Siloam Springs Dogwood Festival

18 • siloamchamber.com/dogwoodfestival 1004 South Mount Olive Street • Siloam Springs, AR • (479) 238-0289 Tuesdays Kids Eat for Free! Museum staff look back at Siloam Springs' Dogwood heritage By Dave Woods NWA Democrat-Gazette D on Warden hopes the annual Dogwood Festival will bring some new visitors to the Siloam Springs Museum. Don, the Director of Collections and Research and a Siloam Springs resident since 1991, and Chuck McClary, a recent transplant and Director of Education and Community Outreach, look forward to the festival and sharing a little about the community's historic past with new visitors and longtime festival attendees. "It brings in thousands of people downtown and fills up the parks," Don said. "I usually will go down and look at everything and see what there is, listen to music and get a couple of meals while it's going on." Chuck McClary chimed in saying he has a newcomer's perspective on the Siloam Springs area and the Dogwood Festival. "One of the most interesting things to me is that this community has a pretty good collective memory," Chuck explained. "A lot of people have a pretty good memory of Siloam Springs. They know a little story about this or that. It's really interesting. A lot of people don't know the history of their town. That makes Siloam Springs stand out a bit." Don, it appears, knows a thing or two about Dogwood Festival history. "The first Dogwood Festival was held in 1975," he noted. "It was started at the time the dogwood trees typically bloom. The large plantings of redbud and dogwood trees in downtown were actually done a little bit before that. The (media) notice of that first festival talks about dogwoods and redbuds recently planted downtown. It's sort of gone hand in hand since then. There was a major flood in June, 1974. That may have been part of what was going on; planting in the wake of the flood to improve the downtown again." Both historians suggest that while Siloam Springs has a long and unique man-made history, much of it has been shaped by mother nature. "The way nature has shaped the town and changed the layout of the town is interesting," Chuck said. "The creek has changed life in Siloam Springs and that's really interesting to me." Don's take on the history of the community is "interesting" as well. He encourages locals and visitors alike to dig into the community's historic past while in town for the Dogwood Festival. "It's a long history," he said. "I encourage people to get a total picture of the town's history. For anybody living 'Our history is really interesting'

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