After building an elevator to access an upstairs room and through reaching out to younger members of the community, the Bauxite Historical Association is revamping and updating the Bauxite Museum in the town that helped the nation win a world war.
“We had the big room upstairs, but before we had the elevator, the steps leading up to the big hall made it hard for people to get up there,” said Melba Shepard, curator of the museum and a member of the association. “We had thought we would put the things from the ’6os, ’70s, ’80s and ’90s up there, and it is still the plan, but our military exhibition has also grown.”
The Bauxite Museum is in a large yellow building a few steps down the hill from Bauxite Middle School. Built by the aluminum company when the city had as many as 15,000 residents, the building, known as The Hall, was the community center of the social life in Bauxite.
“Any event we had was held there,” said Shepard, who grew up in Bauxite and graduated from Bauxite High School in 1959. “The mining company collected one hour’s pay each month [from miners] to run the community center.”
The city in those days mined the mineral for which the town is named to make aluminum.
“During World War II and afterward, Bauxite was a considerable instrument in the war effort and defending the country through air power,” Shepard said. “Ninety percent of the aluminum that was made into airplanes came from Bauxite.”
The great room upstairs was built to be the community’s Masonic Hall and also served as a teen center for the youngsters in the community.
“We would have a band on the stage along one wall, and we would have dances here,” Joey DuVall said in 2012, when he was president of the historic association.
“The windows used to be doors out to a balcony. The boys would slip out for a smoke, or a couple would come out looking for a little privacy and sneak a kiss or two, away from the chaperones.”
The museum has long tried to capture that time when the city was a boom town. But association members said it is time to reflect on some of the history of the school district and the community that has occurred in the past 50 years.
“When it began, they said they would have things in the museum that were from 20 years ago,” DuVall said. “I told the board in 2012 that 20 years ago was 1992. We must move forward, and that will require younger people to get involved in the museum.”
Later history will be centered around the activities and accomplishments of the Bauxite School District. A room off the grand hall upstairs is dedicated to the school sports teams from the ’60s to 2000. During that time, the Miners, clad in black-and-gray uniforms, captured several state football championships, beginning with an undefeated season in 1959.
“We have a lot of things given to us by Skip Arzt, a member of the Bauxite Hall of Fame,” Shepard said. “He gave us things from his football career when he made all-state and all-American during 1984 and 1985.
Outside the sports room, there is a re-creation of Christmas in the late 1940s and early ’50s with furniture and toys from the period and, of course, an aluminum Christmas tree.
Near the display of min-ing equipment, rock samples, company equipment and documents from the mining operation in Bauxite is the largest of all the sections of the museum — the one honoring the Bauxite residents who saw combat while serving in the armed forces.
One of the largest displays is from Fred Sheridan, a native of Bauxite who now lives near Pine Bluff. That display features the story of Sheridan’s service in Korea and Vietnam as a member of the U.S. Army. The exhibition includes his two Silver Stars, the nation’s third-highest military decoration for valor, awarded for gallantry in action against the enemy. Sheridan’s display also features a rifle and bayonet Sheridan took from a communist soldier’s foxhole in Vietnam.
“Our latest military display downstairs started with nine pictures of Bauxite boys who served in the military,” Shepard said. “It now has 69 pictures, and it keeps growing.”
There are uniforms, letters, ship models and photographs depicting the service of those who answered their nation’s call to serve in wars from World War I to Afghanistan.
Shepard said the museum now has room to grow, and she marvels that it has a group of people who have been able to build such a collection with very little funds.
“You would be surprised at how little we spend,” Shepard said. “We volunteer our time and money, and if we need something done, someone knows someone who can get it for us cheaper.”
She added that the cost of the elevator did not touch the museum funds but was paid for with contributions from community members. A plaque on an elevator wall lists the names of major donors.
Staff writer Wayne Bryan can be reached at (501) 224-4460 or wbryan@arkansasonline.com.