The only room on the first floor of the West Wing whose original use we know is the one labeled here as #5, now the inner gallery of As Long as Life Shall Last: the Legacy of Arkansas Women. Remnants of an exterior attached vault indicate that this was likely the Treasurer's Office. After 1885 it was the Records Room of the State Library.
Though plans indicate that both these rooms served as part of the Medical School's library, we also know that soup lunches were cooked in Room 5 throughout the Depression, and then dispensed to needy veterans in what is now the Pillars of Power gallery through the open top half of a Dutch door.
After the departure of the History Commission in 1979, Room 5 served as the Old State House Museum's library, while Room 4 was a gallery. Both were converted into a women's history exhibit in the late 1990s.
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