BENTON -- Financial times were tough in 1893, and many of Dr. Dewell Gann's patients didn't have the money to pay their medical bills.
In lieu of cash, they settled up by building him a new office -- out of bauxite. Surface deposits on a farm near Benton supplied the pastel-colored rock, which in later decades would become the valuable source of aluminum.
The ore, which gives the facade its distinctive look, was soft enough to be sawed into blocks. Then hardened for six weeks, it formed what is said to be the world's only building made of bauxite. The structure served as the office of Gann and his doctor son until 1946, then became a public library, and now houses the Gann Museum of Saline County.
If the unique bauxite construction were its only virtue, the Gann Museum would be worth a drive-by to admire the novel facade along with the Victorian-era splendor of the mansion next door where the doctor lived.
But it's well worth going inside to view the museum's array of intriguing exhibits. They're described during a personal tour by Elton Fitzhugh, the enthusiastic executive director. Objects range from a trove of swirl-patterned Niloak pottery made in Benton to a cleverly designed boiled-egg timer with an attached sand clock set for three minutes.
The former Gann office has separate front doors for men and women. According to Fitzhugh, that allowed female patients to enter without risking contact with any rough-and-tumble railroad or factory worker who happened to be seeing the doctor.
An oddity among the locally made pottery on display is a tombstone in the shape of a butter churn. It was crafted in 1878 for a family that had lost two children in an epidemic while crossing Arkansas in a covered wagon.
A glass case labeled "The Staner Murder" contains artifacts including the fireplace poker used to kill Hattie Staner and a neighbor in 1877. Hattie's nephew, Tom Staner, confessed to having committed the murders during a robbery. His hanging on the courthouse lawn was Saline County's only legal execution.
Displayed in the museum's front room is the desk used by the senior Gann, with a note that he delivered more than 3,000 babies without ever losing a mother during childbirth. Low on the wall of another room is a well-worn imprint of the doctor's foot. It was made over the years as he sat in a rocker with his foot propped up waiting for a patient.
The history of bauxite mining in Saline County is told in some detail, with exhibits focusing on the boom periods between the two World Wars, when aluminum ore was much in military demand.
From 1941 to 1945, the nearby company town of Bauxite teemed with thousands of workers and their families. Hundreds of dwellings and other structures were hammered together. But nobody thought to erect another building made of bauxite.
The Gann Museum of Saline County, 218 S. Market St., Benton, is generally open 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday. Admission is free. Donations are welcome. For details, call (501) 778-5513.
Weekend on 03/31/2016