SMACKOVER -- A museum focused on oil, with a supporting role for brine, seems a dubious target for a family outing.
But a traveling exhibit now at the Arkansas Museum of Natural Resources -- formerly known as the Arkansas Oil and Brine Museum -- is brimming with hands-on fun (and learning) for youngsters (and adults).
The attraction, Mindbender Mansion, is at the state park outside Smackover until March 17. In its several rooms (actually alcoves), youngsters and adults "are encouraged to think outside the box and collaborate with their fellow guests to meet individual and group challenges." These include "manipulating a tilt table, forming patterns in rolling chairs, keeping up with a conveyor belt, maneuvering a flying machine and disco hopscotch spelling."
Especially bustling last Saturday afternoon was Feeding Frenzy, the conveyor-belt game in the mansion's "kitchen." A half-dozen youngsters, along with a mother and a grandmother, were busy trying to match the conveyor belt's speed. The scene evoked a classic I Love Lucy episode, when she and Ethel Mertz are overwhelmed by a runaway conveyor in a candy factory.
Feeding Frenzy players aim to fill fast-rolling TV-dinner trays with five pieces of plastic food. Completing the specified number of trays gives access to clues for answering questions about health and nutrition. Like the rest of the exhibit, which appeared earlier this year at the Museum of Discovery in Little Rock, the exercise is designed to tease players into creative thinking.
The main point of Mindbender Mansion, as its website explains, "is the essential scientific task of problem solving and critical thinking." To solve the puzzles, "visitors must identify patterns, think ahead, use logical reasoning, and look at the problems from different perspectives, setting aside preconceived ideas."
As the nation nears the end of a presidential campaign where logical reasoning has often seemed in short supply, an exhibit that encourages rational thinking is definitely welcome. The 25,000-square-foot museum's permanent displays are also stimulating, as they tell the historical and geological stories behind the south Arkansas oil boom of the early 1920s.
Before the oil bonanza, Smackover was a village of 100 residents. Today, the count is just under 2,000. In 1925, its population peaked at 25,000, in a year when the Smackover Field -- unlikely as it may now seem -- ranked No. 1 in U.S. oil production. Life was rough here, the story of which is told along the museum's Boom Town Street, where a model of the jail has a prominent place.
Another permanent exhibit is the Earth Globe, where visitors "experience a walk through the center of the earth and see where oil and bromine are located throughout the world." The Undersea Diorama takes a trip "200 million years back in time to the Jurassic Period" to learn "how oil is formed on the ocean's floor."
A novelty is the Circus Truck, a chance to "learn about one of south Arkansas' most popular legends, Rhene Miller Meyer, the famous 'Goat Woman.' See what entertainment was like in a boom town."
For visitors clueless about brine, an exhibit explains that it is extracted from deposits of the element bromine that were later drawn from the Arkansas oil field. More than half the bromine still mined in the area and elsewhere is used in fire retardants.
The museum's outside space, Oil Field Park, displays a photogenic assortment of derricks and other equipment used to extract oil and bromide from the Roaring '20s boom period to the modern era. The tallest derrick stands 112 feet high.
An added attraction from 5 to 7 p.m. Saturday is the museum's Fall Festival, for which there's a $5 admission fee. Included in the annual event are pumpkin coloring, face painting and fortunetelling -- with prizes for the best participants.
Arkansas Museum of Natural Resources, on Arkansas 7 a mile south of Smackover and 10 miles north of El Dorado, is open 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Saturday, 1-5 p.m. Sunday. Admission is free. For details, visit amnr.org or ArkansasStateParks.com. Or call (870) 725-2877.
Weekend on 10/20/2016