BLYTHEVILLE -- Two sites in this far northeastern Arkansas city of nearly 16,000 can speak to the sweeping changes in Natural State race relations since the Jim Crow era.
At the historic Greyhound bus station, restored as a museum evoking the heyday of intercity bus travel in the 1930s and '40s, visitors are shown the separate and much smaller "Colored" waiting room. They learn that blacks, forbidden to sit at the depot's lunch counter, had to order through a window at the back.
A few blocks away, That Bookstore in Blytheville -- a literary landmark famously operated from 1976 to 2012 by Mary Gay Shipley -- now has a black proprietor. In legally segregated Arkansas, black ownership of a retail outlet with a substantial white clientele would have been pretty much unthinkable.
Blytheville's evolving history is echoed in two other downtown attractions, the revitalized Ritz Theater and the nascent Delta Gateway Museum. Along with the bus station and bookstore, they add up to a stimulating morning or afternoon here. Cheerful hosts enliven the stops.
Welcoming visitors to the former Greyhound depot is Tucker Nunn, executive director of Main Street Blytheville, the city's tourism and economic agency. It may seem hard to believe, but he reports that the station is said to be the most photographed commercial building in Arkansas.
For younger visitors, one of the strangest features in the main waiting room may be the telephone booth built into one wall. Mounted in the booth is a dial phone, from a time when local calls cost a nickel.
The station opened in 1938 to serve passengers on Dixie Greyhound Lines, the company's primary north-south route between Chicago and New Orleans. A fine example of Art Moderne style, it avoided demolition when Greyhound moved its Blytheville stop near Interstate 55 on the edge of town in the 1990s.
A few blocks away, Chris Crawley owns That Bookstore in Blytheville, which he bought three years ago from Grant Hill, who became the proprietor after Shipley retired. Crawley has maintained the cozy feeling of the store, which has a comfortable sitting area in the back with a potbellied stove.
Operating an independent bookstore in a community Blytheville's size is a challenge, he says, the more so these days when so many books are bought online. He hopes to add a cafe and bar by the end of this year.
The Ritz Theater, a one-time movie house in the same Main Street block as the bookstore, houses the Ritz Civic Center.
Arts and entertainment take place in the building, which is open weekdays for tours. The guided visit even takes in the capacious women's restroom, which features an ornately decorated waiting area complete with sofa.
A work in progress is the Delta Gateway Museum, located in the historic S.H. Kress Building, once a Main Street five-and-dime store.
Already open to visitors but still developing its exhibits, the museum showcases the history of agriculture and industry in Mississippi County. It aims to trace residents' "trials and tribulations and the impact of nature -- and the expertise they developed from the pre-Columbian era till modern times."
The historic Greyhound bus station, 109 N. Fifth St., is open 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday. Admission is free. The building also houses the Main Street Blytheville tourism office. Call (870) 763-2525 or visit mainstreetblytheville.com.
That Bookstore in Blytheville, 316 W. Main St., is open 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday-Saturday. Call (870) 763-3333 or visit thatbookstoreinblytheville.com.
Ritz Civic Center, 306 W. Main St., is open 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday. Admission is free. Call (870) 762-1744 or visit artsmissco.org.
Delta Gateway Museum, 210 W. Main St., is open 1-5 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday. Admission is free. Call (870) 824-2346 or visit deltagatewaymuseum.org.
Style on 02/23/2016