My quest to capture and preserve as many memories of Rogers as possible led me to an interview with Jerry Hiett. Jerry came to Rogers in 1970 and worked as executive editor for the Rogers Daily News, served many years on the City Council, and operated his antique and auction business. He and his family were also instrumental in the founding and sustaining of the Rogers Historical Museum. His jobs led him to meet many influential people, and he was involved in much of the history of Rogers from 1970 until the present. Here is some of his background and a few of his adventures:
"I got into the newspaper business as a teenager working at the Hutchison (Kansas) News, the second biggest newspaper in Kansas. When I left for college at Kansas State, my publisher, Jack Harris, guaranteed me a job when I graduated, but I had to major in something other than journalism, with a minor in journalism. So I took courses in political science, but due to a conflict with a counselor, I ended up with a degree in journalism."
"I married Virginia, and left the news business in 1964. We moved to Denver, and I worked for six years as a professional photographer. We moved to Rogers in 1970 to join my parents in the antique and auction business. Being an ex-newspaper man, I hung around the Rogers Morning News office, and hit it off with the staff and Billy Moore, the general manager. An opening came, and Billy hired me as executive editor in the fall of 1970. I worked as editor until 1976, under general managers Billy Moore, Bob Nunally and Oscar 'Okie' Boyd."
So why did you leave the newspaper business, I asked.
"I came home one night and my 3-year-old son, Lee, said that the family was going to the fair, but you aren't going because you are too busy. I resigned from the Rogers Daily News and successfully ran for the city council. At that time, the position paid about $25 per month. I rejoined my dad, Fred Hiett, in the antique and auction business. I was the third generation in the business, which was started by my grandmother in 1907. For several years, our auction business was the exclusive auctioneer chosen to liquidate all of the trusts for the First National Bank and other banks in the area. Some of our auctions brought buyers from 30 states."
I asked Jerry how the Rogers Historical Museum got started.
"In 1974, a Bicentennial Committee was appointed by city leaders to celebrate our nation's 200th birthday coming up in 1976. The committee consisted of Vera Key, Jerry Hiett, Harold Jones, and others, with John Sampier as chairman. Their first project was to establish a historical museum. With Harold Jones' assistance, they applied for and received a grant of $100,000 with 90% federal, 5% state, and 5% local funds."
"Vera Key was chosen as chairperson of the first Museum Commission. Other commissioners were Ellen Luffman, Davis Duty, Peel Strode, Fred Hiett, Gale Hall, Madeline Lee, Marjorie Bryant and Beth Hough. In 1977, Kathleen Dickerson was appointed to the commission and served until her passing this year."
"The Museum Commission secured the historic old Bank of Rogers building at 114 S. Second St. as the first home of the new museum. To aid in creating the museum, Beth Hough, the wife of Daisy president Cass Hough, decided to form the Friends of the Museum, an auxiliary made up of Rogers and area citizens interested in the museum. Beth gave a party in her elegant apartment over the offices of the Daisy Company on Highway 71 South, and everyone who brought a donation for the museum became a member of the Friends. Some of the original Friends of the Museum were Virginia Hiett, Ruth Ann Stites, Nancy Mendenhall, Georgia Hillman and Virginia Clark. There were lots of charter members, and the museum has a hand-lettered document with all of their names."
I knew that Jerry knew many interesting and influential people from the 1970s up to today, so I asked about some who stood out.
"I was friends with Cass Hough, and he was ultra-rich, but never acted like it. He was just a regular person."
"Laurence Harris was my banker at First National Bank. In the fall of 1970, I walked into the bank and asked to borrow $5,000. I explained that I wanted to go to Illinois and buy a load of antiques and bring them back here to auction them off. I had never met him, but he knew who I was and had the cashier write me a check with no paperwork or collateral. We both profited, and I made about $10,000 from that deal."
"Another person that I knew was Jack Cole, the police chief. I was the chairman of the Public Safety Committee on the city council, and had many dealings with him. One day in 1979 he called and wanted to donate the old jail cells to the Rogers Museum. He explained that some federal judge had issued a ruling that prohibited holding prisoners behind bars as cruel and unusual punishment, so he was removing the iron jail cells and installing concrete rooms for cells. The museum wanted the jail, but had no room to store it, so the Rogers Street Department removed the jail from the City Hall on Elm Street and placed it in my grove near my house. We went through three police chiefs, who all wanted the jail, but no one ever came to get it. It sat in that field for 32 years, until it was recovered and restored in 2011 by John Burroughs and the staff and volunteers of the Rogers Historical Museum. The original 1894 city jail can be seen today in the new RHM in the restored 1947 Hailey Building on South Second Street."
Jerry asked me if a story about Monte Ne was appropriate for columns about Rogers. I said yes, Monte Ne is an important part of Rogers history. Here is a fascinating story of Coin Harvey (the founder of the famous Monte Ne Resort) and Harvey Jones, founder of Jones Truck Lines which became the largest privately owned trucking company in the nation:
"It was in early 1980s when I received a call from Harvey Jones of Springdale. He said he knew how active I was in Northwest Arkansas history, and wanted to solicit my help in tracking down the persons in charge of Coin Harvey's grave. We set up a meeting, and he explained that he and his wife, Bernice, had gone to Monte Ne on Sunday to visit Coin Harvey's grave. Not only was it almost impossible to find, the weeds were so high a person had to look close to even determine it was a grave site. He then explained why he needed my help with this information:
"When the Great Depression was in full swing and businesses were going broke on a daily basis, his business was steadily growing in size, although he did not say why. I knew him well enough to know why -- Jones worked 14 to 18 hours per day and would accept almost anything offered as payment, in contrast to others trying to operate a hauling business. He said his business was reaching a point that he absolutely had to build a warehouse. He said he was going to everyone he knew, including ones that had gone out of business, asking if they had any building materials he could borrow, beg or barter for.
"He was not making much headway when he went to see Coin Harvey. Coin told him that he had just finished closing down the railroad line from Rogers to Monte Ne. He said the main items that he still had, that he could not find a buyer for at any price, were the rails. 'He told me I could have as many as I wanted if I had a use for them.' Then Harvey Jones said to me: 'The next time you are in downtown Springdale, drop in at my warehouse (which is just east of the railroad tracks on Emma Street) and look up. Those steel rafters reaching from wall to wall holding the roof up -- that is the Monte Ne railroad.' He went on to say without those rails it would have been years later before he could have built the warehouse. The gift of those rails was so important that he wanted to set up a perpetual trust to take care of the grave forever. Before I could get the names to him, Bernice called to tell me that Harvey had suffered a massive stroke, which he never recovered from before his death. The trust died with Harvey Jones."
These are just a few of the memories of Jerry Hiett, a photographer, newspaper editor, businessman, museum commissioner, and strong supporter of Rogers and its history for the past 51 years.
