“Every city has a story to tell,” says Jim Dailey, former Little Rock mayor and current director of Arkansas Tourism. “I don’t care how big or small they are, they have an attraction or a location that is unique and of interest to potential visitors. 
One of my main goals as tourism director has been to learn these stories and help Arkansas’s cities make the most of them.”
To achieve this goal, Dailey launched an initiative called The 501 Project shortly after joining Arkansas Tourism in early 2018.
“Arkansas has around 500 cities, and we settled on 501 to connect with the long-time Arkansas area code,” he explains.
The 501 Project, announced at the 2018 Winter Arkansas Municipal League Conference in Fort Smith, had a lofty goal – to connect cities across the state and promote unique and hidden gems that the everyday traveler may not be aware of. “What are your stories about your city that you think represent something that is unique or might be an attraction that is overlooked or maybe one that’s been very successful?” Dailey asked the audience.
“At the state level, my aim is to help facilitate conversations and projects between cities via promotional efforts, networking events or infrastructure development,” Dailey wrote in a memo sent to mayors shortly after the initiative was announced. “I look forward to hearing your ideas, suggestions and dreams.”
And with that, The 501 Project took flight. Over the next two years, Dailey and his staff heard stories from over 250 mayors across the state, from towns of hundreds of thousands to those barely breaking three digits on their census counts.
Now, Dailey’s tenure with Arkansas Tourism is coming to a close, and he is proud to look back at the connections he helped facilitate for local communities.
Dailey remembers one town he stopped in after a day of visiting mayors.
“Coming back from Searcy on the old highway, I saw this building that said ‘City Hall.’ I pulled in and it wasn’t open, but then I hear this voice from across the street say “Hey, can I help you?” Dailey laughs. “Turns out, it was the mayor.”
Dailey remembers asking the mayor about his town’s story, learning that the residents had rallied together to build their new city hall.
Small towns aren’t the only ones in Dailey’s highlights. “In some ways, Fort Smith has always been a city of consequence, but they have not really had something that I think pulled it together in a focused way,” Dailey says. “When Fort Smith came up with [the Unexpected Project] and had artists come in from all over the world to paint these murals, it was truly an unexpected thing.”
“It’s been a very rewarding thing for me to be able to do, as I speak around the state and as I talk to people I can encourage our staff here to send a photographer out or to go visit or learn more about these unique places,” Dailey says. “It’s where the stories are, that’s where the connections are, and that’s where we need to continue to foster relationships.”
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