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General Exhibits
Folk Art
Special Old Davidsonville Archeological Exhibit
Upcoming Quilt Show
Some June 2007 Displays
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Dalton Display |
Sports of Our Fathers Display |
General Exhibits
(click on a photo "thumbnail" below to see the enlarged
photo)
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Original gravestone of Ransom (Ranson) Bettis, founder of Pocahontas.
The Bettis family plot in Pocahontas' Masonic Cemetery was renovated in 2006. Since the old Bettis gravestone was deterioriating, a new replica gravestone was placed at the cemetery and the original stone was moved to our museum for safekeeping. |
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The Reynolds Family Button Jug
In the 1880s, Mrs. Dennis W. Reynolds (Mattie), wife of the founder of Reyno, took this earthenware jug (manufactured locally) and decorated it with some of her best buttons from her millenary shop at Old Reyno.
To the jug, she first applied a glue which she made herself from bees wax before attaching the buttons.
The jug has remained in the Reynolds family ever since, passed down through several generation. It’s considered the family good luck charm.
On loan from Ann B. Carroll, great-granddaughter of Dennis Reynolds. |
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Keith Richardson and Dr. Harris with alligator gar caught locally in the 1950's.
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Photo of the record gar Rudy Gazaway Sr. caught at Shaver's Eddy on Black River near Biggers in the 1950's.
The mounted alligator gar and details of the catch are now on display in the Museum's River Room along with artifacts and pearls from the Great Pearl Rush that attracted pearlers from all over the nation in the early 1900s. Also displayed are many artifacts and information about activities on local rivers over the years. |
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Original Wonder Horse, invented by William Baltz of Pocahontas.
Named for Arkansas' former nickname as "The Wonder State," Mr. Baltz built the first Wonder Horse for his own children, by removing the rockers from a rocking horse and suspending the horse from springs held be a wooden framework. |
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1933 Pocahontas Phone Directory
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Displayed in the main gallery of the Museum are shoes manufactured locally by Brown Shoe Company.
Brown Show employed 1,000s of Randolph County citiens while operating here in Pocahontas. The display also includes a history of the company and photographs of local operations. |
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In the River Room: Buttons were made from Black River muscle shells.
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Flour Sack Dolls Collection
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Medical Room
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Old St. Paul's Church organ.
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Gift Shop
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Gift Shop
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Folk Art
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“As a
territory and state it has been a very rocky road to
travel to get to the year of 2007
for Arkansas and certainly it is true for Randolph County.
However, traveling toward unmapped horizons have been
honest, creative and decent men and women so industrious with great
perseverance and zeal the following story might bring to
mind that shortly
after World War II
hard times lingered in
early 1950s.
Schools had very little money for comfortable seating in
many classrooms so
the McIlroy Home Demonstration Club just
west of Eleven Point
River on Highway 90
decided to use
materials with very little cost to make seating for
the 1st and 2nd grade
children at Ravenden Springs School. The women
retrieved old discarded
ladder back chairs that no longer
could be used and had been retired and hung out of the way
in barn lofts. The women
met several times
each month for
three or four months to work all day putting corn
shuck bottoms in the
cast-a-way chairs. The chair legs were sawed off
about 3 inches and the chairs
painted with paint left
over from
households (many colors of red,
blue, green, black and
white and all very
beautiful). Then the
women would braid strips
of corn shucks, soaked in water to
be made pliable, and wove
beautiful seats, and with the heights
of the chairs (with legs
sawed off) the
children rested their
little feet on the
floor.
The school personnel
and parents
alike admired the art of corn
shucks braiding for the
use of the young
with the comfortable height and beauty.
This is only one story of industriousness and
zeal practiced in those
times of history.
The good women of the
Home Demonstration Clubs
were paid well
for they would have an
all day visit with
potluck lunch and
what they called 'social
event' and oh, that H.D.C.
(club) had some
super good
cooks."
By
Shirley Chester
Pocahontas
Star Herald
February 15, 2007
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Shirley Chester with her
Corn Shuck Chair |
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(click on a photo "thumbnail" below to see the enlarged
photo)
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This turkey and rooster pair were made from printed, cotton flour sack to be used as door stops. From the extensive collection of Anna Lue Cook. |
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Shirley Chester’s “Corn Shuck Chair”
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Shirley Chester’s “Corn Shuck Chair”
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This stool bottom has been woven from a printed, cotton feed bag. The housewife of the past used the feed sacks for many uses including chair bottom weaving. From the collection of Anna Lue Cook. |
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This stool bottom has been woven from a printed, cotton feed bag. The housewife of the past used the feed sacks for many uses including chair bottom weaving. From the collection of Anna Lue Cook. |
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Special Old Davidsonville Archeological Exhibit
The museum features a large
collection of artifacts recovered from archeological "digs" at the site
of the town of Davidsonville here in Randolph County. Many Arkansas
"firsts" occurred at Davidsonville in the 1820's, including Arkansas'
first courthouse and first land office. For more information on
Davidsonville,
read this article from the Pocahontas Start Herald and visit the
Old Davidsonville State Park website. Download the brochure
"Archeology At Old Davidsonvllle State Park: Early 1800s Life on the
Black River"
HERE
(PDF
format file viewable with Adobe Acrobat Reader available
free
HERE.)
(click on a photo "thumbnail" below to see the enlarged
photo)
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Article from the Pocahontas Star Herald on the excavation project.
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These hand-made nails would have been made by a blacksmith.
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Forks and keys.
This is the type forks people used to eat in the early 1800's. "Skeleton keys" such as these were still in common use as late as 1950. |
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Bottles and jars found by the archeological survey--many still intact.
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Pottery fragments found at Old Davidsonville.
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China fragments show the quality of housewares used by Arkansans in the early 1800's.
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Intact dinnerware found at the site.
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Two bits, four bits...
In a day when coins were rare and hard to make, people on the frontier often made purchases with gold Spanish coins, where were cut into halves, quarters, eighths, and other "bits" to make change. |
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Spanish coin from 1776 with likeness of King Charless III found at Davidsonville.
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Pearl and other buttons and a child's thimble found at the site.
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Coins, gaming dice.
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Spainish coins found in abundance at the site reveal the widespread use of such coinage in Davidsonville.
The dollar pieces were favored due to their recognized value compared to other coinage of the time and the ease of dividing them into pieces of lesser value such as 'pieces of eight.' |
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Upcoming
Quilt Show
The Museum will sponsor a display of historic quilts September 29, 2007.
Below are photos from a quilt show held during the 2006 Pocahontas
Sesquicentennial celebration.
(click on a photo "thumbnail" below to see the enlarged
photo)
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Quilt Show at historic Promberger House in Pocahontas
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Charlotte Sullivan
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