Welcome to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas

Thomas Jefferson Pew returned his interest in the Arkansas Gazette to the newspaper’s founder, William E. Woodruff. Woodruff had sold an interest in the paper to Pew in 1836. A few months later, Woodruff sold the Gazette to his foreman, Edward Cole, who became editor on December 19, 1838. The Arkansas Gazette, Arkansas’s first newspaper, had been established in 1819, seventeen years before Arkansas became a state. Its editorial stance for law and order during the desegregation of Central High School in 1957 earned the newspaper two Pulitzer prizes—the first time in history one newspaper won two Pulitzers in the same year.