Texarkana Arts District welcomes vintage trolley bus addition

TEXARKANA, Texas (KTAL/KMSS) – The City of Texarkana, Texas, recently purchased a 1999 Freightliner Trolley Bus for the Arts and Historic District.

“It’s a bus because it’s on wheels, but it has that vintage trolley car feel to it. The inside looks very vintage,” says Arts and Historic District Manager Brooke Stone.

It was acquired from the Ark-Tex Council of Governments with hotel occupancy tax funds.

“The outside has a wrap on it because it was with the Ar-Tex Council of Governments, so the committee is working with digital effects, and we’re going to remove that wrap and install a new one and really try to give it that vintage feel and look,” says Stone.

Once it is ready to roam the streets of downtown, the city hopes to use it as an on-brand way to showcase the history and art of the area.

“We do the walking and biking tours, we do historical, like moonlit tours downtown, so I think it would be fun to incorporate the trolley into those events as well. Maybe decorate her up and put her on a Christmas parade, and just like really have her be a unique feature in downtown,” says Stone.

The trolley can also be used to tie downtown in with the other draws for visitors.

“We’ll be working with both of the convention centers when they have groups and tourist groups that want to come in and take a little historic tour downtown, we’ll be able to do that in a really cool-looking trolley,” says Stone.

The city views this as another step in the district’s revitalization that falls in line with what makes the area special.

“We have the Assembly Line coming up, The Grim just got reopened in this last November. It’ll be a year now that it is reopened, coming up soon,” says Stone. “We just want to really go along with that trend and be able to show the people who come down to the Arts and Historic District that we have so much history and art down here, but we also are revitalizing a lot of the areas and being able to showcase that. So we’re just really excited for the new edition and excited to see in what ways we can use it.”