10/05/2026
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art sits in Bentonville, Arkansas, which is not where anybody would have predicted a major American art collection. Alice Walton built it and the family created an endowment of around eight hundred million dollars to sustain it, with a separate twenty million specifically underwriting admission, so that general entry is free and stays free.
That is a deliberate structural choice - most museums charging entry do so because their endowments cannot cover operations. She then founded a medical school next door.
The Alice L. Walton School of Medicine held its first classes in July 2025 with an inaugural class of forty-eight, tuition free for its first five graduating classes, and built around preventing chronic disease rather than treating it after the fact.