Marshaling resources
There has been a burst of activity lately surrounding the planned U.S. Marshals Museum at Fort Smith.
Commemorative coin sales netted the museum almost $1 million on the first day coins were offered last month. Almost 2,000 people have already registered for the first event in the museum’s Winthrop Paul Rockefeller Distinguished Lecture Series. Umarex USA’s replica airgun sold out in four hours. Meanwhile, tickets are going fast for a planned March 14 fundraising gala. That all adds up to Marshals Museum momentum.
A ceremonial groundbreaking for the museum was held last September. In January 2007, the U.S. Marshals Service selected Fort Smith as the site for the 20,000-square-foot museum. The Robert Westphal family donated a 16-acre site along the Arkansas River for the facility. It’s hoped that the museum will be open by late 2017, but there’s still lots of money to be raised for the estimated $53 million project.
The U.S. Mint’s commemorative coins, which honor the 225th anniversary of the Marshals Service, were unveiled during a ceremony in Washington last July. They went on sale last Thursday online and at U.S. Mint official stores. The biggest seller was the silver dollar coin that features a marshal holding a poster that says “Wanted in Fort Smith.” The Mint sold 34,257 silver coins the first day, along with 21,861 copper-clad half-dollars and 5,021 $5 gold coins. Of the available 15,000 sets of all three coins, 9,421 were sold the first day. The museum will receive $5 million from surcharges of $35 for the gold coins, $10 for the silver coins and $3 for the copper coins. The museum will host an event Saturday at the Blue Lion Building in downtown Fort Smith for those who wish to purchase coins.
The understatement of the week may have come from Jim Dunn, the president and chief executive officer of the Marshals Museum, when he said, “It appears people are ready and enthusiastic to be part of this.” The rush to buy coins came on the heels of successful sales by Umarex of the limited-edition airgun. Umarex, based at the Chaffee Crossing development in Fort Smith, designed an airgun to commemorate the Colt single-action Army revolver, sometimes called “the gun that won the West.” The U.S. Marshals emblem is in the grip of the 500 commemorative airguns.
At 1 p.m. on Feb. 26, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia will be the inaugural speaker in the lecture series at the ArcBest Corp. Performing Arts Center, which is part of the Fort Smith Convention Center downtown. Lisenne Rockefeller of Little Rock, the wife of the late Lt. Gov. Winthrop Paul Rockefeller, gave a gift to the museum so nationally known figures from the executive, judicial and legislative branches of the federal government can speak in Fort Smith about the rich history of the Marshals Service. The lectures will bring additional attention to the museum. The March fundraising gala at the Expo Center at Kay Rodgers Park also will attract attention.
The original Marshals Museum was in Laramie, Wyo. It closed in late 2002 due to financial difficulties. In 2005, the Marshals Service began looking for a new host city; 16 cities applied. The finalists were Fort Smith and Staunton, Va. In retrospect, Fort Smith seems like a natural choice. It was a gateway to the West and a jumping-off spot for those headed into the Indian Territory, now Oklahoma. The Marshals Service was the only law enforcement agency with the jurisdiction to enter the territory. A Fort Smith newspaper once referred to the area as the “rendezvous of the vile and wicked from everywhere.”
The first American troops arrived in November 1817 at what was then called Belle Point. A fort was built, and the troops were tasked with keeping the peace between the Cherokee and Osage tribes. The fort was named after Gen. Thomas Smith, the commander of the military district. A town began to spring up around the fort. The first fort was abandoned, but a second fort was constructed in 1836.
“The fort served as an important place for outfitting and supplying military companies,” Ben Boulden wrote for the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture. “Fort Smith also became increasingly central to communications on the frontier and beyond as stage, steamboat and mail transportation networks matured. … After the Civil War, federal forces out of Fort Smith worked to restore order to the countryside and rural areas of western Arkansas. The city also was the site of the Fort Smith Conference of 1865, a gathering of federal and tribal representatives for the purpose of negotiating the terms under which former Confederate Indian nations could resume their relationship with the United States.”
The federal district court for the Western District of Arkansas was moved from Van Buren to Fort Smith in 1870. Judge Isaac Parker, a former congressman from Missouri, took the bench there in 1875 and served until just before his death in 1896. The Marshals Museum no doubt will attract additional tourists to Fort Smith, but its value will go far beyond that. If done correctly, it will change how other Arkansans view their state’s second-largest city and how Fort Smith residents view themselves. Look at what the Clinton Presidential Center has done for downtown Little Rock and what the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art has done for downtown Bentonville. A similar renaissance is possible in Fort Smith.