CABOT, Ark. — The parking lot outside of 811 South Pine in Cabot is empty for now, but inside it's full of history.
Director of the Cabot Public Schools Museum of American History Mike Polston has been collecting since 1981, and he knows a thing or two about the history of this Lonoke County town.
“Originally they were the Pirates, that’s why the first school yearbook is called the cannonball,” he explained.
Polston admits he's a bit of a collector.
"Or as my wife says I hoard, so I guess this is my school hoard,” he joked.
Nearly a century and a half since the first class, Cabot has gone through multiple mascots and color changes.
“In 1928, what we found in the newspapers is from here on out we’d be purple and gold and we would be panthers. Then in the 1950s, we’d be red or black, red, and white,” Polston said.
Times have certainly changed over the years, but every lifelong Cabot native remembers one day in particular in March of 1976.
"In terms of the tornado we’ve got newspapers and a collection of 8x10 color photographs with pretty detailed descriptions of what happened,” Polston said.
Visitors can comb through the decades of proms, football games, yearbooks, and even some of the earliest gifts from students to teachers.
“Professor G.W. Newton is the guy that is credited with starting Cabot schools in the 1880s or 1870s. This is a cup that his students gave to him as a Christmas present in 1884," he described.
As for Mike, his cup runneth over with all the Cabot collections he’s yet to sort through!
“You got to the room where we do the work in the school, and it is lined with boxes. You know we’ve got three boxes of COVID stuff with hours and hours of work to be done just to process the stuff," he said.