It was a chance meeting that led to a lifelong friendship.
In 1985 in Pettigrew, a wide spot along Arkansas 16 in Madison County, Wayne and June Martin made plans to sell the contents of the Mooney-Barker Drug Store, founded by his great-grandfather Dr. W.H. Mooney in 1916. Among those who visited before the auction to peruse the Model T parts, banana baskets, black powder and shotgun shells, croquet mallets with handmade handles, coffin hardware, paper ephemera and more was Bob Besom, then director of the Shiloh Museum of Ozark History in Springdale.
FAQ
Pettigrew Day
WHEN — 1 p.m. through dinner at 5 p.m. Saturday
WHERE — Pettigrew School, about 40 minutes east of Fayetteville
COST — $5 donation plus a dish for the potluck dinner
INFO — Email dmartin@PettigrewHe…
BONUS — Music by Yellowbrick Road & Friends, Morty & Melody, The Bear Chasers, Sara & Carole Anne and the Common Tators featuring Mark McGee & Buddy Shute.
"This was an incredible opportunity," Besom said at the time. "It's really given us the full feel for the first 30 years of this century."
Out of that serendipitous meeting came the museum's interest in Pettigrew as a microcosm of small towns in Northwest Arkansas, and out of that interest came Pettigrew Day.
"Work on preserving the history of the community sort of blossomed and eventually focused on preservation of the Pettigrew School," says Dan Martin, a member of the Pettigrew Heritage Committee Board and Wayne and June Martin's son. "Today, the architecturally unique building serves as a community center."
Constructed around 1915, the schoolhouse rests on a field-stone foundation, and "noteworthy exterior details include a wide frieze band beneath the eaves and the pent-roofed, cornice returns of the front gable end," says the document that granted the building a spot on the National Register of Historic Places. In addition to efforts to preserve the structure itself, the Heritage Committee recently added a bell to remember the original bell tower, moved to a local church in 1978.
Although the Shiloh Museum "stepped back" from Pettigrew Day several years ago, the Heritage Committee has continued the event as a homecoming for friends of the community.
"Pettigrew may be a tiny town, but thanks to that friendship with the Shiloh Museum and the exhibits that came out of it, a lot of people maintain an interest in the community's history and its future," Martin says. "Pettigrew Day lets those people come together just to have fun, while also raising money for the well-being of this landmark building."
-- Becca Martin-Brown
NAN What's Up on 04/07/2017