World War I Artifacts Exhibit Opens

LITTLE ROCK – The Arkansas State Archives is opening a new exhibit, “On the Fields and In the Trenches: Relics Of the First World War,” which features World War I artifacts held in the State Archives museum collection, Department of Arkansas Heritage Director Stacy Hurst announced this week.

The collection includes weaponry, medical equipment, medals, photographs, a uniform and a variety of military helmets.

“This exhibit commemorates the 100th anniversary of the United States entry into World War I,” says Archives Director Dr. Lisa K. Speer. “Over 71,000 Arkansans served in the military during the ‘Great War’,” Speer noted, “and this exhibit provides a glimpse into the carnage and brutality of the war experienced by the soldiers, medics and nurses on both sides of the conflict.”

Speer serves as a member of the Arkansas World War I Centennial Commemoration Committee, and the State Archives is among a number of museums that will host World War I exhibits in 2017. The Arkansas State Archives has a large collection of artifacts related to the First World War acquired in the early decades of the twentieth century for a Great War Museum at the Arkansas State Capitol. Many of these artifacts were picked up off the battlefields by Louis C. Gulley, an Arkansan working as a postmaster for the American Expeditionary Forces in Europe during the war.

The exhibit will run indefinitely and is free. It is a window display and can be viewed in front of the research room from 8:00am until 4:30pm, Monday through Saturday.