SEARCY Pioneer

History group works toward goal: activities, regular hours for 1800s building collection

By Amy Widner

LITTLE ROCK — When history buffs get their hands on a good book, the past can come alive, but they know it doesn’t work that way for everyone.

That’s why the White County Historical Society is working steadily on projects they hope will help the rest of us make those connections to the past. They’re raising money to turn Searcy’s Pioneer Village, a collection of 19th- and 20th-century historical buildings from White County, into an interactive living museum.

The society’s president, Tony Young, can picture living historians in costume, cooking and doing craft demonstrations. He would like to see local acting groups and school drama classes get involved and restart the field trip tour program the Pioneer Village used to offer.

“We want to get it open on a regular basis, two or three days a week,” Young said. “We’re not that far along yet, but we’re working toward that end.”

The society hosted an open house and bake sale earlier this month to raise money and give people a glimpse of what a living Pioneer Village could look like. Young said theygot a decent amount of visitors but not quite as many as he had hoped for. He is planning more fundraisers for the spring, like teaming with Harding University’s History Club for a car wash. In the past they have also had plant sales and may do another in the spring. The open houses, complete with costumed re-enactors and tour guides, take place twice a year.

“We’re always hoping for people willing to donate some money to the project, but we also need people with experience working with old buildings, carpentry skills, people willingand able to work on articles that are always around there that need to be cleaned up, fixed up,” Young said. “When we do open houses, we need people who can do crafts. We’ve had people do outdoor cooking, doing crafts or even simple things like playing the part of a school teacher or shop keeper.”

In the meantime, the society is using the money they have from donations and membership dues to put a fence around the property, whichis step one toward their eventual goal of a museum-like village, Young said. Volunteers are at the site every week, working on the existing buildings and reassembling some of the ones that are still in pieces after the village’s 2002 move from the White County Fairgrounds. The society has been offered an additional historic cabin to go with the one they already have, and they are in the process of determining how much money will be needed to move the cabin to the village, Young said.

The Pioneer Village was first assembled at the fairgrounds in 1967 by local businessman Oran Vaughan. Young said interest in the village had its ups and downs, and by 2002, the buildings were run down enough that when the fairground board needed to punch a sewer line through the site, they decided the easiest thing to do would be to get rid of the buildings. The society asked to take over their care and asked the city for land to house them. They’ve movedto city property near the events center and sports complex off Higginson Road.

The collection features the Gordon family cabin. Its first room was built in 1865, and it is probably the village’s oldest property, Young said. The Gordons and the family who eventually donated the cabin for the village, the Yinglings, still live in Searcy and were honored at the Nov. 1-2 open house.

The cabin is accompanied by a collection of period farm buildings like a utensil shed,outhouse, smokehouse, etc. The village also features a school house and general store that came from the Little Red community. The school was in use from 1885 to 1945. They have Garner’s old railroad depot, which is being painted and willhave its interior redecorated. It was built in 1886 and discontinued as a working depot in 1938.

The village has a salt kettle from a farm at Liberty Valley, where the family evaporated salt water for salt. During the Civil War, troops tried to destroy the business by shooting holes in the kettles. The kettle at the Pioneer Village has a bullet hole from that time period.

A couple of reconstructed buildings are in various stages of building and planning: a blacksmith shop, log barn gristmill and cotton gin.

The village’s newest building, the Pangburn jail, was built in 1911 or 1912, Young said.

The White County Historical Society had 578 members last year. The Pioneer Village project has federal nonprofit status.

The Pioneer Village is in south Searcy at 1166 Higginson Road, east of the old Central Arkansas Hospital and south of Land O’ Frost. More information is available from Young at (501) 388-9351.

- awidner@ arkansasonline.com

Three Rivers, Pages 47, 48 on 11/20/2008