What's Up - Your guide to what's happening in Fayetteville, AR this week!
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JACK SCHNEDLER Special to the Democrat-Gazette A new exhibit at the Arkansas state Capitol provides a sneak preview at plans to create a spacious state-of- the-art museum in Marion, detailing the deadliest maritime disaster in U.S. history. Four artifact-filled display cases on the Capitol's ground floor portray the predawn Mississippi River explosion, fire and sinking of the side-wheel steamboat Sultana a half-dozen miles north of Memphis on April 27, 1865. Most of the 1,169 men now estimated to have died were Union soldiers being repatriated north to their Midwest homes from Confederate prison camps. Gov. Asa Hutchinson recently opened the Little Rock exhibit as part of the effort to raise money for the planned 17,000-square-foot Sultana Disaster Museum. Occupying the Marion High School gymnasium built in 1938, it would be nearly 20 times the size of the temporary museum that opened in that Delta city in 2015. Until a couple of years ago, the disaster was commonly believed to have taken as many as 1,800 lives, even more than the 1,512 lost in the 1912 sinking of the British liner Titanic. The latest research has substantially lowered the still horrendous toll, which remains the highest ever in U.S. waters. The temporary Sultana museum in Marion remains open, with displays that include a 14-foot-long model of the steamboat. But the Crittenden County seat lies at least two hours by highway from Little Rock, while the new state Capitol exhibit is a short drive for Central Arkansans. Capitol visitors get a thorough chronology of the disaster, starting with the gross overloading of the steamboat. The 265-foot-long Sultana, with a legal capacity of 376, headed north from Vicksburg, Miss., carrying 2,200 or more passengers and crew. One theory is that a Union officer had been bribed to vastly overload the vessel because of the per-capita federal payments for transporting the freed prisoners of war. It is noted that the Sultana's captain, Frederic Speed, was the only officer court-martialed after the tragedy: "After a six-month military trial, he was found 'negligent of duty to the prejudice of good order and military discipline.' The verdict was reversed and he was later honorably discharged." One information panel at the state Capitol explains that the Sultana had docked in Vicksburg to repair leaking boilers. But one or more boilers exploded in the middle of the night, killing hundreds of passengers instantly. Many others jumped into the chilly Mississippi water to die of drowning and hypothermia. An unlikely survival method by one soldier is described in a panel showing his photograph: "The Sultana's crew had a pet alligator that it kept in a large wooden crate. During the disaster, Private William Lugenbeal, Co. F, 135th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, killed the gator and used the sturdy wooden crate as a lifeboat to escape the burning vessel." Another panel carries the headline "The End of the World." The text asserts that "even though the Sultana happened over 150 years ago, the story of greed, impatience, homecoming, hope and fear is as strong as ever. And once heard, impossible to forget." Somehow, the disaster did go mostly forgotten until the last decade or so — even in Arkansas. Only when civic- minded efforts in and around Marion brought the opening of the present small museum did knowledge of the Sultana begin to expand. Some viewers of the state Capitol exhibit will find the tragedy hard to forget. When the new Sultana Disaster Museum eventually opens in Marion, they'll be able to make the drive to Crittenden County for what promises to be an immersive museum experience. MARCH 13-19, 2022 WHAT'S UP! 39 LITTLE ROCK FYI Sultana Museum The Sultana Disaster Museum, at 104 Washington St. in Marion, is open 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Thursday- Saturday and 2-4 p.m. Sunday. Admission is free, with dona- tions welcome. INFO — sultanadisaster- museum.org or 870-739-6041 PRESIDENT Brent A. Powers EDITOR Becca Martin-Brown 479-872-5054 bmartin@nwadg.com Twitter: NWAbecca REPORTERS Monica Hooper mhooper@nwadg.com April Wallace awallace@nwadg.com (479) 770-3746 DESIGNER Deb Harvell ! UP WHAT'S ON THE COVER The 25th anniversary tour of "Chicago" will be on stage Nov. 8-13 as part of the P&G Broadway Series at the Walton Arts Center. (COURTESY PHOTO) What's Up! is a publication of the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Remember The Sultana Capitol exhibit gives preview to new museum in Marion A scale model shows the damage to the Sultana, a riverboat overstuffed with freed Union soldiers, after its boiler exploded on the Mississippi River in 1865. It is the deadliest maritime disaster in American history. (Special to the Democrat-Gazette/Jack Schnedler) FAQ Sultana Exhibit WHEN — 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday-Friday WHERE — At the Arkansas State Capitol in Little Rock COST — Free INFO — sos.arkansas.gov/ state-capitol or (501) 682-5080 FYI — Entry is through ground- level doors beneath the monu- mental staircase.