Whether it's your walking shoes or your boogie shoes, downtown Pine Bluff will be hosting two fun-filled events guaranteed to get your feet moving and grooving from noon to midnight Saturday in the Historic District.
From noon to 4 p.m., Pine Bluff Downtown Development Inc., Pine Bluff Advertising and Promotion Commission, Explore Pine Bluff, the Pine Bluff Historic District Commission and business owners will offer visitors an up-close and personal look into the history of their buildings during the perservation building tour.
Along the Main Street corridor, 15 inspiring buildings will be open to tourists in conjunction with Preservation month, which is celebrated in May.
"This is our first annual," said Mary Ann Lee, chair of the Pine Bluff Historic District Commission and owner of Indigo Blue Coffeehouse.
During the month of May, many events are planned to promote historic places to instill national and community pride, promote heritage tourism and show the social and economic benefits of historic preservation.
"One of the things we wanted to do was not only recognize the month but highlight some of the preservation efforts that are going on downtown in the historic district that people should be made aware of," she said. "If you don't come down here on a regular basis you don't see the changes that are being made."
Some of those changes include the Streetscape project and the recent renovations of some of the buildings acquired by the Urban Renewal Agency -- projects Lee said will get people downtown for an enjoyable time.
Another way to get the community downtown and take notice of the revitalization is the block party that will line Main Street from 4 p.m. to midnight with food vendors, retail vendors, music and live entertainment.
William Jenkins, who owns several downtown businesses, began organizing the block parties in 2015 with the purpose of driving patrons downtown while they boogied on down.
"There used to be a stigma that downtown wasn't safe so my wife and I decided to give block parties to let everyone come check it out for themselves," he said.
The pandemic put the parties on pause.Once Gov. Asa Hutchinson lifted the mask mandate, Jenkins said he met with Mayor Shirley Washington, who agreed that the time was right to get the party back started last month.
With the revitalization and the Streetscape project, Jenkins said downtown is looking "absolutely marvelous".
Lee agrees, complimenting the work done as an enhancement to the variety of architectural-styled buildings, including hers.
"All of these buildings have a unique history," said Lee, adding that most of the buildings were built in the 1880s.
Lee says her building started out as a lady's dress shop and later became part of a cotton agency.
As Lee was driving down Barraque Street one day, she noticed a worn-down, deteriorated building for sale.
Her intentions were to turn the building into a bookstore and was almost talked out of buying the building in 2013 because of the effort and time it would take to restore it. As a result of her passion for historic restoration, she is now the proud owner of Indigo Blue, a bookstore and coffeehouse.
Touring sites will include Unique Cakes by Miss Margaret, The New Community Theatre, Dee Herring Real Estate, Uptown Salon & Boutique and R J's Sports Bar & Grill. In addition, the tour includes the new Pine Bluff Library and the Pine Bluff Art League's gallery of paintings in the Reynolds Building.
"A lot of people don't realize the library is in the historic district," Lee said. "We want to push those cultural activities downtown so people know there are things for children to do, not just adults."
The tour will start at any building with the "Downtown Alive" poster in front of the buildings. A goody bag will be given to all tourists at their first location and it will include a map for the tour, information from tour locations and a Passport to be stamped at each place you visit for a chance to win a door prize.
Lee is hopeful that this tour will attract the community as well as investors.
"We need to do more so that we can save our buildings downtown and attract more people to the downtown area who have the resources to renovate these buildings," she said. "Pine Bluff has one of the largest inventory of historic buildings in this state and that's a good recognition to have. A lot of cities would love to have what we have downtown."
Lee said several of the buildings have been purchased but work on them had stopped due to Streetscape construction.
"In the coming months you will see, particularly here on Barraque Street, restaurants and taverns," she said. "We're looking forward to that."
Jenkins has invested in some of those buildings in hopes that downtown will grow and expand.
"We need more restaurants. We need more specialty shops, bars and entertainment. We got a lot of great things to come," he said. "This event will give the people an opportunity to look at the things that are here and the things that are coming in the near future. It's going to be a nice weekend for the downtown area."