When Winthrop Rockefeller made Arkansas his home in 1953, he developed Winrock Farms on Petit Jean Mountain. In 1961 he bought a collection of antique and classic cars from the James Melton museum in Hypoluxo, Florida, and had a building put up for it on the mountain. The Museum of Automobiles opened on October 18, 1964, with thirty-three cars, some his own and some from the Rockefeller family. The building's roof hangs from cables, which leaves the floor open with no interior supports.
Rockefeller died on February 22, 1973, after two terms as governor, and more than 4,000 people came to the museum for a memorial service on March 4. The museum closed in the fall of 1975, and the cars, except the governor's own, were sold to Harrah's Museum in Reno, Nevada. On June 6, 1976, ten Arkansans who loved antique cars reopened it, and a nonprofit they formed leases the building from the state. Three of Rockefeller's vehicles remain: the 1951 Cadillac he drove to Arkansas, a 1967 Cadillac limousine with a sterling-silver Santa Gertrudis bull on the hood and a 1914 Cretors popcorn wagon.
The Encyclopedia counts forty-eight cars and seven motorcycles on display. It includes a 1904 Oldsmobile, a 1923 Climber phaeton built in Little Rock, a 1963 Lincoln convertible owned by President John F. Kennedy, a 1967 Mustang that Bill Clinton drove as governor and a 1967 Ranchero owned by Elvis Presley. The museum is at 8 Jones Lane, off Arkansas 124.
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