Marshals museum backers toast successful campaign
Posted on Sunday, October 5, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/Northwest_Profiles/239363/
FORT SMITH — It is often said that tight contests come down to “who wants it more.” When it came to winning the federal U. S. Marshals Museum, no one wanted it more than the residents of Fort Smith.
Last year the city was chosen over several competitors to be the home of the U. S. Marshals Museum, and on Sept. 26 many of the museum’s earliest and most ardent supporters gathered at the Town Club of Fort Smith to tip their glasses to each other. John Clark, director of the U. S. Marshals Service, and America’s Most Wanted host John Walsh were there to offer their thanks and some words of wisdom.
Clark said that when it came down to it, the national selection committee couldn’t pass on Fort Smith’s rich history as a U. S. Marshals outpost and the impression that museum enthusiasts made on the selection committee.
One of those is Ann Patton Dawson, who said that the museum, along with the Clinton Presidential Center in Little Rock and the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, under construction in Bentonville, will constitute “a package deal of... world-class museums.”
“Our mentality here is more Old West than Deep South. We sent out more federal marshals from here to [bring back ] outlaws to be tried before Judge Isaac C. Parker than anyone,” she pointed out. Parker became known as “the Hanging Judge” because he showed little mercy for capital offenders.
The fight for the museum began halfway through 2003. Dick O’Connell, a U. S. marshal in western Arkansas, said the turning point may have been a barbecue at the Holiday Inn Civic Center ballroom.
“We had 1, 200 hog-callin’, bring-ithome-screaming Fort Smith residents convincing the site-selection committee that this is the place,” O’Connell recalls. Clark made the official announcement two months later.
Walsh told last weekend’s gathering that Fort Smith should be proud because the U. S. Marshals Service is the most-storied national crime-fighting agency in the country’s history.
Guests sipped wine and nibbled on chilled salmon, carved pork tenderloin, bacon-wrapped shrimp and other hors d’oeuvres.
The museum is expected to open in three years at a cost of between $ 30 million to $ 40 million, says museum project director Sandi Sanders. To date, the museum’s pot holds little more than a $ 2 million gift from the governor’s office. A capital campaign will begin by the year’s end.