Plantation Agriculture Museum marks its 30th year
Birthdays are good opportunities to look back and be thankful. The Plantation Agriculture Museum in Scott looks back every day, but it also has particular reason to say “thanks.”
The museum was established when local planter Robert Dortch converted a 1912 general store and 1929 post office into a museum, storing and displaying artifacts from the pre-mechanized cotton farming days in Arkansas. After his death in 1972, though, the building slowly deteriorated.
“This building was almost ready to collapse,” museum curator Randy Noah says. “The roof was about to cave in. The floor was rotting. The artifacts were exposed to the weather. Just a shame.”
Then, in 1986, the Arkansas Department of Parks & Tourism stepped in and renovated the building. The new Plantation Agriculture Museum opened as a state park in 1989.
Its mission is to highlight the agricultural world of Arkansas from statehood in 1836 until, roughly, World War II, when mechanization took hold.
“Schools tend to focus on state history and national history,” says park interpreter Betty Coors. “We focus on local history.”
On Saturday, the Plantation Agriculture Museum in Scott is celebrating its 30th birthday with some special programming aimed at educating and entertaining the whole family.
Coors explains that they’ll offer free watermelon and will play old-time games, so children “can see what it was like before everyone had the Internet.”
The “laundry day” activity gives visitors a taste of what chores were like pre-electricity.
“Kids really seem to enjoy that,” Coors says. “Plus they get to get wet.”
And people are always welcome to tour the buildings and exhibits.
The park has several components. The original museum building still holds a number of exhibits related to cotton farming and farm life. The Dortch Gin building, built in 1919, is open for tours so visitors can get a close look at the inner workings of a cotton gin. Dortch’s Seed Warehouse No. 5 from 1948 also houses exhibits and photographs. A new pavilion provides shelter for the tractors, threshing machines and other equipment once exposed to the weather.
They host school groups on a regular basis and demonstrate old-time skills like making candles, butter and lye soap.
Coors says, “A lot of things kids today don’t know about, we try to focus on so they can understand how things worked.”
The museum’s location is prime, just a mile from the North Little Rock city limits and 10-12 minutes from downtown Little Rock. Noah points out that it’s the state park closest to the state Capitol building. With Toltec Mounds Archeological State Park just a few miles away and local restaurants nearby, it’s easy to spend a good chunk of the day.
There will be more activities coming up, with the annual Homegoods Day celebration on July 13 and the big Antique Tractor and Engine Show the Saturday after Labor Day.
“We encourage the public to come out and see their tax dollars at work, see what we’ve been able to do preserving a part of our history,” says Noah. “I think they’ll be amazed.”