What's Up - Your guide to what's happening in Fayetteville, AR this week!
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SEPTEMBER 6-12, 2020 WHAT'S UP! 3 History Goes Live BECCA MARTIN-BROWN NWA Democrat-Gazette I t was Sept. 7, 1968, that the first iteration of the Shiloh Museum opened in the old library at the corner of Main and Johnson streets in Springdale. So it seems only appropriate that on Sept. 7, 2020, the museum will reopen after being closed more than five months due to covid-19 concerns. "Just having visitors walk through our doors again is exciting in and of itself," says the museum's director, Allyn Lord. "While a museum is a preserver of history, it also offers that personal experience, when visitors are face to face with real history, real artifacts. You can do that online, but it's not quite the same as an in-person visit." That doesn't mean the staff has been idle while the doors have been closed. Lord says everyone was in the middle of their usual spring tasks when the coronavirus surged into Northwest Arkansas. First on the list, then, was finding a way to make that programming happen safely. "We usually serve a lot of students and teachers in April and May, so our field trips have since been made virtual," she begins. Summer history camps also happened on schedule, but online. And two new exhibits, "Make Do" — based on the Ozarks tradition of "use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without" — and "Queen for a Day" — a look at fair queens, homecoming queens, pageant queens and more — were installed but also showcased in their entirety on the museum website. That was just part of what observant patrons could see. There were also new virtual offerings, including Shiloh Shout-Out videos, Minute History videos and eNews staff activities, Lord says. Renovations were undertaken at the Searcy House. And new plantings and path work were installed along Spring Creek, joining the museum campus on Johnson Avenue with the Shiloh Meeting Hall on Huntsville Avenue. Then there's what happened behind the scenes. Staff started renovations on a duplex, purchased by the city for the museum in February, "including an exhibits shop, storage, offices and our new digitization offices, including the renovation of a bathroom to a darkroom," Lord says. A second duplex was purchased "through the generosity of the Tyson Family Foundation," she adds, "marking the museum's ownership of two of the four properties it needs for the full-city-block vision of the future museum." There has also been "lots of grounds work, including increased emphasis on our monarch butterfly station and adding more milkweed and other attractants, planting numerous Ozark chinquapin trees, helping to bring them back after their blight in the 1960s, and taking down a tree which had died from the ivy that took it over, which resulted in exposing the original well from the community of Shiloh," Lord continues. Shiloh Museum opens to visitors Sept. 7 See Shiloh Page 4 FAQ Shiloh Museum WHEN — 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday; Thursday mornings from 10 a.m. to noon are reserved for high- risk visitors only WHERE — 118 W. Johnson Ave. in downtown Springdale COST — Free INFO — 750-8165 or ShilohMuseum.org 'Settling the Ozarks' Curator: Marie Demeroukas In preparation for its 50th birthday in September 2018, the Shiloh Museum of Ozark History's staff completely renovated the galleries. The first one completed was "Settling the Ozarks," curated by Marie Demeroukas, a look at the people who came to Northwest Arkansas from the 1820s to 1860. Back then, Demeroukas says, "this area was the nation's western border. If you wanted to live, you had to work hard — very hard — to clear land, plant crops, build a home, and make the many things needed for everyday life. I wanted to show visitors what it took to cook and preserve food, to make cloth and wash clothes, and to fashion furnishings back in the days before superstores and home delivery. The artifacts from that time are so cool, and many are displayed within the walls of an 1841 log cabin in as natural a setting as we could make." (Courtesy Photo/ Shiloh Museum) FEATURE