Well, if we didn't wear them out, we may have won them over.

In response to an invitation from Arkansas' entire Congressional delegation, two visitors from the U.S. Marshals Service made a whirlwind, four-day, fact-finding trip here last month that may help the city's chances of being chosen the site of a new Marshals Service museum.

Michael Pearson, assistant director of the Marshals Service, and David Turk, the Marshals Service historian, are two of an eight-member committee appointed to find the best place in the USA to build a new, national museum for the U.S. Marshals Service. Pearson chairs the committee.

At a Clayton House reception during their visit, Pearson said criteria for the new museum site hasn't been established yet, and the site selection committee is not scheduled to start making official visits to cities vying for the museum until next summer. "But your Senators and Congressman asked if we would just come here and listen to you for 7 or 9 days," he joked.

It probably felt liked they'd been here a week by the time Pearson and Turk completed the intense four-day schedule set for them by Claude Legris, Fort Smith's Advertising and Promotions Director. But Claude, who also chairs a local steering committee formed last year for the sole purpose of landing the museum, had lots of help making sure that Pearson and Turk were blitzed from all sides with about 999 solid good reasons the Marshals Service museum should be built here.

The itenerary for Pearson and Turk included briefings on how the museum project could be successful for the Marshals Service, local and regional tourism and economic development. They visited area historic buildings and sites, and made an aerial tour of the region. They also met with numerous elected officials, business leaders, educators, media representatives, financiers, foundation board members and Joe David Rice of the Arkansas Department of Parks & Tourism.

"In Washington we often work 18-hour days, but Claude likes to go for 23 hours," Pearson quipped. "The last couple of days have been very inspiring – maybe they would have been more so if I had just a little more sleep."

This was Turk's second visit to Fort Smith. His first was in May, 2004, during the local Marshals Museum Steering Committee's U.S. Marshal Service Descendants Day event. The all-day open house attracted 500 participants from five states. More than 73 descendants of marshals, deputy marshals, federal court workers and others connected with the Marshals Service in the 19th and 20th centuries showed up with cherished family artifacts and oral histories to be photographed, recorded and catalogued by volunteers from the Fort Smith National Historic Site.

The steering committee has also produced an award-winning DVD highlighting all the economic pluses of locating the museum here and Fort Smith's long and colorful history with the Marshals Service. Pearson and Turk praised the content and quality of the DVD during their visit.

At least three other cities have also expressed interest in having the museum, but they have not yet been named.

"By next summer we will have narrowed down the number of cities for the whole site selection committee, and I can assure you, Fort Smith will be on that list," Pearson said before leaving.

Landing the Marshals Museum and building it downtown somewhere near the Fort Smith Historic Site and Fort Smith Museum of History – preferably along the riverfront – could spur further riverfront and downtown development, increase city tourism revenues and compliment historic attractions already here. The Historic Site alone draws more than 80,000 visitors a year. Wouldn't it be great to see the Marshals Museum, the long-awaited John Paul Hammerschmidt Interpretive Center (transportation museum) and the city's new sports complex planned for construction on Clayton Expressway all getting underway at the same time? It could happen, but it will take vision and action to make it so. And maybe one of Claude Legris' intensive but highly effective schedules.

Linda Seubold, editor of Entertainment Fort Smith Magazine, can be reached at lindaseubold@efortsmith.com. Read her archived columns and articles online.

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