Fort Smith community promoter Judge Jim Spears has died

Judge Jim Spears, a leader with many Fort Smith projects, including the effort to bring the U.S. Marshals Museum and the Bass Reeves statue to downtown Fort Smith, died Tuesday (May 5). He was 80.

Spears was the 12th Circuit Court judge in Fort Smith from 1993 to 2016. He graduated from Fort Smith Junior College — now the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith (UAFS) — in 1966 with an associate’s degree, and he earned a bachelor’s degree in history and political science in 1968 from Arkansas Tech University. He obtained his law degree in 1973 from the University of Arkansas.

Spears was part of the effort to recruit the U.S. Marshals Museum to Fort Smith. In January 2007, the U.S. Marshals Service selected Fort Smith as the site for the national museum. The 53,000-square-foot museum is located near the Arkansas River in downtown Fort Smith. The museum opened on July 1, 2023.

He also was a leader with the Bass Reeves Legacy Initiative to install the large Bass Reeves statue in downtown Fort Smith. Reeves was a U.S. Deputy Marshal under U.S. Federal Judge Isaac C. Parker. Reeves was born a slave in Texas in 1838 and died in Muskogee, Okla., on Jan. 12, 1910. The group raised $300,000 for the 25-foot-tall statue that was unveiled in May 2012.

“Cathy and I were saddened to learn of the passing of a dear friend and Fort Smith leader, Jim Spears,” U.S. Sen. John Boozman, R-Ark., said in a statement. “He served our shared hometown with tireless dedication across countless roles including on the bench and among the legal community as well as through prolific efforts to enhance its civic life, arts and historic legacy. His contributions to these projects were integral and reflected genuine servant leadership. Jim will be greatly missed and his impact will continue to be felt for years to come. We are praying for his family and friends, and join them in cherishing many fond memories of his exceptional life and love for Fort Smith and all those who called it home.”

His many associations and honors included the U.S. Marshals Museum board of directors, recipient of the Jack White Leadership Award, Silver Beaver award from Scouting American (Boy Scouts of America), Arkansas Judicial Council Community Service Award, Arkansas Bar Association/Arkansas Bar Foundation Lawyer Citizen Award, Grady Secrest Humanitarian Award from the Jaycees, and vice chair of the Arkansas Access to Justice.

“It’s our duty to make our home a better place,” Spears said in February 2019 when receiving the Diligence to Victory Award from the UAFS Alumni Association. “And it’s our duty to our sense of community to give back to a community that has given us so much.”

His most recent vision was for a monument to mark the historic Butterfield Trail Stagecoach line stop in Fort Smith. Spears met Feb. 19 with the Central Business Improvement District (CBID), a semiautonomous governing body involved in efforts to enhance downtown Fort Smith, to ask them for help with establishing a monument. CBID Commissioner Phil White volunteered to take on the project, which is expected to be in place this summer in downtown Fort Smith.

“Judge Spears was a great man who loved his community and its history,” White said on Wednesday. “He was the driving force behind all the historic sculptures that are placed downtown. He came to the CBID meeting two months ago with what he told us was his last vision for another sculpture. This was the Wells Fargo stagecoach mail route that carried mail from the east to the west coast in the mid-1800s. His vision and request for assistance to see this sculpture downtown is currently in progress and hopefully will be completed this summer.  The Judge will be looking down with admiration of our community spirit. Thank you, Judge, for all you have done.”

The Butterfield line was approximately 3,553 miles of trails in Arizona, Arkansas, California, Missouri, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas. Fort Smith was the connection point for the Butterfield routes leading to Memphis and St. Louis.

Dave Turk, historian of the U.S. Marshals Service from 2001 to 2024, and a U.S. Marshals Museum board member, said Spears was “an unfailing advocate to make Fort Smith our agency’s historical home.”

“Judge Jim was an historian in his own right,” Turk said. “He regularly contributed his voice to historical topics and was a driving force for the Harold Holden equestrian statue of Deputy Marshal Bass Reeves, now a national symbol. In addition, he authored work on the history of Fort Chaffee. Personally, I will always be thankful for his unbending support to both the museum and to my growth as a historian. He was always ready to answer the bell, and we would not have been as successful without him.”