Listing Through Life

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.”

We spent a night in Hot Springs to see the gardens lit up for Christmas. We weren’t the only ones. To control the amount of traffic, cars were routed down several side roads and held up until parking spaces were available. It took us at least a half hour to go the final mile or so, and our parking space was a long way from the entrance, tucked in a back corner by a maintenance shed. But once we got to the grounds, the crowd wasn’t unbearable. Of course, there were rude families who hogged the sidewalks or expected us to stop while they took photos of each other. But for the most part, it was relaxing. The weather was great — chilly but not cold. The decorations were impressive, although many of them had nothing to do with Christmas or any other holiday I’m aware of. Much of it had a Asian feel to it. There were several places where lights were synchronized with music. It all took us perhaps two hours to see, and we thought we might like to do it again sometime.

This is a weird national park. Its prime feature is a row of ornate bathhouses where people in the early 20th century went to bathe in water from hot springs that were believed to aid in healing. One of the bathhouses, the Fordyce, is open for tours. We strolled through and looked at all the ornate architecture and equipment designed to make people think they were being healed. (Most of these photos were from a visit I made in 2013 with members of my family. My wife wasn’t there that day, and she wanted to see it.)

Obviously, this photo was taken back when I was still doing the red chair nonsense.

Non-ambulatory patients were laid on the surface and lowered into the water (I think).

The stained-glass roof in one of the bathhouse rooms.

Note the cabinets in the background. No thanks.

There’s a promenade behind the bathhouses with open springs.

From the 1920s to the early 1960s, Hot Springs was a hot bed of gambling, moonshining, and gangster activity due to friendly city officials. This museum tells the story of the city, with emphasis on its shady history. There’s quite a few artifacts on display, but we weren’t given a chance to look at our leisure. A guide, dressed gangster-like, took us through. First, he would start a video and, when it finished, he’d give us some more history, pointing to various items and photos around the walls as he talked.

Capone ordered this piano for the Maple Inn, a speakeasy/brothel in Forest View, Illinois. But vigilantes burned the inn down before the piano was delivered, and Capone refused to pay for it.

We were told this is an actual tommy gun and were allowed to take photos of ourselves holding it.

John Dillinger’s death mask.

An early gambling machine of some sort.

One gallery in the museum is dedicated to Hot Spring’s history as a spring training location for MLB. The Chicago White Stockings (now the Cubs) first trained here in 1886, and other teams practiced here until 1920 or so.

I don’t remember much of what we were told, but I remember it being interesting.