POTTSVILLE -- What do "first lady" dolls, ornate hats, antique medical instruments, vintage farm equipment and a rusty metal bathtub have in common?
They all are arrayed in outbuildings on the grounds of the eclectic Pottsville Inn Museum, a Classical Revival-style mansion that once catered to passengers on the Butterfield Overland Express stagecoach line.
The First Ladies Doll Museum portrays the wives of all U.S. presidents and Arkansas governors in their inaugural gowns. Decorating Martha Washington's gown are embroidered bees and ants, a favored motif in the late 18th century. There's no doll for the wife of James Buchanan, because he was unmarried. The niece who served as his ceremonial first lady didn't qualify for this display.
Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, shows up twice -- having been a gubernatorial and a presidential spouse. Should Clinton be elected president in November, presumably husband Bill will be added to the doll menagerie, clad in tuxedo. Should Donald Trump win the White House, his third wife would be the first Slovene-American in the collection.
One more doll shows up in another log structure housing the Hat Museum. The figure represents the late Willie Oates, onetime University of Arkansas Razorbacks cheerleader and state legislator, known as "the Hat Lady" for her array of flamboyant headwear.
Many of the vintage hats were designed by William McLean. A milliner originally from Clarksville, he went to New York and made hats in the 1920s for such luminaries as President Calvin Coolidge's wife and Queen Marie of Romania.
The former smokehouse of Potts Inn houses the Doctor's Museum, displaying medical gear used by a town doctor a century ago. A barn stores an antique tractor and an assortment of other farm gear.
In an outbuilding that served as the inn's kitchen reposes the rusty bathtub. It would be filled with clean hot water just once a day. The first inn guest to bathe would pay the most for priority seating. The price would go down for each succeeding bather as the water got colder and dirtier.
The only surviving stagecoach stop in Arkansas on the Butterfield route to California, Potts Inn was built for pioneer Pope County settler Kirkbride Potts. He'd migrated to the Arkansas River Valley in the 1840s from Pennsylvania with two families of slaves, whose men did most of the construction work.
Potts' marriage to Arkansan Pamela Logan produced 11 children, and their descendants lived in the home until the county bought it in the 1970s. It is managed by the Pope County Historic Foundation.
While operating the inn, Potts also served as postmaster for the fledgling community. The postal desk with its mere dozen mail slots occupies the 12-foot-wide central hallway of the 21/2-story building. Artifacts in the parlor include the original family Bible as well as an oil-lamp chandelier dating to 1858. The family's daughters were married in the parlor, where funerals took place as well.
Each of the four upstairs bedrooms contained four beds, which could accommodate eight paying guests sleeping two to a bed. When the inn was full, the Potts children would be relegated to the stuffy attic. Those good old days were not always so good.
Pottsville Inn Museum, 15 Second St., Pottsville, is open 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Wednesday-Sunday. Admission is $5 for adults, $2 for children. Pottsville is 70 miles northwest of Little Rock via Interstate 40. Call (479) 968-8369 or visit pottsinnmuseum.com.
Style on 05/31/2016