Turning the corner in lower Arkansas
Everybody likes to see an underdog, after hitting bottom, start moving toward the top. And when that underdog actually makes a turn-the-corner move, it is all the more satisfying.
After a season of turning around, the Hogs are going to kick Alabama’s backside, and I want it to be in Tuscaloosa where I can rub their noses in it. But what has that got to do with L. A.—Lower Arkansas?
Lower Arkansas has been the state underdog for a number of years, and most Arkansans think of L.A. as a place you drive through to get to somewhere else. It’s usually cut off from state TV weather broadcasts, and unless there’s a serial killer on the loose, we’re never mentioned on the news. It’s like we don’t exist, like we’re not even part of the state. But that’s changing.
A few weeks back, as I sat in the Griffin Cabaret and dined on grilled quail while other guests enjoyed Scottish salmon that had been flown in for the occasion and some great entertainment played to a packed house for Thursday Night Live, I had a moment of reflection.
“Yes,” I nodded to Vertis, “This is really working.” It was as if we had turned the corner here in L.A. We’ve been bouncing on the bottom for a good while, and it was a good feeling to see the excitement in the room.
L.A., especially around El Dorado, hasn’t always been down and out like a used tennis ball. Back in the early 1920s we were soaring after a Louisiana promoter lucked out and brought in a roaring oil boom gusher. By 1925 Union County’s population was somewhere around 50,000, and we had schools all over: Sandy Land, Quinn, Standard Umpstead, and Crossroads.
Today those schools are gone. Most of them don’t even have a building still standing. As the boom played out and the oil flows slowed, El Dorado settled at around 24,000 in the 1950s. A series of closings, like a refinery, followed by other plants heading for Mexico or other low-cost manufacturing places, brought about the decline; when the chicken processing plant shut down, El Dorado was scraping to stay above 20,000.
However, the oil boom money left us with a lot to work with, and a college-size football stadium is just a sample of what oil money can do. But the big story concerns the oil boom families who are still here. Their contributions to El Dorado made this turnaround possible.
The three major companies who make El Dorado their headquarters or regional headquarters, Murphy Oil, PotlatchDeltic Corporation, and Murphy USA, are here as a result of the oil boom, and El Dorado is thriving because of their commitment to the town.
Well over a decade ago Claiborne and Elaine Deming made a commitment to pursue education excellence in our town, resulting in Murphy Oil making a $50 million commitment to fund the El Dorado Promise, a college tuition gift that can’t be over-emphasized. Today, kids who never thought they had any hope of attending college are college graduates.
Maybe the big news is still northwest Arkansas, but being bigger with more people can’t beat out our quiet rolling hills, even if they’re mostly pine plantations. L.A. offers a quiet, serene life where traffic is sparse, and deer are plentiful.
As a politician might say, “We want equal time.” Here in El Dorado, where we’re five minutes from everywhere, we deserve to be heard from. Do we deserve it? In 2009, Downtown El Dorado beat out over 1,000 Main Street Downtowns nationwide, including all the Main Street towns in Arkansas, for the title of America’s Best Downtown. But we’re a whole lot more than the best-under-50,000-in-population downtown in the country.
Arkansas’ game and fish are heavily weighted south. Union County leads the state almost every year in tagged deer, and we can drive less than 10 minutes to a quality fishing hole.
Sure, we’ve lost a few folks, but if you think more people equals quality, go live in India or China. We’ve turned the corner with new quality jobs and residents, and before you can look up, the entertainment capital of Arkansas is going to be El Dorado, the Festival City of the South.
The opening shot, Phase One of Murphy Arts District in downtown El Dorado, already has the distinction of putting together one of the greatest groups of entertainers ever assembled, and the MAD PlayScape, which opened May 19, is the largest and very, very, very, best children’s PlayScape in the whole state—as the president would say. I’m sure the hundreds of kids who frolic daily in the spray of the big water feature would surely agree.
A new farmers market is open, and plans are in the works to expand it along the new canopies that line the MAD amphitheater.
But Phase One is only the opening shot, and when Phase Two—the 8,000 square foot four-floored MAD Art Museum and the grand Art Deco Rialto Theater—open, quality art and Broadway productions will provide visitors with attractions and entertainment day and night.
El Dorado’s award-winning MusicFest is coming up Oct. 18-20 with 16 acts including Toby Keith, Cardi B, George Clinton, Gucci Mane, and Sammy Hagar. That’s just a taste of what the Festival City of the South is up to. So hold on to the seat of your pants, because it’s happening. We’ve turned the corner.