BERRYVILLE -- Most towns of 5,000 are fortunate to have one museum. Northwest Arkansas' Berryville boasts three, each with its distinctive allures.
The Carroll County Heritage Center showcases the history and culture of Berryville and its surroundings. The potpourri of exhibits includes an Ozark moonshiner's whiskey still and a violin maker's shop.
The Saunders Museum houses the astonishingly varied acquisitions of a wealthy global traveler from Berryville, who also amassed a world-class gun collection.
Memory Lane Museum presents a jumble of Americana from service stations and other commercial enterprises during the wistfully remembered post-World War II era of the Truman and Eisenhower presidencies.
The moonshine paraphernalia at the Carroll County Heritage Center was confiscated by authorities in 1969 near the Carroll-Benton county line. It evidently had been distilling illicit hooch since the Prohibition decade of the 1920s. The violin artisan's shop dates back a century or more.
The museum's furnished replicas of 19th- and early 20th-century households include a parlor, a dining room, two bedrooms and a pioneer kitchen. There are also a vintage barbershop, apothecary, doctor's office, country store, schoolroom and funeral parlor.
One eye-catching item is a life-size statue of Carrie Nation. The temperance zealot, who spent her last years in Eureka Springs a dozen miles west of Berryville, is toting a hatchet like the one she used to smash liquor bottles in saloons. She called herself "a bulldog running along at the feet of Jesus, barking at what He doesn't like."
At the Saunders Museum, gun enthusiasts can admire the hundreds of rare firearms on display. They include weapons used by such famous and infamous figures as "Buffalo Bill" Cody, "Wild Bill" Hickok, Frank and Jesse James, Billy the Kid and Belle Starr.
Other visitors may be more fascinated by the artifacts that C. Burton Saunders collected during extensive global travels. Saunders' family moved from Texas to Berryville when he was a boy. Having later made his fortune in California, he came back to Berryville in 1919 at age 52 with the guns and other objects he had amassed.
Saunders did a lot of travel on the Arabian Peninsula. A remarkable item he brought back is a colorful hand-woven tent said to have been made by a sheik's harem of 200 women and embroidered with gold thread. The tent was presented to Saunders after he won a shooting match against the sheik, who also gave him an ornate blunderbuss weapon on display.
Opened four years ago by retired carpenter Jerry Tanksley on the eastern fringe of Berryville, Memory Lane Museum displays a potpourri of not-so-long-ago objects. A good many are automobile-focused, including filling station signs, gas pumps, tire changers and other gear.
Nostalgia is meant to be evoked here, as it is likely to be stimulated at the Carroll County Heritage Center and the Saunders Museum. It's fair to say that a little nostalgia can go a long way, but it still brightens the brain to journey back to the real or imagined past.
The Carroll County Heritage Center, in the 1880 courthouse on Berryville Square, is open 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday-Friday. Admission is $2 (children $1). Call (870) 423-6312 or visit rootsweb.ancestry.com/~arcchs/Tour/.
The Saunders Museum, 115 E. Madison Ave., Berryville, is open 10:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Saturday. Admission is $5 (children $3). Call (870) 423-2563 or visit berryville.com/museum.
Memory Lane Museum, 45 U.S. 62 E., Berryville, is open 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, 1-5 p.m. Sunday. Admission is $5 (children $3). Call (870) 423-3600.
Weekend on 07/16/2015