Amazeum To Join Area Museum Line Up

Visitation numbers and planned projects continue to grow at area museums, expanding the region's museum experience beyond the visual arts.

Hallmarking the activity is the creation of Amazeum, a children's museum and family learning center that will be located at 1009 Museum Way, adjacent to Crystal Bridges in Bentonville.

Officials are expecting to break ground in the next couple of months on the $28 million, 44,500-square-foot facility. It is scheduled to open in 2015.

Amazeum started as a grass roots idea among a group of local people who wanted to create a children's museum for Northwest Arkansas, explained Sam Dean, executive director. The idea is becoming a reality. The staff has increased from two to three people to its current seven, full-time employees, Dean said. It will employ about 14 people full time once opened.

The Walton Foundation awarded a $10 million challenge grant, which was matched in October 2013, and provided the land for the museum to be built. Its design is specific to Northwest Arkansas.

"We want to be a museum by the community, not for the community," Dean said.

He later added: "If you build for high quality, powerful experiences for the region, you're focused on experiences that have universality to them, but also contain the flavor of your own place, and the flavor isn't faux veneer. It's authentic."

One example is a climbing exhibit, which will mimic a tree canopy. It could have had a futuristic or urban motif, but a tree canopy gives a sense of place of being in The Natural State, Dean explained.

"At the end of the day, anyone who comes in is going to enjoy that climber experience, but for us, it's designed to be here in Northwest Arkansas," he said.

Projected numbers estimate that the Amazeum will see 140,000 visitors annually, Dean said.

Native American Museum

The Museum of Native American History is at 202 S.W. O St. in Bentonville. The museum takes visitors chronologically through 14,000 years of Native American history, which is divided into five time periods.

"The whole premise of the museum is to dispel the myth of the ignorant savage," said Matt Rowe, curator.

Rowe estimated that 98 percent of the artifacts are from the private collection of Bentonville resident David Bogle. There are a few items on loan. The museum has artifacts from across the Americas, but most are from Arkansas, Oklahoma and Missouri.

Its collection is growing all the time, Rowe said, adding that the focus is quality over quantity. Whenever deciding about bringing a piece in, Rowe said, he evaluates whether it's good enough to attract visitors from other states.

Officials don't track the number of people who visit, but encourage them to sign a guest book. People have visited from more than half of the states and Canada, according to guest book entries.

Historical Museum

Officials at the Rogers Historical Museum are in the middle of a capital campaign to raise $7.9 million for an expansion that will include a 27,000-square-foot building on the corner of Third and Cherry streets and the renovation of the current building, which will be used as an education center.

The building at 322 S. Second St. is about 6,500 square feet, and it's at spacial capacity, said John Burroughs, director.

"We're out of room. We can't do any more with this facility," he said.

The new building will have more than 8,000 square feet of exhibit space, which will more than triple the 2,300 square feet of current display space, Burroughs said. There will be permanent exhibits, a rotating exhibit gallery and a collection study gallery where visitors can use kiosks to explore the museum's artifact database.

Expansion plans have been in the works since 2008, but stalled when the economy entered the recession, according to Burroughs.

"Basically, we're getting restarted now," he said. "It's going well for us."

The museum was awarded a National Humanities Endowment Challenge Grant in 2011. The three-to-one grant would provide $500,000 if $1.5 million were raised, which would total $2 million. The City of Rogers will also allocate money to the project, but the amount hasn't been determined yet, he said.

"We're actually six months ahead on our fundraising," Burroughs said, adding that the groundbreaking could happen in a couple years if fundraising stays on track.

The Rogers Historical Museum sees about 65,000 visitors annually through walk-in visits, classroom outreach and other programs, the director said.

Also in Rogers is the Daisy Airgun Museum. Located in a downtown building that dates back to 1896, the museum sports a chronological exhibit of Daisy history that includes old packaging, advertising, a collection of antique air guns dating to the 1600s and an example of the first Daisy, according to the museum's website.

The museum, located at 202 W. Walnut St., opened in March 2000 and attracts more than 1,700 visitors annually from nearly every state and several foreign countries, according to the website. Rogers has been the home to Daisy's corporate offices since 1960.

Shiloh Museum

The Shiloh Museum of Ozark History in Springdale is near downtown at 118 W. Johnson Ave. The museum is named after the pioneer community of Shiloh, which became Springdale in the 1870s, according to the museum website.

The regional museum focuses on the Arkansas Ozarks, but its themes can be broad or specific to a county or city, said Allyn Lord, director.

"We do a lot with the city of Springdale since they're our bread and butter, so to speak," she said.

Seven historic buildings dating from 1850s through the 1930s and a research library with a collection of more than 500,000 photographs accompany the main exhibits.

Museum officials are working on raising money for interior renovation to the Shiloh Meeting Hall, built in 1871, Lord said. Work on the exterior and roof was done in 2008 and 2009.

Interior renovations, which will provide a space for programs and public meetings downstairs and an exhibit space upstairs, are estimated to cost $450,000, and about $150,000 has already been obtained, she said.

"It's a bit of money, but it's a beautiful building," she said.

The museum saw a 9 percent increase in the number of people it served in 2013 from 2012, according to its annual report. The museum served 43,206 people last year. The museum saw visitors from 44 states and the District of Columbia and 14 other countries in 2013, Lord said.

Presidential Home

The Clinton House Museum allows visitors to experience the first home of former President Bill and former Secretary of state Hillary Clinton. The one-bedroom, 1,800-square-foot home is located at 930 W. Clinton Dr. in Fayetteville.

Guests can see the living room where the Clintons were married, view memorabilia from Bill's early political career and tour the First Ladies Garden.

Interior preservation work was recently finished, and the kitchen was restored to how it looked when the Clintons lived there, according to Kate Johnson, director. The museum received a $2,500 grant from the Arkansas Humanities Council to assist with the project.

The museum has seen a 138 percent increase in visitors over the last five years, from 1,381 in 2009 to 3,709 in 2013, Johnson said.

"They come from all over the world," she said. "My first question is where are you from. I literally never know what I'm going to hear."

Visitors have come from all seven continents. A scientist studying nanotechnology in Antarctica stopped by while on a trip to the University of Arkansas, Johnson said.

The house was included on the National Historic Registry in 2010, and the First Ladies Garden also broke ground that year. Both events contributed to the increasing visitor numbers, Johnson said.

Air and Military Museum

Also in Fayetteville is the Arkansas Air and Military Museum at 4290 S. School Ave.

Visitors can "follow the colorful history of aviation in Arkansas and American military conflicts through numerous displays of original artifacts and aviation memorabilia," according to the museums website.

Many of the historic aircraft still fly, the website states. Static displays range from the golden age of aviation to the jet age and include Vietnam-era Army helicopters and a Navy carrier fighter.

The museum is housed in a former headquarters of an aviator training post during World War II, according to the website.

NW News on 03/23/2014