Entries - County: Arkansas - Starting with M

John Alexander McClernand was a controversial Union army general whose frequent machinations against Major General Ulysses S. Grant during several campaigns in the Western Theater of the Civil War and inconsistent performance in battle epitomized the ambitious character traits of a “political general.” McClernand’s most significant military achievement involved the Battle of Arkansas Post in early 1863. Born to John McClernand and Fatima McClernand in Breckinridge County, Kentucky, on May 30, 1812, John McClernand grew up in Shawneetown, Illinois. Although he received very little formal education, he passed the state bar examination in 1832. McClernand also enlisted as a private in a local militia unit during the Blackhawk War of 1832. From 1833 to 1834, he worked as a commercial …

John McClure was an Ohio-born lawyer who came to Arkansas as the Civil War was ending and played a starring role in the political tumult that followed. Often ridiculed as “Poker Jack” owing to his fondness for gambling (he had been expelled from the Union army for playing poker), McClure was chief justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court during the latter years of Reconstruction. Democrats and a Republican faction accused him of malfeasance during the Brooks-Baxter War and its aftermath, and the Arkansas House of Representatives impeached him. The Arkansas Senate refused to convict and remove him from office and instead awarded him $2,000 for the trouble that the impeachment had caused him. When federal Reconstruction ended and conservative Democrats …

Jo Garot McDougall is a poet of the Arkansas Delta. Her work is noted for its sparseness and evocation of small-town life. Her poems are subtle portraits of the lives of rural families, farmers, housewives, and the struggles and tragedies they face. She has won many prizes for her work, which has been published in books, literary journals, and anthologies. In 2018, she was named Poet Laureate of Arkansas, serving in that role until 2022. Jo Garot was born on December 15, 1935, and raised near DeWitt (Arkansas County). Her father, Leon Joseph Garot, was a rice farmer. Her mother, Ruth Maurine Merritt Garot, was a secondary education teacher. She has one sister, Nancy. Garot grew up on a rice …

Archaeological investigations at the Menard-Hodges site near Nady in Arkansas County since the late 1800s have yielded information about both Native American and European colonial settlement of the region of the lower Arkansas River. Two large mounds, thirty-nine-foot-tall Mound A and flanking thirteen-foot-tall Mound B, overlook a square plaza some two acres in area, with smaller mounds around the other sides of the plaza. Also adjacent to the plaza are the locations of two nineteenth-century farmsteads of French descendants. The Menard-Hodges Site was widely considered to be the location of the first Arkansas Post and also the location of the Quapaw village of Osotouy. However, recent research indicates that while the Menard-Hodges Site is an important part of an early historic …

The Museum of the Arkansas Grand Prairie in Stuttgart (Arkansas County)—also known as the Stuttgart Agricultural Museum and the Arkansas County Museum—was formed in 1974 by two lifelong Arkansas County residents, Bennie Burkett and Jack Crum, in order to preserve Arkansas County’s heritage as a center for rice production and duck hunting. The museum is funded partly by quarterly donations from the city but mostly by yearly contributions from “the donor club.” Its board of trustees is appointed by the city council. The construction of the museum began after a nonprofit group of interested citizens raised funds to build a 1,500-square-foot building on the property of the city park. It was finished in 1974. Through the years, four additions have …