FORT SMITH -- One of the most famous -- and some say infamous -- characters of the city's early days, Federal Judge Isaac C. Parker, will be the centerpiece of a small park being developed at the eastern tip of downtown.
Former Sebastian County Circuit Judge Jim Spears briefed city directors last week on the progress of establishing what is being called Gateway Park, where Rogers and Garrison avenues come together and form a point.
"We believe Gateway Park will create a beautiful and memorable gateway into downtown Fort Smith with areas for rest, reflection and education," said John McIntosh with 64/6 Downtown, the organization that is spearheading the project.
McIntosh said the park is expected to open around Oct. 1.
A noted sculptor, Spencer Schubert of Kansas City, Mo., has been retained and is creating three bronze statues for the 1-acre park. Parker's will be a lifesize-and-a-half statue of the federal judge sitting in a chair, holding a law book and looking to the northeast toward Washington, D.C., Spears said.
Parker, the federal judge in Fort Smith from 1875-1896, has a grim reputation as the hanging judge, but Spears said Parker was a community leader who made many contributions to Fort Smith. He was on the original School Board, he helped set up and sat on the board of St. John's hospital, and he took over the most corrupt federal court in the country and reformed it.
"So he is a much bigger figure than the Old West character of the hanging judge, and we want to recognize that," Spears said.
During his 21 years on the bench, Parker sentenced 160 defendants to death, of whom 79 were executed, according to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture.
The other two lifesize statues will be of John Carnall, who started the public education system in Fort Smith, and of Mother Superior Mary Teresa Farrell of the Sisters of Mercy, who represents the establishment of health care in Fort Smith.
Born in Virginia, according to the Fort Smith Historical Society, Carnall arrived in Fort Smith in 1840 and opened one of the first schools in the city, the Fort Smith Academy. He set up a second school on his farm on Massard Prairie. Carnall Elementary School at 2524 Tulsa St. is named for him.
Carnall also was a newspaper editor, served as a chief deputy U.S. marshal and was the first circuit clerk for Sebastian County.
Farrell came to the United States in 1850 from her native Ireland after being recruited by Little Rock Diocese Bishop Andrew Byrne to build up the Catholic population in Arkansas, according to the Mercy Fort Smith website.
After helping establish the mission in Little Rock, Byrne sent her and other sisters to Fort Smith to set up a mission there. They established their first school, St. Anne's Academy, in 1853, which became the center for education in Fort Smith.
The Civil War prompted the closing of the schools for the buildings' use as hospitals, where the Sisters of Mercy nursed both Union and Confederate soldiers.
"The seeds of a health care ministry were planted and, in 1905, the 30-bed St. Edward Infirmary was opened," the Mercy website said.
In addition to the statues, the park will feature a landscaped courtyard and a bank of three flags -- American, Arkansas and Fort Smith. It will have trees, a lawn area and benches. The city will build sidewalks and put in streetlights, Spears said.
The land for the park was donated. Spears said the eastern section of the park, which was donated by the Griffin Charitable Trust, now has a building decorated in bright colors by an artist in the first Unexpected artist festival. It will be razed.
The building once served as A.C. Taylor's Mobil gas station, Spears said. Gas tanks still under ground will have to be removed, but Spears said a grant has been obtained to pay for the work.
The western section of the park, called Harwood Park, was donated by Bancorp South, which sits across Rogers Avenue from the park site.
The two sections are separated by a small length of 13th Street, which the city is going to abandon and donate for the park.
McIntosh said demolition work on the park is expected to begin in January.
The total cost of the project being paid for with private donations, Spears said, is $578,000, of which the group needs to raise an additional $200,000. With the price of the land, he said, the project's value is about $1 million.
With completion of Gateway Park, Fort Smith will have five bronze historical figures on Garrison Avenue.
"I challenge you that there is not another city in the Southwest that has more," Spear said.
Along with the three under creation for Gateway Park, there is a statue of legendary deputy U.S. Marshal Bass Reeves on horseback facing west at Pendergraft Park at Second Street and Garrison Avenue that was dedicated May 25, 2012.
In Cisterna Park, at 11th Street and Garrison Avenue, is the statue of Gen. William O. Darby mounted on a motorcycle that was dedicated April 30, 2016, the anniversary of his death in Italy in 1945. Darby was the intrepid commander of the Army's first organized Ranger battalion in World War II, known as Darby's Rangers.
Spears said a sixth bronze statue is being contributed by the Five Civilized Tribes of Oklahoma and will sit on the grounds of the U.S. Marshals Museum that is under construction on the banks of the Arkansas River.
In June, the museum's board of directors voted to accept the tribes' recommendation for the statue of a native lighthorseman by Cherokee-Pawnee artist Dan HorseChief of Sallisaw, Okla.
Lighthorsemen were the American Indians' law enforcement arm and worked with federal marshals to keep order in the Indian Territory before Oklahoma's statehood.
State Desk on 12/03/2018