Have man, will travel … somehow

Arkansas travelers have gotten around by means of public transportation since the old days of horse- and mulecars, meaning a streetcar powered by the plodding hooves of Ol’ Dobbin.

In fact, the Independence County town of Sulphur Rock (about 400 population) had the nation’s last mule-drawn streetcar, also called a bobtail, according to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture. John “Skipper John” Huddleston and his mule, Dick, kept the service going until 1926.

A newfangled development — a truck — ran the man-and-mule partnership off the road. But in 1983, the U.S. Postal Service commemorated the Sulphur Rock bobtail with a 20-cent stamp.

More of the state’s streetcar history is remembered at the Fort Smith Trolley Museum in Fort Smith. The last of Fort Smith’s nearly 60 streetcars quit running in 1933, but the museum still offers rides on restored car No. 224.

This ding-ding part of the city’s history reflects “a thousand other cities that relied on trolley transportation before being replaced by the automobile,” according to the museum’s website, fstm.org.

Eureka Springs is one such place with a similar history of streetcars that quit running about the same time as Fort Smith’s. But now, tourists can hop a rubber-tired, replica-looking “trolley” to and from the visitors center. (Details at Eureka Springs Transit, eurekatrolley.org.)

Cities big enough to need public transportation on a regular schedule with fixed routes switched from streetcars to motorized buses. Little Rock, North Little Rock, Hot Springs, Pine Bluff, Fort Smith, Jonesboro, Fayetteville and elsewhere: the bus (or something like a bus) stops here.

Not everybody wants or can have a car, after all, and having a car sometimes means having a car that won’t run. But just about everybody has somewhere to go.

“Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo,” as Oprah Winfrey said, “but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.”