M60 Patton battle tank at park ordered to roll out

Due maintenance reason behind move, Guard says

A small battle brewing over the taking of a U.S. Army tank isn’t happening in some distant land, but in North Little Rock’s Burns Park.

An M60 Patton main battle tank, climbed upon by children for decades while on display in Burns Park, has been ordered returned for service — the maintenance kind of service.

The Arkansas Army National Guard at Camp Robinson in North Little Rock is to retrieve the tank as soon as possible on behalf of the U.S. Army Center of Military History, which oversees historical Army equipment and owns the tank.

The tank, next to the rocket slide across from the Funland amusement ride area, has been on loan to North Little Rock’s Parks and Recreation Department for as long as a few city officials said they can remember.

No date to retrieve the tank has been set, but city Parks and Recreation Director Terry Hartwick said he’s not ready to wave a white flag of surrender.

“You might see me standing in front of it,” Hartwick said Friday, laughing just a bit. “Most every kid who grew up in North Little Rock has been on that tank. I think it’s crazy to want to take it away from the people who use that park.”

Maj. William Phillips, state public affairs officer for the Arkansas National Guard, said the issue is simply a matter of following orders through the chain of command.

“The tank itself is not actually owned by us,” Phillips said. “It’s owned by the Center of Military History, which is well above our state level. We’ve been directed that it has to have some service and maintenance and some other things done to it. It will be for an extended period of time.”

Phillips said the National Guard wants to replace the tank with another piece of equipment for Burns Park.

“We are still working through the process,” Phillips said. “This just happened, so there are a lot of unknown variables right now.”

Danny Bradley, North Little Rock Mayor Joe Smith’s chief of staff, said Friday it’s clear the city really doesn’t have any say in the matter, so he didn’t see the issue being a controversy.

“I did a little research,” Bradley said. “I went into the Army website that talks about assigning equipment for static displays, and it’s pretty clear the military retains ownership and also says on there they are in the process of doing an audit, or an inventory. So I don’t know if that has anything to do with the tank at Burns Park or not.

“It’s pretty clear it’s a consignment, a loan,” Bradley said. “That makes sense. I can’t imagine them giving away a tank.”

The 50-ton M60, introduced in late 1960, was the Army’s primary tank during the Cold War, according to several online histories. There have been prototypes introduced in recent years for upgrades to the M60, with a new engine and a larger gun, as the tanks are still the main battle tanks used by several countries.

Hartwick said he was first notified Thursday about the plans to remove the tank because all static displays on loan, it was explained to him, are to be returned to federal properties. He said he spoke with Col. Matt Anderson, who manages the inventory of military equipment that is on display.

“I told him I understand what he’s saying and I understand that it’s on loan, but I want to know the process for how we might keep it,” Hartwick said. “I’m not trying to be rude, but this has been here maybe 40 years or longer. Kids have been playing on it all those years. He told me he had played on that himself when he was a kid.”

Despite Hartwick’s reluctance to part with the park attraction, the city will likely sound the retreat soon enough, with both sides reaching some sort of truce.

“We’ve got to pick the vehicle up for service and maintenance,” Phillips said. “We do want to take care of our community partners. North Little Rock is important to us. My boss is looking for something that can replace it.”

“They are in position to call the shots,” Bradley said. “We like the tank being on display there, but they have rules to follow and so do we. It’s our responsibility as a city to cooperate with them and to follow their rules.”

Soldiers from Camp Robinson during World War II used the land that is now Burns Park as a firing range. The city purchased the first portion of land for a park in 1949 from the Federal War Surplus Property Disposal Agency. Burns Park is now one of the largest municipal parks in the country.

City officials weren’t able to determine by Friday when exactly the tank became part of the park. A search through newspaper archives didn’t turn up any articles about when the tank was placed in Burns Park, only a few photos of children on the tank over the years.

“We’ve looked through our files,” said Sandra Taylor-Smith, executive director for the North Little Rock History Commission. “We’re just not finding anything.”

“It seems like it’s been there forever,” Bradley said.

The tank isn’t to be removed this weekend, Hartwick said he was told, but the orders could come quickly.