Just across Cedar Street from the 1929 Rialto Theater in downtown El Dorado is a small park with displays chronicling the oil boom that transformed this south Arkansas city.
One marker describes the cold afternoon of Jan. 10, 1921, when Dr. Samuel T. Busey, a physician and oil speculator, struck oil at a well near El Dorado. The plume of oil that sprayed into the sky could clearly be seen throughout the town of 3,800 residents. By 1925 El Dorado's population had soared to almost 30,000.
"The town would never be the same," the marker reads. "Church bells rang, the sawmill whistle sounded and people streamed out of town to see the oil spewing up through the 75-foot wooden derrick."
Writing for the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture, Kenneth Bridges describes the transformation of El Dorado: "The discovery well touched off a wave of speculators into the area seeking fame and fortune from oil. The state Legislature immediately sent an exploratory train from Little Rock for legislators to inspect the find. Oil production increased exponentially in
a matter of months. In March 1921, Arkansas produced 38,000 barrels of oil to sell on the open market, which increased to 908,000 barrels by June. By 1922, 900 wells were in operation in the state. ... El Dorado became the epicenter of the oil boom. It changed from an isolated agricultural city to the oil capital of Arkansas. Twenty-two trains each day ran in and out of El Dorado to Little Rock and Shreveport."
On a morning in late August, more than 96 years since the oil boom began, workers in hardhats fill the streets of downtown El Dorado. The sounds of heavy construction echo around the Union County Courthouse square. It's as if a second oil boom is taking place. But this has nothing to do with the oil and gas industry, which has been depressed in recent years. Instead it's about music, theater, art, fine food, and wine.
It's an audacious effort by the city's business leaders to reverse a decades-long pattern of population decline. The goal is to turn El Dorado into the arts and entertainment capital of a region that includes south Arkansas, north Louisiana, east Texas and parts of west Mississippi.
Many consider it to be El Dorado's last, best chance to break out of the economic doldrums infecting so much of south Arkansas.
A block away from what's known as the Oil Heritage Park, a corner of the BancorpSouth Building is a beehive of activity. It's the headquarters of El Dorado Festivals & Events Inc., the organization charged with giving life to the business leaders' vision. Madison Murphy and Claiborne Deming are in the office, watching with pride as employees scurry back and forth. They've raised more than $60 million for a first phase of construction that's nearing completion. The Griffin Building, constructed during the oil boom in 1928-29 to house a Ford dealership and a gas station, is being transformed into a fine-dining venue with an adjacent indoor performance hall that will hold more than 2,000 seated patrons.
A nearby amphitheater, also nearing completion, will hold 8,000 people for outdoor concerts. Still to come in the first phase is a two-acre children's playground and splash pad that will be open at no cost.
The second phase of the project will transform the Rialto into an 850-seat hall for film festivals, touring productions and performances by the South Arkansas Symphony Orchestra. A new lobby will connect the Rialto to the 1928 McWilliams Building, a former furniture store that will become an art gallery and host traveling exhibitions from around the world.
Once all is said and done, more than $100 million will have been spent in downtown El Dorado.
The current sprint to the finish for phase one is in advance of the highly publicized grand opening for the Murphy Arts District (MAD for short). Events are scheduled for Sept. 28-Oct. 1. The opening concert on Thursday, Sept. 28, by the Grammy Award-winning band Train has sold out. ZZ Top and Ludacris play the next day in separate concerts. Country star Brad Paisley plays on Saturday, Sept. 30, as does Atlanta-based hip hop trio Migos. The four-day festival ends on Sunday, Oct. 1, as Smokey Robinson performs a free concert with the South Arkansas Symphony Orchestra.
El Dorado is blessed to be the home of three publicly traded companies--Murphy Oil Corp. and spinoffs Deltic Timber Corp. and Murphy USA Inc. All three must compete for talent against firms with headquarters in Houston and other large metropolitan areas. Deming served from 1994-2008 as the president and chief executive officer of Murphy Oil. He has been the company's chairman since 2008. In January 2007, it was announced that Murphy Oil had made a $50 million commitment to create what's known as the El Dorado Promise. It allows graduates of El Dorado High School to have their college tuition and fees paid.
Deming, a Tulane University graduate who began working as an attorney for Murphy Oil in 1979, is asked if he's surprised that the El Dorado Promise, which is recognized as one of the best scholarship programs of its kind in the country, didn't do more to stop population loss.
"The fact that it didn't shows just how daunting the situation is in south Arkansas," he says. "Almost all of the Arkansas counties south of Interstate 40 are facing similar challenges."
Murphy quickly interjects: "I would hate to think where we would be now without the El Dorado Promise. It takes more than one thing to change long-term trends, however. You have to have a confluence of events."
Murphy is a former chairman of the Arkansas Highway Commission and was the head of the Murphy Commission, which from 1996-99 studied ways to make Arkansas state government more efficient and accountable to the taxpayers. His interest in public policy was inherited from his father, the late Charles Murphy, who's considered to be among the state's greatest business and civic leaders of the 20th century. Charles Murphy died in March 2002 at age 82.
"We started this effort five years ago with some ideas about how we could turn the economic situation around," Murphy says. "What you see now is far different from our original concepts. I don't know what it's going to look like five years from now, but this could be a catalyst for things we haven't even thought about yet."
Murphy would like to see more people living downtown. He's also convinced that the arts district will be enough to make a high-quality downtown boutique hotel--something along the lines of the Alluvian Hotel at Greenwood, Miss.--feasible.
"I regret that the hotel is not already open," Murphy says. "But I believe it will happen."
Asked why arts and entertainment was the sector the business leaders decided to focus on, Murphy says bluntly: "Because we're not going to get the next Toyota plant."
He goes on to explain: "I see four drivers when it comes to attracting jobs. Those are education, infrastructure, tax rates and quality of life. Quality of life was our weakest link."
El Dorado's population decreased from 25,292 residents in the 1960 census to 18,884 in the 2010 census. Since that 2010 census, the city has taken additional steps to stop the bleeding. A $43 million high school was constructed, and numerous advanced placement courses were added to the high school curriculum. A conference center was built downtown.
"We have a lot of white-collar jobs here because the three public companies are headquartered in El Dorado, and we have high-paying blue-collar jobs," Deming says. "So we have jobs. We also have the El Dorado Promise. And we were still losing population. So what do we do? We address those quality-of-life issues."
Murphy quotes Daniel Burnham, one of the country's most famous architects and urban planners in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Speaking about the design for the city of Chicago, Burnham said: "Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men's blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans, aim high."
"This is not a small plan," Murphy says of the effort to transform El Dorado into a four-state arts and entertainment capital. "It's blood-stirring."
Deming believes the attention the Murphy Arts District will bring to El Dorado could put it on the radar for everyone from young families to retired couples.
"The most appealing lifestyle in the country these days is the lifestyle of the small-town South," he says. "People here are friendly. It's easy to get around. This lifestyle is contagious. What we must do is be able to grow without losing that small-town feel. This is already a wonderful place to live. We now have the opportunity to make it even better while attracting the attention of people across the country."
Murphy says those behind the Murphy Arts District aren't oblivious to the challenges they still face.
"We're not on an interstate highway," he says. "We don't have adequate air service. At least people in this region are willing to drive some distance for events."
Murphy says he and Deming are "like heat-seeking missiles on a fundraising mission."
There are still millions of dollars to be raised for the second phase. Almost $9.5 million has come from a 1 percent city sales tax that was approved by voters in 2007 for economic development projects. Historic preservation tax credits also have helped. Gov. Asa Hutchinson committed $5 million in state funds.
The focus is on what the visionaries behind the Murphy Arts District hope will be future growth. But they haven't forgotten the past. The state's oldest pool hall--Hill's Recreation Parlor, which has been in business since the oil boom days of the 1920s--will continue to operate right in the middle of the district. And a 110-foot oil derrick will be placed adjacent to the Griffin Building, paying homage to the boom that first put El Dorado on the nation's radar screen.
Once more, El Dorado seeks to draw the nation's attention.
"The team we've assembled here makes me proud," Murphy says. "These folks are living it, breathing it, walking it, talking it, making it happen. We're going to succeed."
Editorial on 09/03/2017