I shared my experiences and audio of some interviews I had recorded over the years with former Rock Island employees and it was incredible having original music recorded by local bands especially for this hour-long program. It was a great treat to discuss what got me interested as a child in the Rock Island after witnesses their trains no longer running in front of my elementary school. Speaking about the Rock Island on the Arts & Letters radio program I’ve also included some press coverage I’ve received. Copes of the Rock Island Railroad in Arkansas can be purchased at these events. Below are other events scheduled for the book. I’ve also been able to speak about the book to groups around the state or take part in book signings. That had been done in other states, but fierce opposition and lobbying from competing railroads kept that from happening. They included several photographs from the book and it was a nice conversation, not only about the railroad, but the politics in Arkansas after the shutdown when a proposal was introduced in the legislature for the state to buy the rails and lease them to another railroad. AETN even ran an ad promoting the show in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette newspaper just above the television listings.Īn ad AETN ran in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on July 17, 2017. While I’ve been a regular panelist on the public television network’s program Arkansas Week, I was surprised and pleased to be invited to be a guest on the half-hour interview show Barnes and…to discuss the Rock Island.
#KUAR LITTLE ROCK FULL#
You can watch my full presentation below, which was filmed by the Clinton School of Public Service, or at this link.Īppearing on the Arkansas Educational Television Network Supreme Court justices, Pulitzer Prize winners, astronauts and Oscar winners, among others.
#KUAR LITTLE ROCK SERIES#
It was also an honor to be part of the school’s speaker series which has hosted world leaders, U.S. Thinking about all the activity that had taken place there related to the subject I was speaking about was amazing. It was great speaking there because when I first started researching the Rock Island and going out to look at the grounds in the late 1980s the building was boarded up and had an uncertain future. The graduate school is part of the University of Arkansas System and is adjacent to the Clinton Presidential Center. Today the building, which was abandoned for decades, has been beautifully restored and is home for the Clinton School of Public Service. It was built in 1899 for the Choctaw, Oklahoma & Gulf Railroad, which was soon acquired by the Rock Island. Appropriately enough, it was in what had been the Rock Island’s passenger station for nearly 70 years. My first lecture on the topic was held April 4, 2017, the day after the book was released. Michael Hibblen speaking at the Clinton School of Public Service, which is housed in what was the Rock Island’s Little Rock passenger station, on April 4, 2017. Speaking in what was the Rock Island’s Little Rock Passenger Station Bill Pollard, a railroad historian from Conway, for his assistance in scanning old photographs and slides from his collection. While I had been researching the Rock Island for decades, mainly recording oral histories with former employees, preparing a book of high resolution photographs was a totally different challenge.
I also included many of my own photos from the years after the railroad was shut down, documenting what was left in the state. I put the book together including photos taken by Clifton Hull, Bill Pollard, Edward Wojtas, Earl Saunders and others, drawing from the resources of the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Center for Arkansas History and Culture, the North Little Rock History Commission and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. It’s available in hardcover, paperback and a digital edition for Kindles or iPads. It’s available from most major bookstores in central Arkansas, online retailers, or click on the cover of the book to order a copy from the publisher. The book was released by Arcadia Publishing in April 2017 as part of its Images of Rail series. Rock Island Railroad in Arkansas is a collection of mostly historic photographs of the once great line that had a huge footprint in the state before being shut down in March 1980. My book Rock Island Railroad in Arkansas, released by Arcadia Publishing in April 2017.
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