April 11, 1878

Colonel J. N. Smithee acquired a variously named newspaper (once the Liberal, the Journal, the Chronicle, and the Evening Star) and renamed it the Arkansas Democrat. Smithee, who had served in the Confederate army, immediately launched an attack on the Arkansas Gazette, which was founded by William Woodruff at Arkansas Post (Arkansas County) in 1819 before being moved to Little Rock in 1821 after the relocation of the territorial capital. Throughout 1878, Smithee criticized the Gazette editorially concerning the newspaper’s position on the repudiation of state debt.