El Dorado Murphy Arts District

El Dorado Murphy Arts District

Perhaps the most unusual journey I took this year was to El Dorado—it’s pronounced El Do—ray—do—a small town in southern Arkansas that aspires to transform itself into a musical mecca. For most of the last century, the economy of El Dorado was fueled by timber and oil, which made El Dorado more vibrant economically than much of Arkansas and northern Louisiana. The relative cluster of wealth led to some demand for and patronage of the arts, which in turn led to El Dorado becoming known as something of a music hub in the rural South. But in recent years, both oil and timber have fallen prey to changing realities, and the town’s economic and employment bases began to shrink; young people were leaving, and El Dorado’s most prominent citizens—mostly members of the Murphy family—were forced to confront the possibility that their town might one day simply close up shop.

Instead, they doubled down. Murphy Oil launched a program called El Dorado Promise, which would pay the college tuition and fees of any local kid who simply graduated high school—a remarkable commitment. And the Murphys also donated millions to fund the Murphy Arts District, a collection of new art and music venues intended to reposition El Dorado as a musical mecca—Arkansas’s musical Marfa.

I visited last fall for the first annual Music Fest El Dorado, and I was impressed. El Dorado is tiny but has a kind of gritty beauty, and the people couldn’t have been nicer. And, I have to admit, there was something pleasant about going to a music festival populated with more truckers, farmers and oil workers than hipsters. The new facilities were great places to see and hear music. (Alas, the renovation of a beautiful old theater, the Rialto, was not yet finished.) And while the line-up was in some cases a little too mainstream for my taste—hello, Train—there were some unexpected surprises, too: Ludacris, Hunter Hayes, ZZ Top, X Ambassadors, even Migos, which is a pretty big assortment of talent for an Arkansas town of about 18,000 people. One really important point: The festival organizers made a concerted effort to make the lineup racially diverse and inclusive, which has not always been the norm for El Dorado. It felt authentic, and welcome.

El Dorado and MAD are hosting ongoing concerts and a second Music Fest this October. They are both well worth a visit.

For more information, visit eldomad.com.

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