RESTORATION
The original front remains of the theatre, which is being rebuilt
services, including a cannery where the women would can their fruits and veg- etables and then distribute them to the families. We plan to develop an experi- ence where visitors are taught how to can and preserve fruits and vegetables and then take them home. For the people in the area, the project
is going to be a major economic benefi t. The town is small and shrinking, so this is its hope for survival. We expect it to create more than 100 new jobs in the area and bring in $10m (£6.5m, 7.6m) annually in visitor related expendi- tures. They won’t be spending all this money in Dyess, but for all of north east Arkansas, it’s going to have a major impact, as people gear up for the lodg- ing, food and retail opportunities.
How did Arkansas State University become involved? Through our Arkansas Heritage Sites programme. We also own the Hemmingway-Pfeiffer museum in Piffot, Arkansas, which is where Ernest Hemmingway did some of his writing, and the Southern Tennant Farmers museum in Tyronso, Arkansas, which is where the Southern Tennant Farmers Union was established in 1934. It was the fi rst agricultural union that had both black and white farmers in the same union. It also had women in leadership positions, which was highly unusual. We also own the Lake Port Plantation
in southeast Arkansas. It’s the last remaining antebellum [prior to the American Civil War] plantation home on the Mississippi River and still has many of its original fi nishes. All these properties are nationally sig- nifi cant. The sites serve as educational
54
ABOUT THE NEW DEAL
The New Deal was a series of economic programmes enacted in the United States between 1933 and 1936. They involved presidential executive orders or laws passed by congress during the fi rst term of President Franklin D Roosevelt. The programmes were in response to the Great Depression and focused on what historians call the Three Rs: Relief, Recovery and Reform. Relief for the unemployed and poor; recovery of the economy to normal levels; and reform of the fi nancial system to prevent a repeat depression.
laboratories for our students, as well as being open to visitors, and are an eco- nomical catalyst in their area.
What have been the challenges? The major one is that the entire area of Dyess is made up of gumbo soil, which has clay in it and is very sticky. It moves and shifts when wet and creates major cracks and crevices when it dries. Because of this, the houses are unlevel. That’s one of the reasons the Johnny Cash home looked so bad – it was sag- ging in the middle and out of kilter. To fi x that, and prevent it happening again, we moved the house off the foundation, dug a 7ft (2m)-deep trench where the house sat, removed the gumbo soil and repacked it with a better draining soil. Then we created a 2ft (0.6m)-wide con- crete foundation around the perimeter. The house sits up on triangular peers, which form the foundation of the house. We didn’t want to destroy that historic look, so once we’d put the 2ft foun- dation in, we hid it with dirt, set the concrete peers back on top of the con- crete foundation, then moved the house back. We spent a lot of money on things you can’t see, but that were necessary to save the house from being damaged and shifting in the future.
Read Attractions Management online
attractionsmanagement.com/digital The house sits on a county road, so
local traffi c goes by. Ideally, to protect the house, we’d like to close it off, so you can only access it on tours from the administration building, but that’s not possible, so we need to fi nd a way to handle the traffi c situation. Also, we’re being told to pave the
road, but we don’t want to, as that’s the gravel dirt road that Johnny Cash walked down to go fi shing or to school. We’re looking at how to accommodate a major increase in visitors while main- taining the historic character of the property and the area around it.
How will the experience be developed? One of the advantages of the project being associated with our Heritage Studies PHD programme is that we want to continue to develop and offer educational programming. As well as the cannery, we plan to do special pro- gramming, workshops, seminars and educational programmes. I envisage showing documentaries about all the different aspects of the era. The project isn’t a shrine to Johnny
Cash: it’s about music, the 1930s, the Depression and The New Deal. All these subjects give us many opportunities for developing new experiences. ●
AM 2 2013 ©Cybertrek 2013
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