After several failed attempts to see this museum, I decided to check online and see when they were actually open. I headed over on a Tuesday morning and found the doors unlocked. There was nobody around when I walked in, although I could hear some people in a back room. I started looking around. After maybe five minutes a woman came out of an office and saw me. She looked shocked that anybody was actually visiting. She told me about the museum and all I was about to see, then left me to wander around. It was a typical city museum, filled with random stuff that people have donated. But it also gave me some interesting information on the city I’ve decided to live in.
The building was erected in 1896 to serve as the city jail. In 1938, it became the Conway Library. The library moved out in 1995, and the historical museum moved in.
The guy who founded Conway:
How it got its name:
Toad Suck Ferry, which operated until the bridge was built in 1970.
Like all these museums, they have rooms where all the random stuff is dumped in some sort of “themed” arrangement.
This doesn’t have anything to do with Faulkner County, but it was eye-catching.
I also learned about a movie that was filmed in Conway 9n 1977. It’s about a high school kid named Jimmy (Richard Thomas) who went a little crazy, caused some havoc, and dropped out of school when he heard that James Dean had died. We watched it at a family movie night a few months later — it’s not a particularly good or memorable movie, but we did recognize several of the locations.
The lady came out of her office as I was finishing up and tried to get me to become a member and participate in all the historical society stuff. She also gave me two quarters so I could get a penny smashed in a machine that embossed it with “Toad Suck Daze.”