The Old State House Museum’s Arkansas State Police Collection provides a major contribution to the Badges, Bandits and Bars exhibit. Its unique assortment of objects and documents give us an exciting, yet thoughtful, glimpse of the service that our state’s law enforcement officers have provided to their fellow citizens over the past 74 years. Their service began at the Old State House, then known as the War Memorial Building, where the newly-created Arkansas State Police established headquarters in March, 1935. Consisting of just thirteen men, led by Superintendent A. G. Albright, their primary obligation initially was highway safety enforcement, but over time their responsibilities grew to include liquor and gambling law enforcement, criminal investigation and identification, riot and crowd control, drug enforcement, and SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics) team operations.

Donated by the Arkansas State Police Museum in the spring of 2007, the Old State House Museum is already using objects in the collection as part of the Pillars of Power exhibit. A traveling exhibit based on this collection is also being developed. The collection, one of the museum’s most diverse, includes more than 400 objects, photographs and other documents. Highlights include two patrol cars, a 1959 Ford Fairlane and a 1995 Chevrolet Caprice, confiscated gambling equipment from illegal Hot Springs casinos, uniforms from different eras of state police history, and badges of the 13 original Arkansas State Rangers. Also included is an array of law enforcement equipment, including two-way radios, handguns, rifles and shotguns, a 1970s-era crime scene kit, automobile sirens and lights, a protective bomb squad suit from 1975, “Mike the Talking Bike,” a child’s bicycle once used for safety demonstrations, and hundreds of photos that chronicle the agency’s existence from its beginnings to the present. These and many other artifacts will provide lasting opportunities for visitors to better understand and appreciate the important ways the Arkansas State Police impacts our history and society.