The capital campaign for the Sultana Disaster Museum in Marion is only $23,000 shy of its $6 million goal for initial construction and renovation costs of the existing structure -- the 1939 Marion High School gymnasium -- where the museum will be housed, according to Wyly Bigger, director of special projects for the museum.
The Delta Regional Authority recently announced that the museum was one of seven Arkansas entities that would receive grants this year. The museum will receive $508,910 from the authority.
With this investment, the Sultana Historical Preservation Society now has $5,976,859 in its capital campaign, according to Bigger.
"With the end goal for this phase of the campaign in sight, SHPS expects to break ground on the new Sultana Disaster Museum before the end of the year," according to a news release from Bigger.
"Once construction is underway, the next phase of fundraising will commence, with the museum aiming to raise another $4 million to build the actual exhibit within the building. The final phase on the capital campaign will raise another $3 million to go into an endowment for operational and promotional costs for the new museum upon opening. SHPS anticipates the new museum to open its doors by the end of 2023," said the release.
The museum opened in 2015. Plans are to move the museum from its current 1,000-square-foot location on Washington Street into the 17,000-square-foot school gymnasium. The project requires restoration of the gym and construction of an addition on the south side of the building.
The sinking of the Sultana on April 27, 1865, is considered the greatest maritime disaster in American history. On that day, a boiler on the Sultana exploded, engulfing the steamboat in flames before sinking it into a muddy grave on the Arkansas side of the Mississippi River, about 7 miles north of Memphis.
More than 1,100 people died. The ship's legal capacity was 376. The Sultana was overloaded with Union soldiers recently freed from Confederate prisons in Alabama and Georgia. They were trying to get home to the Midwest after enduring a long march to Vicksburg to board the Sultana.