FORT SMITH -- After gifts are opened and Christmas dinner is eaten Monday, officials are inviting everyone for cake and cocoa to wish the city a happy 200th birthday.
The bicentennial observance at the downtown Fort Smith Museum of History kicks off a year of events, which will start with a re-enactment of the initial landing of soldiers at Belle Point on Christmas Day 1817 and will include a concert featuring music composed especially for the city and an attempt to break a world record with a lip-dub video.
Bicentennial committee member Bradford Randall said that over the years, Fort Smith may not have gotten the recognition it deserves as the state's second-largest city. After all, not many cities can say they have been in existence for 200 years.
"This will be our time to shine," Randall said.
About two dozen people from throughout the community have worked over the past three years to plan and prepare for the bicentennial, Mayor Sandy Sanders said. Sanders, who is entering his last year as mayor, has led organizing efforts.
"When we started out, we thought, 'We have plenty of time,'" he said. "But now, it is here and it finally hit everyone that this is in gear."
The bicentennial celebration begins with Monday's re-enactment of the first occupation of what is now Fort Smith, put on by about 20 members of a group called Friends of the Fort.
Floyd Robinson, who portrays Judge Isaac Parker in the group's re-enactments, said about eight members portraying American soldiers dressed in period uniforms along with three or four "washerwomen" will arrive at Belle Point in a keelboat about 2 p.m., the time the troops arrived 200 years ago.
"This is a pretty big thing," Robinson said. "We're pleased to be a part of it."
The ruins of the first fort, which was occupied for about seven years, have been preserved atop Belle Point and are part of the National Park Service's Fort Smith National Historic Site.
Along with other soldiers and washerwomen already on shore, the group will march up to the historic site's museum for a short program, Sanders said. The public will be invited to move next door to the Fort Smith Museum of History for cake and hot chocolate to celebrate Fort Smith's birthday, he said.
During the party, museum officials will unveil a painting depicting the original fort. The painting was created in 1820 by artist Samuel Seymour, who stopped at the fort on his return from a Rocky Mountain expedition. It's on loan from the Academy of Natural Sciences at Drexel University in Philadelphia until March 31, according to the museum's website.
"It's a good way to get out and celebrate the city's 200th birthday," Sanders said of the re-enactment and party.
Fort Smith's bicentennial activities have been divided into four parts for the remainder of 2018, one for each quarter of the year.
The first quarter, from January to March, is for arts and culture.
Paintings by the late John Bell Jr., a native of Fort Smith, will be exhibited from Jan. 5 to April 22 at Regional Art Museum. Bell was an acclaimed painter and sculptor whose career spanned 50 years, according to the museum.
Other events include a concert Jan. 25 featuring another Fort Smith native, musician Alphonso Trent, and presentations of 19th-century movers and shakers Feb. 25 at the Clayton House in the Belle Grove Historic District.
A bicentennial celebration concert is set for April 21, when a specially commissioned composition will be performed by the Fort Smith Symphony.
The theme for the second quarter of the year, April through June, will be Western heritage and will include events such as the Hanging Judge Cutting Horse Show on May 4-5, Art on the Border on May 11-12, Judge Parker's Rope War on May 19, Quapaw Indian Day on June 9 at the historic site and Wild West Wednesday on June 13 at the Fort Smith Public Library.
The highlight of the quarter will likely be the attempt to break the Guinness World Record for the largest lip-dub video. As part of the bicentennial celebration, a lip-syncing video will be created to promote Fort Smith as a world-class city, according to the bicentennial website.
The lip dub will be created just before the 85th Rodeo Parade on May 28 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Randall said 5,001 participants will be needed to break the lip-syncing video record set in 2011 by Grand Rapids, Mich.
"We're thrilled to be able to showcase our community and what we have to offer," Randall said.
Randall also is heading the Future Fort Smith fourth-quarter section, from October through December. It will be a celebration of Fort Smith through all-digital media.
Beginning Oct. 1, a series of three-minute online vignettes will be released every three weeks depicting aspects of Fort Smith's future in transportation, technology, education and daily life.
The third quarter, from July through September, will feature a "homecoming" theme. People who have left Fort Smith will be invited to make a return visit, and those planning reunions will be encouraged to hold them in Fort Smith to appreciate what the city has to offer, the bicentennial website said.
Mementos of the bicentennial are for sale. The 248-page coffee-table book Bridging Borders and Time A Bicentennial Portrait of Fort Smith is on sale at the Fort Smith Museum of History and at the Convention and Visitors Bureau, Sanders said. The book costs $46.90.
State Desk on 12/24/2017