After three years of construction and delays caused by the pandemic, the Calico Rock Museum and Visitor Center will be opening the new history museum exhibits this Saturday, just in time for Memorial Day Weekend. The history museum, art gallery, and artisan gift shop will now be open to the public.
The museum will reopen the science center, completing the entire museum expansion, later this summer. It will officially dedicate its new 14,000 square foot facility on the second weekend in September.
“We really started this project 15 years ago when we opened our very first museum inside the back room of the city’s visitor information center,” says Gloria Sanders, executive director for the museum. “It was just a one-room museum and a dream that has grown to 14,000 square feet in three historic buildings. It’s the product of a lot of hard work, lot of dedication, lot of faith, and a lot of gifts by folks that love Calico Rock.”
The new history museum exhibits transport visitors back in time and immerse them into the area’s history. Visitors can stroll along the banks of the White River, where trading is happening between Native Americans and European trappers. Guests will board The Ozark Queen steamboat, land at the Jeffery family homestead and cabin, enter an early one-room meeting house, shop at the Calico Rock General Store at the turn of the 20th Century, buy a ticket at the Calico Rock Depot and board a caboose on a train trip to a the 21st Century. Guests will stroll along Main Street and learn about the area’s medical pioneers inside The Little White House, the first hospital in Izard County.
The museum is open Tuesday-Thursday 10-4 and Friday-Saturday 10-6. For more information, visit calicorockmuseum.com or call 870-297-6100.
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