Red River Scrapbook
Clinton’s Library boosts tourism in his birthplace
By Jim Taylor, travel writer -- Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism
Jul 28, 2005

HOPE, ARKANSAS – For the small town of Hope in southwestern Arkansas, Aug. 19, 1946, was the kind of day only a relative handful of American communities, regardless of size, had ever experienced. It was the day a future U.S. president became a native son. No one in Hope knew then, and the town is still finding out, what a beneficent day it was. 

Between Little Rock, home of the William J. Clinton Presidential Center and Park – commonly known as Bill Clinton’s presidential library – and his native Hope, the paved ribbons of Interstate 30 unfurl across 112 miles of rolling terrain. Despite that distance, officials in Hope have witnessed a dramatic increase in tourism since the library opened, since the start of what Crystal Altenbaumer happily calls “the Billgrimage.” She is referring to the noteworthy procession of more than 350,000 visitors to the library since its opening last November. 

“We’re getting a lot of visitors both going to and coming from the library,” Altenbaumer, director of the Clinton Center in Hope, said. The center, operated by the Clinton Birthplace Foundation, preserves and gives tours of the first home where the young Clinton lived. “We’re seeing more tour buses, more church youth groups, more reunions,” Altenbaumer said. 

Because of the increase in visitors, the center recently began opening on Mondays and extended its afternoon closing by 30 minutes. Center hours are now 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily except Sundays. 

“I can’t put a number on it (the tourism increase),” said Mark Keith, director of the Hope-Hempstead County Chamber of Commerce, “but I can tell you I’m seeing more people downtown and more tour buses, and there’s no question it’s because of the library. We’ve even had some people show up thinking the library was here in Hope.” 

Gary Johnson, director of the Hope Visitors Center and Museum, replied, “That’s an understatement,” when asked if the Clinton library had impacted Hope tourism. “Our visitation (at the visitor’s center) has been up 50 to 60 percent each month so far this year compared to last year, and last year was a good year, too.” 

Johnson said most of the visitors with whom he had spoken in recent months had visited the Clinton library. “Most of them already knew about his political life,” he said, “and they’d gotten a lot of that at the library, too. People come to Hope to learn about Bill Clinton’s childhood.” 

The contrast is striking between the polished steel modernity of the Clinton library in Arkansas’s capital and the two-and-a-half-story, wood-frame residence in Hope where Clinton lived with his maternal grandparents from 1946 to 1950. The library paints in vivid detail an expansive mural of the political ascent to and the exercise and trappings of global power, while the home in Hope is a black-and-white snapshot revealing that beginnings founded in love are not necessarily as humble as they might appear. Visits to both sites yield a richer portrait of Bill Clinton. 

In his voluminous memoir “My Life,” Clinton wrote of his home at 117 S. Hervey St.: “It is certainly the place I associate with awakening to life…” Clinton’s maternal grandparents, Edith and Eldridge Cassidy, purchased the American Foursquare structure, built in 1917, in 1938. Clinton’s mother, Virginia, lived in the home during her teen-age years and returned there in 1946 after her husband, William Blythe, was killed in an auto accident. She was then six-months pregnant. 

When the child then known as Billy Blythe was two, Virginia began attending nursing school in New Orleans, leaving her son in the care of his grandparents. In 1950, she married Roger Clinton and they and Billy moved to a house at 321 E. 13th St. in Hope. That residence is privately owned and not open for tours. The Clintons lived there from 1950 until 1953, the year the family relocated to Hot Springs. 

The Cassidys sold the Hervey Street home in 1956 when they, too, moved to Hot Springs. By the time the foundation purchased it after Clinton became president, it had fallen into disrepair and suffered damage from a fire. Restoration began in 1995 and it opened for visitation on June 1, 1997. 

Based on interviews with those familiar with the home when Clinton lived there, especially his mother, it has been redecorated to appear as it did when the future president was in residence. Particularly moving for many visitors are the tiny room that served as Clinton’s nursery, numerous photographs of him as a child, and the kitchen where Clinton learned his numbers by means of playing cards affixed to the kitchen curtains that hung beside the table where he ate. 

Occupying half a city block, the Clinton Center includes the home, the Virginia Clinton Kelly Memorial Rose Garden, and a visitors center containing Clinton exhibits and memorabilia and a gift shop. General admission to the center is free. Tours of the birthplace home are $5 for ages 19-54; $4 for those 55 and older; and $3 for ages six to 18, active military personnel and for group members (eight or more). There is no charge for children under six. 

Another Hope location with a Clinton connection is the restored 1912 Union Pacific Railroad depot at South Main and Division Streets, which now houses the Hope Visitors Center and Museum. It contains Clinton and railroad memorabilia, historic area photographs and exhibits on the large watermelons, which have exceeded 200 pounds, grown in Hempstead County. 

Though the depot was then being used by Union Pacific for storage, an exterior view of it was featured in “The Man from Hope,” a biographical film on Clinton shown during the 1992 Democratic National Convention. Before it opened as a visitors center on Jan. 8, 1996, the depot had been donated by Union Pacific to the city and restored at a cost of $511,000 in local and federal funds. The film is now one of five available for showing in the museum’s small theater. 

The visitors center and museum are open 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturdays and 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Sundays. For more information, phone (870) 722-2580. 

The Hope-Hempstead County chamber (ph. 870-777-3640) provides information on Hope’s lodging and restaurants and on such other area attractions as the Hope Watermelon Festival, scheduled for Aug. 11-14, and Old Washington Historic State Park, a restoration village preserving the history and cultural aspects of one of Arkansas’s most prominent 19th-century towns and the state’s Confederate capital from 1863-65. The park is located on U.S. 278 about nine miles north of Hope. More park information is available at www.oldwashingtonstatepark.com and by phoning (870) 983-2684. 

The nonprofit Clinton Birthplace Foundation relies on private donations. For more information on the Clinton Center and details on how to contribute, contact the foundation by phone at (870) 777-4455, by e-mail at clinton@arkansas.net or by mail at P.O. Box 1925, Hope AR