Marshals Museum up to $6.75 million; fundraising ‘only just begun’

About $6.75 million has been pledged or raised for the $50 million (give or take a few million dollars) U.S. Marshals Museum, but don’t ask executive director Jim Dunn when ground will be broken for the planned 50,000-square-foot building. It’s too early to predict that milestone, he says.

Dunn and four members of the museum staff held Tuesday night (Dec. 14) the first of many “public dialogues” on the museum project, with about 55 attending.

The U.S. Marshals Museum board of directors and staff are underway with what will be a $30 million to $50 million national fundraising effort. The roughly 50,000-square-foot museum will be built in downtown Fort Smith next to the Arkansas River. In January 2007, the U.S. Marshals Service selected Fort Smith as the site for the national museum. To fund the effort to get the museum built, the project received $100,000 from the city of Fort Smith, $230,000 from Sebastian County, $200,000 from the state Legislature and $2 million from Gov. Mike Beebe.

On Tuesday, Dunn said the effort is “in its infancy,” with working through the process of developing and approving exhibit designs and building architecture consuming most of the time between January 2007 and summer 2009. It was in the summer of 2009 the museum launched the fundraising effort — which included a December 2009 event at the Arkansas Governor’s Mansion hosted by former President Bill Clinton and Gov. Mike Beebe — that has raised up to $6.75 million.

“But as the song says, we’ve only just begun,” Dunn told the audience.

The museum’s education program and associated education outreach efforts are an important part of the museum and will continue during the fundraising, Dunn said.

Jessica Hayes, director of operations for the U.S. Marshals Museum, explained that part of the education effort included the museum’s involvement in a recent reunion in New Orleans. In 1960, four 6-year-old black girls were escorted to public school in New Orleans by 8 U.S. Marshals. The reunion event was attended by three of the Marshals and three of the girls — now women — who were escorted.

The education effort also includes a kit the museum developed to help public school teachers incorporate U.S. Marshals Service history into the classroom. A grant from the Arkansas Humanities Council provided funding for the project. The kits include documents copied from National Archives, press reports, presidential letters and other materials that explain several historic periods in the U.S. Marshals Service history.

Dunn said the fundraising effort includes a U.S. Marshals commemorative coin that could raise up to $5 million for the museum.

SB 3572 proposed in 2009 by U.S. Sens. Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor would authorize the coins to be minted in 2014 to coincide with the 225th anniversary of the Marshals Service. It would be available in two denominations, a $5 gold coin and a $1 silver coin, and would be the first commemorative coin to honor the United States Marshals Service.

Dunn announced Tuesday the bill now has the 67 co-sponsors needed to get to the floor for a vote. However, a floor vote is unlikely in the last days of a lame duck Congress.

“Whether it gets through Congress in the remaining days remains to be seen,” Dunn said. “But it (the previous support) should have us in good stead next year.”

Dunn also said museum staff is working with The Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, museums in Oklahoma City, tourism and educational efforts of the 5 Civilized Tribes in eastern Oklahoma and the Crystal Bridges museum in Bentonville to build partnerships to promote tourism in that large region.

“Something very exciting is happening in middle America,” Dunn said about the possibilities of the tourism partnerships.

Jim Johnson, head of fundraising for the museum, said the fundraising effort has about 180 “good, solid prospects,” and will soon begin a staggered fundraising campaign that will hit Fort Smith, Northwest Arkansas and Little Rock before going nationwide. The Fort Smith campaign will begin in January, with each campaign lasting about 8 months — although Johnson said the timeframes are dependent on the rate of success in the different areas.

“If they get started, and hit that (goal) in two months, then we’ll start the next one,” Johnson explained.

When the Fort Smith campaign ends, the Little Rock campaign will begin and the Northwest Arkansas effort will follow that.

Johnson said “top-of-the line leadership” is being recruited in each of the areas to push the campaigns.

“It’s not going to be easy, but can tell you it’s going to be successful,” Johnson told the crowd.

When asked about the idea of creating a temporary home for the museum, Dunn said he was all for it until he began to dig into the details. The first problem is that the small staff “makes it problematic” to operate a temporary museum and raise money for the planned structure and exhibits. Also, the cost of climate controlled space, increased staff, and temporary exhibit design construction “would spend big dollars” that could instead be directed to the ultimate goal.

“I was all for it at first, but when you look at it and see the costs and what it diverts from that (the real museum), it was not where we needed to go,” Dunn said.