourselves well enough to people outside and inside the town.”
Miller’s investments in Morrilton helped the mayor change those attitudes. That, in turn, inspired others such as developer Richard DeLuca, who began buying downtown buildings. DeLuca recently purchased five downtown properties.
“He wants to see this town grow because he’s so invested,” Lipsmeyer says of DeLuca. “He sees opportunities that a lot of people don’t. It takes outsiders to come in and see what’s here and what could happen. … There’s talk about an entertainment district. He sees the opportunity, and now he’s going to clean up those eyesores.”
Downtown investment is also being spurred by the city’s plans for what’s known as Holyfield Place, an urban park named after Conway County native Wayland Holyfield. During his songwriting career, Holyfield wrote more than 40 Top 10 songs. His “Arkansas, You Run Deep In Me” is one of the official state songs. Downtown also will be the home of a children’s annex of the library.
Lipsmeyer moved from Conway to Morrilton to work as a loan officer at Petit Jean State Bank. He was president of Liberty Bank in Morrilton from 2006-08. He served as president of the Morrilton Rotary Club and on the board of Main Street Morrilton.
Shortly before taking office, Lipsmeyer said: “We need to draw a line in the sand, move forward and not worry about how we got here. It’s time to look ahead. … They say things happen for a reason. I think we’re at the right place at the right time. We can turn our downtown around. We need people to come in and start building houses. I want to be one of the people who helps change this town.”
Lipsmeyer, who loves renovating homes and has accumulated a number of rental properties, made cleaning up Morrilton his first priority. Condemned properties were torn down. He still stresses the fact that the city must look attractive for potential business owners who make site visits to Morrilton.
“We’ve tried to make the town walkable,” he says while driving me around Morrilton. “There are new sidewalks everywhere.”
He shows me where Harp’s opened an expanded grocery store and where Casey’s built a convenience store. We see the city’s new pickleball courts and horseshoe pits. No project is too small to escape the mayor’s attention. It’s clear that people like Lipsmeyer, Miller and DeLuca are tired of Morrilton living in the shadow of Conway and Russellville.