Little Rock, Ark. – “Touring” Little Rock used to be an oxymoron.
The biggest draw was Central High School, the eye of a raging integration storm in 1957, when nine teenagers tried to become the school’s first black students.
The state Capitol with six bronze Tiffany doors, a scaled-down version of the U.S. Capitol, attracted mostly lawmakers.
And, yes, there was the Excelsior Hotel (wink, wink), next to the old State House, where state employee Paula Jones alleged that then-Gov. Bill Clinton made unwanted sexual advances toward her.
Outsiders thought there wasn’t much to see in Little Rock. Why would they? It had no organized tours.
Until two years ago. That’s when Cary Martin, a TV news anchor, and his wife, TV reporter Gina Martin, were looking to do something different after their first child was born. They had taken a tour while in Minneapolis-St. Paul for a family reunion and decided there were even more landmarks to see in Little Rock. So, they gave birth to Little Rock Tours.
“It’s like we woke up one morning and suddenly had a bus,” Cary Martin says.
They now have three buses – “I’ve got my eye on No. 4, but don’t tell my wife” – and four tour guides. With their TV connections, the Martins obtained historic video clips that are shown for some of the spots on the two-hour tour.
Here are highlights of my recent tour with appropriately irreverent guide Phyllis Brents, a former banking executive who grew up in Little Rock:
The Excelsior Hotel, which has been transformed into The Peabody hotel, where these days the red carpet is rolled out for five ducks who march – more like waddle – every morning from the elevator to the lobby fountain to spend the day playing around.
State government offices. “They are filling up,” Brents says. “Why have two people when three would be better?”
Old State House Museum, the original 1836 Arkansas State Capitol, where Clinton announced his candidacy for president and celebrated his victories in 1992 and 1996.
The downtown loft apartment native Arkansan actress Mary Steenburgen and hubby Ted (“Cheers”) Danson own.
Rose Law Firm, where Hillary Clinton worked and the center of controversy during the Whitewater investigation. The building once was a YMCA, and the law firm retained one of the workout rooms. “I took swimming lessons there,” Brents says. “The lawyers had no idea how much they were going to need that stress room.”
The office “where Kenneth Starr spent $57 million of taxpayer money,” Brents says, “and returned no indictments” in the Whitewater investigation.
A downtown bank building Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh scouted out but decided against as a target because too many civilians worked in a flower shop. “He didn’t know about the day care center in Oklahoma City,” Brents says.
The State Capitol, built on the grounds of an old penitentiary. “The legislature meets every two years for 60 days,” Brents says. “Some have suggested it meet every 60 years for two days.”
Central High School, a National Historic Site but still a school, remembered for the “Little Rock Nine,” who attempted to be the first black students enrolled at what was Little Rock High School in 1957. Gov. Orval Faubus had defied federal orders to integrate and ringed the school with National Guard troops, who turned away eight of the students as angry mobs shouted at them. President Eisenhower then sent in paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division. Elizabeth Eckford hadn’t received the word to meet the other students ahead of time. She walked up the school’s steps with a circle of soldiers, shown in dramatic video footage on the tour bus. “All the nine went on to illustrious careers,” Brents says.
The nearby 1920s one-time Mobil gas station, now a National Park Service museum telling the Central High School story. One of the rangers is Spirit Trickey, daughter of Little Rock Nine student Minniejean Brown Trickey, who moved to Canada in the 1960s and raised six children. Spirit, 25, returned to Little Rock in 1987. “I just can’t imagine being 15 years old and having that courage,” she says.
The Quapaw Quarter with its elegant Victorian homes, including the 1881 Villa Marre mansion, used as the Sugarbaker house on TV’s “Designing Women.”
The Old Mill in North Little Rock, a replica of an old water-powered grist mill, filmed in the opening scenes of “Gone With the Wind.” No one knows why David Selznick chose it for his movie. Locals can rent it for weddings.
Asked her opinion of Bill Clinton, Brents acknowledges “he is a man who polarizes people.”
“I am an independent,” she says. “But the Clintons genuinely are nice people. He has an ability to remember names. That’s a God-given gift.”
The details
Little Rock Tours, 501-868-7287, www.littlerocktours.com.
Rates: $25 for adults; $21 for seniors and students; $10 for children 6-12; no charge for children under 6.
