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True West Magazine
The once wild and woolly cowtown still celebrates its Old West heritage.
The arrival of the railroad in 1872 transformed this trading post settlement on the Arkansas River into a cowtown, a destination for cattle driven north on the Chisholm Trail.
The Texas drovers brought trouble, and trouble brought a young lawman named Wyatt Earp. He did fine work until his temper won out and he used his fists to beat the socks off a candidate for city marshal.
Founded in 1868 near the confluence of the Little Arkansas and Arkansas rivers, the frontier outpost of Wichita quickly became a trailhead for Texas cattlemen and their herds of longhorns when the AT&SF Railroad arrived in 1872.
An embroidered work by surrealist artist Madison Smith, 25, displays the American flag with the message âwhite supremacy is in every stitch of our country.â Smithâs work consists of pastel, yet striking colors alongside ethereal renderings of flowers and moths with phrases like âlet black girls be girlsâ and âlet black women cry.â
Last spring, Fayetteville residents Cheanie Kü and Simone Cottrell commissioned Smith to create a work of art to be publicly displayed in downtown Fayetteville outside the World Treasures store, which Kuâs mother owns. Smith had full artistic liberty over the project, and said she chose to ask a question for locals to interact with. Smith created a sculpture featuring a mirror and wooden letters spelling out a question: âDo you value black people as much as you value black culture?â