William B. Worthen Jr.*

Family History Leads to Career in Arkansas History

William B. Worthen Jr. was a 25-year-old history teacher when he was hired to be director of a small state historic exhibit called the Arkansas Territorial Restoration.

That was in December 1972.

“It was a small staff and a pretty small operation at that time,” Worthen said. “In the past 28 years, the staff has tripled and the budget has grown significantly more than that. And what that represents is a maturation of the state and its relationship to its own past.”

This year, the Territorial Restoration’s name is being changed to the Historic Arkansas Museum, and it will celebrate a grand reopening in April when a new main museum building joins the trademark 19th century houses. The new building is the culmination of a building plan developed in the mid-1980s and realized by fund-raising campaigns by the museum’s supporting foundation.

“The mission of the Historic Arkansas Museum is to present the frontier period of Arkansas history and the creative legacy of the state,” Worthen said.

It is a history and legacy in which Worthen is acutely interested. His great-grandfather founded the banking empire that made Worthen a household name throughout the state.

“A lot of my love of history came from a quiet recognition of my family’s place in Arkansas’ past,” he said. “I don’t want to be too much like Texans, but one of the things I do admire about Texans is they take a real pride in their history. And their past isn’t any more glorious than our past.”

Worthen manages 20 full-time and 18 part-time employees and an annual budget of more than $1 million.

He said he tries to “hire folks who share the commitment and turn them loose, and then keep them from killing each other.” He also subscribes to a philosophy he said he learned from French Hill, who led Historic Arkansas Museum’s capital campaign: “You can get anything done if you don’t care who gets the credit.”