Gov. Asa Hutchinson said his office will provide $750,000 over the next two years to the Sultana Disaster Museum in Marion.
Plans are to move the museum from its current 1,000-square-foot location on Washington Street into a 17,000-square-foot school gymnasium that was built in 1938.
The nonprofit Sultana Historical Preservation Society announced the kickoff of its public fundraising campaign at the gym Tuesday.
Including the state's contribution, the society already has about $2 million in pledges toward its goal of $7.5 million, John Fogleman, president of the society, said after the event.
"Today, the 156th anniversary of this terrible tragedy, the greatest maritime disaster in American history, the Sultana Historical Preservation Society announces its $7.5 million capital campaign to convert this historic structure into a permanent museum to honor and remember the Sultana and those men and women who had the misfortune of being on that boat," Fogleman said.
On April 27, 1865, a boiler on the Sultana exploded, engulfing the steamboat in flames before sinking it into a muddy grave on the Arkansas side of the Mississippi River, about 7 miles north of Memphis.
In 1889, a group of survivors of the Sultana petitioned Congress for a pension and a monument somewhere along the Mississippi River so the Sultana wouldn't be forgotten, Fogleman said.
No monument was ever built.
Over a century later, in 2015, the current Sultana Disaster Museum opened, providing a small place for people to learn more about the disaster.
But more space is needed.
Fogleman also announced that the Fogleman and Barton families were pledging $100,000 toward the renovated museum. Ancestors of both families helped save people when the explosion flung men who were sleeping on its deck into the cold water of the Mississippi River.
More than 1,100 people died, Fogleman said. The ship's legal capacity was 376. The Sultana was overloaded with Union soldiers recently freed from Confederate prisons in Alabama and Georgia. They were trying to get home to the Midwest after enduring a long march to Vicksburg to board the Sultana.
Fogleman said other major pledges for the museum include $500,000 from the Marion Advertising & Promotion Commission, $161,000 from the historical society's board, $150,000 from Premier Bank and $100,000 from Fidelity Bank.
The city of Marion has acquired the old gym and will lease it to the Sultana Historical Preservation Society. Fogelman said the historical society will take possession of the gym after $3 million is raised. He said the society will be responsible for construction, maintenance and operations.
For more than a year, Haizlip Studio of Memphis and Asheville, N.C., has been working with Marion and the historical society on the architecture and exhibit project of the new museum, said Mary Haizlip.
She said the firm designed the Scott Family Amazeum in Bentonville and the Janet Huckabee Arkansas River Valley Nature Center in Fort Smith.
Haizlip said the museum will help expand tourism and economic development for the entire Delta, not just the city of Marion.
Kevin Kane, president and CEO of Memphis Tourism, echoed that.
"It's important for this entire region," he said. "This is a vital part of the history of the great Mississippi River."
In 2019, more than 13 million people visited Memphis, Kane said. More than 1.5 million coming from outside the United States.
Kane said visitors don't come just to see Memphis. They want to see things throughout the Delta area of Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee.
Kane predicted that tourism will make a "huge, huge comeback" as soon as the covid-19 pandemic is over.
Kevin Smith, the mayor of Helena-West Helena, said his city would benefit from the museum, as well.
"This is not just a Marion thing," he said. "This is a state thing and a regional thing and a national and possibly an international story."
The story of the Sultana disaster was overshadowed by other events at the time -- the end of the Civil War and the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.
"It's been an undertold story," Smith said. "It adds to the original tragedy that we have not adequately told this story."
"The history and culture of the Arkansas Delta makes the perfect mix for the heritage tourist," said Stacy Hurst, secretary of the Arkansas Department of Parks, Heritage and Tourism. "And indeed a rising tide lifts all boats. Over the past two decades, museums and historic sites throughout the region have drawn visitors worldwide as they tell the incredible stories that have grown from this rich soil."
Arkansas Sen. Keith Ingram, D-West Memphis, said the museum will help bind the Delta together. He noted that in addition to Smith the mayors of Marion, Marianna and West Memphis were at the event Tuesday.
"I come from the Ozark hills," Hutchinson said. "I grew up on the Spavinaw Creek. And going to school in Gravette and then to high school in Springdale, we studied, with great imagination, the history of the Mississippi River and contributions that it has made to our nation. It was with nostalgia, it was with romance, that you read about the Mississippi River and all that it means to our country and the adventures that it represented."
He said the new museum will help convey the history, the romance and the heartache of the sinking of the Sultana.
Hutchinson said he was declaring Tuesday as Sultana Disaster Remembrance Day.
More information on the museum can be found at https://www.sultanadisastermuseum.com.