Marshals Museum receives $350,000 gift from Rockefeller family

The United States Marshals Museum announced Tuesday (April 3) receipt of an additional $350,000 gift from the family of the late Lt. Gov. Winthrop Paul Rockefeller.

The Museum only has $19.3 million left to meet its total fundraising goal of $58.6 million. Construction will begin on the 53,000-square-foot-facility this summer, with an opening planned for September 2019.

“Through the Winthrop Paul Rockefeller Distinguished Lecture Series, Lisenne and her family have helped fuel national interest in the Museum,” said Robert A Young, III, chairman of the U.S. Marshals Museum Foundation. “We are grateful for their continued partnership and support to honor the brave men and women of the U.S. Marshals Service.”

In 2014, the museum received a $100,000 gift from Lisenne Rockeller to fund the Winthrop Paul Rockefeller Distinguished Lecture Series.

Designs call for the museum to include five sections. “To Be a Marshal” will be an overview of what U.S. Marshals do and who they are. “Campfire Stories Under the Stars” will feature an intimate look at Marshals lives as told around a “campfire” with Marshals statues dressed in different garb throughout the service’s history. “Frontier Marshals” will be an experience focusing on the Marshals’ work originating in Pennsylvania and expanding west. “A Changing Nation” will show visitors how the Marshals service has functioned alongside major national shifts like sovereignty and Civil Rights. Finally, “Modern Marshals” will focus on the Marshals service from the 1980s to the present.

In January 2007, the U.S. Marshals Service selected Fort Smith as the site for the national museum. A ceremonial groundbreaking was held in September 2015 on a site near the Arkansas River in downtown Fort Smith, and museum officials initially hoped to have the facility open by late 2017.