City reinstalling Maumelle Rings

Concrete logos welcomed residents, visitors for 20 years

Maumelle has placed the old Maumelle Rings marker on a hillside along Maumelle Boulevard. The marker had been removed from the edge of the city limits a year ago.
Maumelle has placed the old Maumelle Rings marker on a hillside along Maumelle Boulevard. The marker had been removed from the edge of the city limits a year ago.

Once a familiar sight when entering Maumelle from either end of Maumelle Boulevard, the long-neglected Maumelle Rings made a return early this month.

One set of the rings -- a large, concrete duplicate of the city's logo of three interlocking rings -- appeared June 9 on a rise that is well off the east side of Maumelle Boulevard where northbound traffic approaches Riverland Drive.

A second, identical sculpture could be back up later, most likely inside the city's Lake Willastein Park, Mayor Mike Watson said last week.

The two sculptures were prominently displayed on the boulevard for about 20 years starting in the mid-1980s before being removed at different times for highway improvements at least 10 years ago.

"The goal is to get the one up, then we may start working on the second one," Watson said.

The two original sets of rings were inside the median near each end of the city limits on Maumelle Boulevard. They were taken down during road construction projects -- the last one around 2005, Watson estimated -- because they were inside the state Highway and Transportation Department's right of way. The boulevard obtained state highway status as Arkansas 100 in 1987.

For the past 10 or more years, the two sets of rings have been stored at the city's Public Works Department. The effort to restore them began last year when many residents called for the city to bring them back.

"It's still a work in progress," Watson said of the need to refinish the one already back up. "We only have the rings themselves. We didn't have the base where it said 'Maumelle.' We will put a sign with it that says 'Welcome to Maumelle' or 'Entering Maumelle.' That's something we need to do before we completely finish them.

"We want to put in some topsoil and put some landscaping around it and try to get some water to it and some lighting to it," Watson said. "We'll get them to where they're better to look at and get them restored."

Because the city's Public Works Department will do the work, the timing of the restoration will depend on when those crews finish existing drainage projects, he said. The restoration is hoped to be completed by late summer, he added.

The subject of the Maumelle Rings' fate came up last summer. A community Facebook page posted a photo of the rings at some point with a "do you remember?" tag line that drew attention, Watson said.

Last July, the city's official Facebook page posted a photo of former Public Works Director Robert Cogdell with a crew in front of one set of the concrete rings, circa 1985. The photo was posted two days after Cogdell and his wife, Patricia, were shot to death July 21 at their Conway home.

Justin Staton, 15, pleaded guilty in May to two counts of first-degree murder and other charges in the deaths of the Cogdells, who were the boy's legal guardians. He has begun serving a 35-year sentence. Three other teenagers are also charged in the case.

"There was a lot of citizen outcry from folks who wanted them back up," Watson said. "It was suggested after Mr. Cogdell's passing that it would be kind of a tribute to him to put them back up since he was involved with their creation."

Alderman Preston Lewis began a petition in late summer to bring back the rings, referring to them as "a unique symbol of Maumelle's community pride." This was after Lewis learned that the rings still existed, he recalled last week.

When he visited the Public Works compound to see them for himself, Lewis said, the rings "were not in the condition they were back in their heyday," but they were so solidly built that they could be restored "with a little bit of care." His petition "got a big response from a lot of people," he said.

Lewis added that he wished the first set that went up this month was more prominent. The rings are among some pine trees on city property on a slight hill just beyond where there's a sharp curve on Maumelle Boulevard.

"I'm glad they're back up," Lewis said. "I think it's unfortunate that this one is so hard to see. I don't agree with how far off the boulevard they are now."

The rings' positioning had to be outside of the highway's right of way and away from a sewer force main, Watson said.

"So we had to set it back farther than where we wanted it to be," Watson said.

The city did gain permission from the Highway Department and the owner of an adjacent private property to remove some pine trees on the front of the hill so the rings would be more visible.

Despite the placement, "just having them where they're not marooned out at the dump any longer is a good thing," Lewis said.

Metro on 06/27/2016

Upcoming Events