Old Independence Regional Museum – Exhibit Award
Museum Wins Another Award
The 2016 Outstanding Exhibit Design Award was presented to Old Independence Regional Museum by the Arkansas Museum Association during its annual conference in Little Rock. “Living With the White River,” currently on view in the Barnes/Simmons Main Gallery, is considered best in the state for a museum with an annual budget under $150,000.
Amelia Bowman, museum director, accepted the award and stated, “It is such an honor to be recognized by our peers as creating the best exhibit in the state.” The exhibit was designed and constructed by Twyla Gill Wright, curator of exhibits, and her husband Dennis.
Wright reflected, “We’ve been fortunate to win in this statewide exhibit category six times! In 2005 it was for Early Medicine in Our Counties. In 2007 it was for our Where the Delta Meets the Ozarks. Then in 2009 it was for our Living off the Land: Season by Season. We received second place for our Looking Back: How Toys, Tools and Togs Have Changed in 2012. Our exhibit titled War Comes to Us (about the Civil War, which is still on view) won first place in 2014.”
The museum encourages everyone to support it by stopping by and spending a little time interacting with their award winning 2016 exhibit. It includes several sections. One is titled “Traveling On the White River” which contains a large wall-mounted map of the river with its steamboat and ferry landings. Beneath it sit models of a keelboat, steamboat, and flatboat. Other items, such as an anchor found in the river, takes visitors back in time to early river travel.
Another section, labeled “Lifting Boats Up and Down the River” invites visitors to pump real water into a model lock, operate its gates, and see how the water lifts and lowers a steamboat through the lock. This model, designed by Dennis Wright and Mike West, is unique in museum design and function. Historically, three locks and dams were constructed during 1903-1908 at Batesville and upriver.
“Building Bridges over the River” is illustrated by many photos taken in 1927-1928. Between those large picture panels hangs a steel worker’s belt and tools needed to build the bridges at Batesville, Newport, Calico Rock, Augusta, and Cotter.
“Ferrying Across the River” features a mock ferry with a mannequin boy on board under a large photo of hand-powered ferries. Visitors may leaf through a large scrapbook of various White River ferries through the ages and learn the cost for riding a ferry in 1911.
“Playing and Fishing in the River” features an early one-man boat filled with items needed for those pursuits and exhibit panels tell the stories of those who have found great recreation in the White River. Early fishing reels and lures are also on view.
“Creating Houses and Communities Along the River” contains a model 2-pen log house with its dogtrot. Families are encouraged to build their own log houses by using Lincoln Logs. Historical photographs of early Calico Rock, Des Arc, Jacksonport, Guion and Batesville illustrate how the White River, the primary travel artery, invited settlement along its fertile banks.
“Floods Along the River” feature pictorial panels of historic floods, how floods are measured, and how people have recovered from their destruction. An interactive computer program shows more about floods.
A major showpiece in the exhibit is a huge diorama made to show the White River, Lock and Dam One, and surrounding countryside about 1915. It even contains a tiny lock keepers house and cows and horses. It was originally created as a showpiece for a visitor’s room as part of the hydroelectric project.
“This interactive, educational exhibit is truly a masterpiece for a museum with our means. OIRM is grateful and blessed to have such talented volunteers to design and construct our award winning exhibits,” stated Bowman.
Left to Right: Dennis Wright, Kathleen Pate (AMA President), Amelia Bowman, Twyla Gill Wright, Carol Harsh (Director of the Smithsonian Institution Museum on Main Street)
Old Independence serves a 12-county area: Baxter, Cleburne, Fulton, Independence, Izard, Jackson, Marion, Poinsett, Sharp, Stone, White, and Woodruff. Parts of these present-day counties comprised the original Independence County in 1820s Arkansas territory.
The museum is open Tuesday-Saturday, 9 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Admission is $3.00 for adults, $2.00 for seniors and $1.00 for children. The museum is located at 380 South 9th street, between Boswell and Vine Streets in Batesville. During your visit, stop by our gift shop. We stock many items from local artists, authors, and crafters, as well as historical toys and games.
