The Encyclopedia of Arkansas’s Ever-Growing Media Collection: New Additions

Some of the most recent additions have come from Cabot’s Museum of American History and from the CALS Butler Center for Arkansas Studies.

The Museum of American History, formerly known as The Museum/Cabot High, is the only student-founded and -operated museum of history in Arkansas. The award-winning museum, which is owned by the Cabot School District, was founded in 1985 on the campus of Cabot High School and was later moved to a building in downtown Cabot (Lonoke County). It is currently closed pending relocation to a new site. The museum holds a large number of historic Arkansas photographs, many of which were rescued from impending disposal. Founded under the guidance of the CALS Encyclopedia of Arkansas’s staff historian Mike Polston and fellow teacher David Howard, the award-winning museum was named Museum of the Year by the Arkansas Museum Association in 2003. The EOA has nearly 1,000 examples from the museum’s collection of photos of Arkansas people, structures, events, and communities.

 

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Over the years, the Central Arkansas Library System’s Butler Center for Arkansas Studies has accumulated a vast quantity of photographs. Recently, it has begun digitizing a series of hundreds of these photos depicting life in various Arkansas communities. The focus of this category includes scenes of streets, businesses, and historic buildings and sites, showing life in communities in Arkansas, both big and small. The photos capture life in the state, freezing Arkansas history at certain moments in time. The EOA contains more than 1,200 photos from the Butler Center’s collections.

 

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Browse the EOA’s entire collection of more than 11,000 images here. The EOA is also always seeking photos, documents, and other media from organizations and individuals. Learn how to suggest or provide media here.

By Mike Keckhaver, media editor of the CALS Encyclopedia of Arkansas