- Hi, my name is Caroline Spear.

I'm the executive director of the Fort Smith Museum of History.

We would love to have you come see what we provide here.

We tell the story of the city.

So that is the city's history, over 200 years.

The city was founded in 1817 and our museum was founded in 1910.

So for half of the city's history, our museum has been here to tell that story.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music) So, something we love to do here in the museum is have our children attend programs with some of our volunteers.

And our volunteers do things like story time for kids and other activities.

Today you're going to see one of our volunteers read books about the rodeo, and then we're going to move outside and see some steer roping in action.

Let's go upstairs and hear Judge and Mrs. Parker's story.

Judge Parker was a federal judge here in Fort Smith from 1875 to 1896 and the judge and Mrs. Parker's story tells a huge part of Fort Smith history.

- In 1875, President Ulysses S. Grant appointed me, Isaac Charles Parker, as federal judge for the Western District of Arkansas and Indian territory.

I had an account down there as a candy store in First National Bank, and I stopped down there and get my ice cream, eat my ice cream.

And when I got through, I load my pockets up with candy and I gave candy to the kids.

So what do you think the kids call me?

That's right, the Candyman.

Not like that Willy Wonka guy.

My wife now she has a different story than what I have with the kids.

- We had two small children when we came to Fort Smith, we had two sons, Jimmy and Charlie.

And we put Jimmy and Charlie into the public school system, and we noticed that the schools didn't have as many books as they needed.

And we opened the first public library in the state of Arkansas.

We're very proud of that.

And another thing we did because Jimmy and Charlie had ponies, they wanted to race their ponies in the rodeo.

So we started the pony races.

And I hope someday maybe you get to come to Fort Smith and go to the rodeo.

(upbeat music) (upbeat country music) - One of the favorite parts of the museum is the soda fountain.

It's an original.

It's from the 1920s and we serve drinks and ice cream in here.

One of the favorites is an ice cream sundae or an ice cream soda.

You can also have fountain drinks or just a scoop if that's what you want.

Come in and see us.

It can be hot, it can be cold, we're here all the time.

(upbeat country music) So before cars, there were covered wagons.

People got around way before vehicles but they used a different kind of transportation.

So let's listen in and see what Bill Word has to say about covered wagons.

- I want to welcome you to this part of the Fort Smith Museum of History.

Today we're going to talk about covered wagons and why they are important in the history of Fort Smith.

In 1849, many covered wagons left from Fort Smith as a starting point on their trip west to the gold fields of California.

Each covered wagon had to contain a thousand pounds of supplies to help them survive the trip, three to four month trip to California.

Each wagon team had a captain in charge.

There were usually 10 to 20 wagons in a group.

They had to climb mountains, cross rivers with no bridges and they had to go long periods of time without water.

So we're just happy that today we have cars that can take us to wherever we want to go from Fort Smith, Arkansas.

(upbeat music) - So as you can see, Fort Smith is full of fascinating history and we can't wait to share it with you and for you to experience it.

So come see us just as soon as you can.

Bye.