Purchasing Storage Furniture to Preserve History Collections

FAIN: PG-51500-12

Arkansas Museum of Natural Resources (Smackover, AR 71762-7002)
Shannon L. Whetzel (Project Director: May 2011 to May 2014)

The purchase of storage shelving and preservation materials to rehouse and preserve history collections. The collections consist of farm equipment, timber industry tools, oil field equipment, oral histories, and photographs that document the history of daily life and economic development in southern Arkansas from 1920 to the present.

The Arkansas Museum of Natural Resources (AMNR) collection consists of items that preserve the history of south Arkansas through its natural resources including agriculture, timber, petroleum, and brine. Our collection contains a variety of materials: farm equipment, cotton scales, timber industry tools, oil field equipment, photographs from the 1920s and oral histories. Prior to 1921, farming and timber production were the predominant industries in the area. Once oil was discovered, it set off a wild boom town era that lasted approximately five years. AMNR provides a repository for this history and continues to tell the story through its collection. This collection is significant not only because it preserves the history of the area, but also because we are one of the few historical repositories in the area. In the past few years, our storage space has become a major issue. This grant would support the purchase of more shelves to expand our storage space by 750 square feet.