Tag: Arkansas River

Museum highlights service, sacrifice of U.S. Marshals

The entrance to the U.S. Marshals Museum in Fort Smith, Ark.

If you’ve crossed the Arkansas River bridge from Oklahoma onto Garrison Ave. in Fort Smith, Ark., in the past decade, you may have noticed the unique, star-shaped building on the east side of the river bank about a half-mile north of the bridge.

The low-slung building is the U.S. Marshals Museum, which opened in July 2023 after 16 years of planning and fund-raising.

I’ve kept my eye on the Marshals Museum because I’m a Fort Smith native whose 92-year old mother still resides in the historic river city. So, I’m crossing that river bridge several times a year, and alway look to the north to check out the building.

But I had never toured the museum until this past weekend when my mom, Jean Stafford, and I spent about an hour-and-a-half working our way through the museum’s many historical exhibits, she in a wheelchair and me pushing her past the displays.

It was well worth the effort and the $13 entry it cost us as senior citizens to tour the museum. I want to share what I found most interesting, but first a little background on the 53,000 square foot museum that cost about $48 million — all from private donations — to create.

Fort Smith was selected as site for the museum in 2007 after a competitive site selection process among several hopeful locations. The museum shares the stories of the U.S. Marshals Service across its 240-year history, featuring interactive displays, photographs, videos and artifacts.

From my perspective, Fort Smith is the perfect location for the museum because of the city’s frontier history dating back to the early 1800s. It served as the HQ for many US Marshals and deputy marshals who attempted to keep the peace and track down outlaws in the Oklahoma Territory to the west.

Fort Smith also is where notorious ‘Hanging Judge’ Isaac Parker dispensed frontier justice to many outlaws brought in from the Territory. You should also visit the nearby National Historic Site that Judge Parker’s courthouse and gallows still occupy.

In fiction, Fort Smith was the starting point for True Grit and Deputy Marshal Rooster Cogburn in book and film, as well as the location where the epic Lonesome Dove saga began with a killing on Garrison Ave.

While the museum location was announced in 2007, it took far longer to build and open than anticipated because of fund-raising issues that held back its construction.

Along the way, Fort Smith city leaders made an attempt to provide funding that would ensure its completion through a temporary, 1-cent sales tax. Skeptical Fort Smith residents soundly defeated the proposal in a 2019 special election.

In fact, Fort Smith attorney Joey McCutchen declared that the Marshals Museum would be one of several ‘white elephants’ he said the city has undertaken. Check out this 2019 article from the online news site, Talk Business and Politics, that outlines the controversy over the museum and proposed sales tax. 

However, the money was finally raised through donations, the building completed and museum opened. Attendance has not met original projections, but I would say that the lingering effects of COVID played a role in that.

Today, the Marshals Museum offers an impressive collection and display providing historical education that shows how the Marshals live up to their motto of “Justice, Integrity, and Service.” The museum also serves as a community gathering spot for conferences, networking events, wedding receptions and more.

So, what stood out to me as I worked my way through the museum with my mom?

Jean Stafford looks at the display of the Oklaoma City bombing at the U.S. Marshals Museum

Well, I was especially taken by one wall that described the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing of the federal building and its aftermath. The local U.S. Marshals Service office was located in the adjacent federal courthouse, and marshals provided rescue coordination and then security oversight for the trials of Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols.

My only objection to that exhibit is the decision to showcase the front page of the Dallas Morning News from the day after the bombing. I was working at The Daily Oklahoman at the time, and our staff was fully involved in the coverage, which was reflected in spectacular front page photos and stories the day after and in the following months.

Beyond the OKC bombing, there was much more to learn about the U.S. Marshals Service from the museum visit. I found out that the Marshals Service was launched by President George Washington, and for at least a few decades it was the U.S. Marshals who conducted the U.S. Census.

There were displays that outlined the Marshals’ role in providing justice throughout the Oklahoma territory, along with stories that told of shootouts that resulted in the deaths of outlaws — and Marshals — along the way.

Most impressive was a room designed as an Old West saloon in which a virtual barkeep on a screen tells stories about U.S. Marshals in action during the frontier period. You can even learn more by interacting with a nearby computerized poker table. Then you can watch and listen to robotic ‘marshals’ from different generation talking around a virtual campfire.

A virtual campfire is surrounded by U.S. Marshals from different generations of the Marshals Service.

There is room after room that carries you from the beginning of the US Marshals Service to modern day, along with displays and artifacts from incidents like Ruby Ridge and Wounded Knee, the Freedom Riders, Oxford, Miss., Selma and much more. There is even a video from a Marshal’s body cam of officers capturing a fugitive in Fort Smith.

As a sort of bonus, U.S. Marshals in movies and TV are showcased, as well as the actual badge worn by Marshal Matt Dillon in Gunsmoke.

Finally, we found our way back to the reception area, which features a large atrium-like space that is used for community and educational events. We also toured a special temporary exhibit that showcased the U.S. Marshals role in the aftermath of 9/11 attacks on NYC in 2001.

Mom told the receptionist as we were leaving that she was surprised by the depth of information that the museum provided and how much more it offered than she anticipated.

Me, too.

I didn’t realize that the history of the US Marshals Service spans most of our nation’s 250 years, or that more than 300 Marshals have lost their lives in service to our nation.

It’s a sobering, eye-opening educational exhibit that I would hope everyone would want to experience.

I’m so glad my mom and I toured the museum at long last. I shouldn’t have been such a stranger.

BONUS CONTENT: The following is perspective from my friend Ed Godfrey, who toured the U.S. Marshals Museum months before I paid a visit. Thank you, Ed, for sharing your thoughts with blogOKC.
***
By Ed Godfrey

I really liked the U.S. Marshals museum, especially the Old West exhibits and history, but all the displays from each era were visually interesting and informative. The wall of plaques listing the names of marshals who were killed in the line of duty also was impressive. So many who were killed were identified not as deputy marshals but simply “posse.” I have recommended the museum to friends and would go again. My one criticism is the use of the huge front page display of The Dallas Morning News from the morning after the Oklahoma City bombing. Why wouldn’t you use the front page from the city where the tragedy happened, especially when OKC is just down the road from Fort Smith? The Oklahoman’s front page was even better that day, in my opinion, than the Morning News. As a member of The Oklahoman’s staff at the time, I found it a little insulting. Perhaps the museum couldn’t get permission from The Oklahoman to use its front page, but unless there is a legal reason, it seems like an odd choice to me.

Statue outside the U.S. Marshals Museum depicts Bass Reeves, the first black U.S. Marshal to serve out of Fort Smith

Frank Day’s labor of love honors the ‘dying art’ of quilting

Frank Day works on a hand-stitched quilt, accompanied by one of his favorite pets.

Let me tell you about my friend Frank Day of Roland, OK, whom I have known since approximately 1971 when we both worked for Hunt’s Department Store in Fort Smith, Ark.

Frank was a recent graduate of Northeastern State University in Tahlequah and I was a senior at Southside High School.

Over the years, we drank gallons of coffee together, ran trot lines at 2 am in the Arkansas River and stalked raccoons in the middle of the night in the Paw Paw Bottoms, among other adventures.

But life took me to Oklahoma City in 1983 for a job with The Daily Oklahoman newspaper, so we haven’t seen a lot of each other in the intervening years.

Today Frank is 75 years old and retired after more than two decades as fleet sales manager for Fort Smith’s Randall Ford. I think he can best be described in 2025 as a one-man quilting bee.

What?

That’s right. Frank Day began hand-stitching beautiful quilts over two decades ago, and continues his quilting avocation today.

Frank, I thought I knew you.

There goes my image of the typical quilter as someone’s grandmother.

Turns out that quilting is something Frank learned as a child from his mother, Dortha Day and turned it into an ongoing hobby many decades later.

“When I grew up, Mother was quilting all the time,” Frank told me. “She belonged to a quilting club, a bunch of women who got together at someone’s house and could finish a quilt in one day. I grew up watching her, and she showed me how to do it.”

Frank’s wife of more than 50 years, Vicki, added her perspective.

“Frank’s mother Dortha always had a quilt rack on the ceiling,” Vicki said. “I remember Granny, everyone called her Granny, quilting on the old quilting frames and singing hymns. When the grandchildren came along they would all play under the quilt frame.”

However, Frank had never made a quilt until his first grandchild was born more than 20 years ago. He produced his first quilt for grandson, Trevor, and has continued quilting through the years.

“I said I’m going to get some material and make a quilt,” Frank said of that first attempt. “Vicki said ‘you don’t know how.’ I said, ‘you watch me.’ I got the material and sat down and started sewing. And I got it done.”

That first quilt led into one for each grandchild, then special quilts for relatives and friends. Sometimes he makes them for folks who’ve had a stretch of bad health or difficult life situation, like a former coworker at Randall Ford to whom he presented a quilt.

“She started crying, but it was because she was happy to get it,” Frank said.

A quilt is not made in a day. Or a week. It might require more than a month of work for a solo quilter like Frank Day.

“From start to finish, if it’s a king-sized quilt, you have about 250 hours in it,” he said. “That’s cutting the material out — I hand sew everything, nothing is made on a machine. I hand stitch it, get the backing for it, get the lining for it and put the blocks on top.”

Did you catch that … 250 hours for a single quilt. That’s 6-1/4 40-hour working weeks of quietly sitting alone stitching blocks of material together into what can be a beautiful pattern.

My own grandmother was a quilter, and I recall she had a large wooden frame that she let down from the ceiling that helped her make her quilts.

Frank uses a ‘hoop’ that he holds in his lap as he quilts. Usually, one of his favorite dogs is sitting nearby or even on his lap as he quietly works.

Although he hasn’t made quilts to sell, Frank told me that comparable hand-made quilts can be priced at $1,800-$2,500 because of all the time required to produce one.

“It’s very time consuming, and most people don’t have the patience for it,” he said.

I learned that Frank was a quilter after Vicki posted some pictures of beautiful quilts on Facebook and I complimented her on her quilting talent. She corrected me and said it was all Frank.

“When Frank made his first quilt before Trevor, our first grandchild, was born, we had been married for 30 years and he never made one before,” Vicki said. “I asked him why he never made one before and his answer was “I never had a reason to make one.”

“Frank’s quilting has bloomed over the years. He made one for our son, Paul, as a wedding gift and then for our daughter Jenny. He made one out of cancer warrior scarves that Ford gave to dealerships for Breast Cancer Awareness.”

Each quilt is made with a purpose.

“Frank had a good friend, Dudley Sparkman, who was the best man and friend you could ask for,” Vicki said. “Sadly, he had a massive heart attack on his 50th birthday and passed around two weeks later. Tina Sparkman, Dudley’s wife, asked Frank if he would make a lap quilt out of some of his shirts. That was probably one of the hardest quilts he ever made because on the friendship they shared.”

Quilters like Frank Day who make the time to sit and hand-stitch a beautiful design are a rarity in 2025. Today, most quilts are machine stitched.

Frank calls hand-made quilting a “dying art” that he’s keeping alive in his corner of the world. Currently, he’s working on a quilt for Vicki as he recovers from a recent knee-replacement surgery.

“It’s helped me keep my sanity when I’ve had to sit for long stretches as I recovered from knee surgery that put me down,” he said. “I’ve finished one and got close to half of another one put together.”

It’s one stitch after another after another for a quilter like Frank Day. That translates into hundreds of hours to produce just one quilt.
It’s a marathon, not a sprint.

Frank has run that marathon for more than two decades.

And that’s why I describe him as the ultimate one-man quilting bee.

BONUS CONTENT:

I asked ChatGPT to explain the concept of a “Quilting Bee” to me. Here’s what it told me:

A quilting bee is a social gathering where a group of people—traditionally women—come together to work on quilting projects, usually a large quilt, while also enjoying conversation and community.

Key Features:

– Collaboration: Multiple people contribute to making one quilt. Often, the quilt top is pieced together ahead of time, and the bee focuses on quilting (stitching the layers together).
– Social aspect: It’s as much about socializing and bonding as it is about the sewing. These gatherings were historically important social events, especially in rural communities.
– Tradition: Quilting bees have roots in 18th and 19th century America, when they served as a practical and communal way to create bedding before mass production.
– Modern bees: Today, quilting bees still exist, though they might be less formal or might happen in quilting guilds, workshops, or even online.
Think of a quilting bee as a mix of a sewing circle, a social event, and a creative collaboration.