New cemetery cell phone tour launched
Tuesday, 21 September 2010 08:29

By Kelly Dudzik

Five cemeteries and 85 stops. Sunday, Little Rock once again added itself to the National Register of Historic Places with a new cell phone listening tour of the Oakland-Fraternal Cemeteries.

A lot of research went into this project, and many descendants of those featured in the tour do the voices for them.

The best way to explain it- a museum headset tour- except you use your cell phone, turning the cemeteries into outdoor museums.

Jim Pfeifer spent his Sunday afternoon visiting the gravesites of several family members at Jewish Oakland Cemetery.

"My favorite tombstone here. It's Leo P Bott, Jr. An early advertising executive," explains Pfeifer.

Sunday, after the mayor unveiled the new historic marker, Pfeifer was one of the first to take the listening tour. He wrote some of the scripts.

Pfeifer's favorite stop is Barney Levine's. He ran a casino just outside Little Rock for thirty years fronted by a supper club.

"The best families visited. Had steak dinners, and they disappeared behind an orange door where there was a full Las Vegas casino. The second part of the story is barney put roofs on many churches and helped many people in need," he says.

The tour is free, and if you're interested in learning more, you can even do it from home.

"For high schoolers, especially, it's kind of fun because, you know, they're always telling them not to bring their cell phones to school, we could change that and say bring your cell phone, come and do a tour," says Lakresha Diaz who organized the tour.

"There are so many role models out here, maybe not Barney in a sense, but there are so many people out here that have contributed so much, that sure I'd love for my daughter and her friends to come out here and learn about the people who have really done amazing things for the city," says Pfeifer.

The tour can keep growing. Pfeifer already knows how he wants his legacy to live on.

"Hopefully I'll be around a few more years, but I'd love it, you know, if they'd write about me in a few more years, " he says.

If you'd like to take the tour call (501) 708-0011. You can call right now and listen from home. The tour is free, but if you use your cell, it uses your minutes.