Entries - County: Conway

The clergyman William Cummins Stout was the master of two large antebellum plantations at the foot of Petit Jean Mountain in Conway County and the “first Arkansas man ordained to the priesthood of the Episcopal Church in Arkansas,” according to church records. William Stout was born in Greene County, Tennessee, on February 18, 1824. His parents, John G. Stout and Mary Kirby Stout, moved with their children to Fayetteville (Washington County) in 1830, where they continued their farming occupation. While a young man working in a store near the Indian Territory line, Stout attended meetings conducted by Bishop Leonidas Polk and discerned a religious calling. With Polk’s encouragement, Stout received his education at Kemper College in Missouri, then Nashotah House …

Orean Lencola Sullivan of Morrilton (Conway County) broke many color barriers in Arkansas and became a nationally known public figure. She won four scholarship pageants from 1977 to 1980 and was the first African American to win those pageants. She was Miss Morrilton in 1977, Miss University of Central Arkansas in 1978, Miss White River in 1979, and Miss Arkansas in 1980. In September 1980, Sullivan competed in the Miss America Pageant and won the preliminary swimsuit competition. Overall, she was the fourth runner-up in the national pageant, the highest placement achieved by an African-American contestant up to that time. Lencola Sullivan was born on October 29, 1957, to Richard and Macie Sullivan of Morrilton. She was the oldest of …

William B. “Buck” Thompson was hanged on December 17, 1875, in Lewisburg (Conway County) for the fatal wounding of Rebecca Stover, a local widow. The 1870 federal census shows John B. Stover, a wealthy farmer, living at Perry County’s Bentley Township south of Lewisburg with wife Mary and five children, including seventeen-year-old Thomas. Mary Stover died in 1872, and John Stover apparently married a woman named Rebecca. John Stover died in May 1875, and his sons-in-law, including John R. Snapp, were made executors of his estate. In a letter to the Arkansas Gazette, someone identified as A. W. R. wrote that “it appears that Stover was married to a woman unlawfully and the heirs were anxious to get her off …

On April 19, 1893, an African-American man named Flanigan (sometimes referred to as Flannagan or Flannigan) Thornton was hanged in Morrilton (Conway County) for allegedly murdering constable Charles Pate. While there are no records for Flanigan Thornton in Arkansas, he may have been the ten-year-old living with his parents Hyram and Chasity Thornton in Desoto County, Mississippi, in 1880 and working as a farm hand; this would have made him twenty-three at the time of the lynching. Charles Pate was born in White County, Arkansas, but by 1891, when he married Alice Phelps, he was living in Conway County. According to newspaper accounts, the alleged murder happened on April 4 near Menifee (Conway County) station, about fifteen miles from Morrilton. …

The University of Arkansas Community College at Morrilton (UACCM) developed from a small vocational technical school offering only occupational-specific diplomas into a fast-growing degree-granting college with twenty-four available degree programs of study and over 2,000 credit students served each semester. It serves a six-county area and offers two degree programs that are unique to the state of Arkansas: Associate of Applied Science degrees in surveying and petroleum technology. In 1959, Arkansas’s first postsecondary vocational-technical school had opened in Pine Bluff (Jefferson County), and it was originally intended to serve the needs of the entire state. However, the Arkansas General Assembly, recognizing the need for expanded vocational education opportunities, provided state funds for the construction and operation of a second postsecondary vocational-technical …

Rupert Bayliss Vance was a sociologist on the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), who, along with fellow sociology faculty member Howard Odum, established the field of “regional sociology”—in their case, an extensive study of the South. The two helped provide a progressive counterweight at UNC in the 1930s to the conservative agrarian philosophy centered with the faculty at Vanderbilt University and expressed in their collection of essays I’ll Take My Stand: The South and the Agrarian Tradition (1930). Rupert B. Vance was born on March 15, 1899, in Plumerville (Conway County), the oldest of four children of Walter Vance and Mary Bayliss Vance. Walter Vance owned a general store, though the Vances lived on …

Thomas Jefferson (Jeff) Williams was a farmer, preacher, and Union officer in the Civil War. He serves as an example of Unionist “Mountain Feds,” and his experiences show how the Civil War affected farm families in northern Arkansas. Jeff Williams was born in Caswell County, North Carolina, the son of Nathan Williams and Rebecca (Jackson) Williams, a Cherokee. During his childhood, the family moved to Franklin County, Tennessee. Williams married Margaret Ann Hill there in 1832, and the couple had thirteen children. Williams saw Arkansas for the first time in the spring of 1838, when he and two of his brothers formed part of a Tennessee militia company that escorted several hundred Cherokee west to Indian Territory, part of Indian …

On July 4, 1912, an African-American man named John Williams was lynched near Plumerville (Conway County) for allegedly murdering a deputy sheriff who was trying to arrest him. Although the Arkansas Gazette calls the deputy sheriff Paul Leisner, most other sources say he was Paul Nisler. Nisler, whose full name was likely Herbert Paul Nisler, was twenty-one years old at the time of his death. He had been in Conway County since at least 1900, when he was living in Plumerville with his parents, Sherman and Nannie Nisler. In 1910, he was still living with his parents (his father this time listed as Andrew S. Nisler) and working on a farm in Howard Township. He was described by newspapers as …

As the brainchild of Winthrop Rockefeller, who was governor of Arkansas from 1967 to 1971, Winrock Farms holds a unique place in the history and culture of Arkansas, serving as a model facility to demonstrate agricultural practices as well as becoming a tourist destination. Since its founding in 1953, Winrock Farms, located on Petit Jean Mountain near Morrilton (Conway County), has been known for producing purebred Santa Gertrudis and Red Angus cattle. In addition, Winrock Grass Farm was created in 1955 to introduce a new type of turfgrass that was said to be ideal for cultivation in the Mid-America region.   Born in New York City to the wealthy Rockefeller family, Winthrop Rockefeller was the fifth of six children. He was …

The Winthrop Rockefeller Institute (commonly called the Rockefeller Institute or the Institute) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that seeks to continue the legacy of the late Governor Winthrop Rockefeller. The Institute’s workshops, seminars, public lectures, conferences, and special events are designed to nurture ideas, policies, and activites to make life better for Arkansans. The Rockefeller Institute follows what it terms the Rockefeller Ethic, drawing on Rockefeller’s leadership style, which focused on collaborative problem solving, diversity of opinion, and respectful dialogue. The Winthrop Rockefeller Institute is located on Petit Jean Mountain near Morrilton (Conway County), on 188 acres of the original grounds of Winrock Farms, Governor Rockefeller’s model cattle farm. The Institute is a 509(a)(3) supporting organization of the University of …

Eugene Henry (Gene) Wirges was an Arkansas journalist noted for his crusade against the influence over Arkansas politics exerted in the early 1960s by Governor Orval Faubus and his political ally Sheriff Marlin Hawkins of Conway County. As a crusading editor and good-government advocate, Wirges, along with his wife, Betty, allied themselves with the forces of reform at serious personal risk. Principally as editor of the Morrilton Democrat, as well as other local papers, Wirges led a campaign for better government and honest elections, which resulted in lawsuits, criminal prosecution, physical altercations, and—allegedly—a contract on his life. His opponent and chief nemesis, Hawkins, vehemently denied being involved in such activities. Born in Little Rock (Pulaski County) on December 5, 1927, …

John Howard Yancey was one of Arkansas’s most colorful war heroes. His actions in the South Pacific in World War II and the Korean War garnered him two Navy Crosses, a Silver Star, a Bronze Star, and three Purple Hearts. He was a champion of civil rights in the late 1950s and early 1960s in Arkansas. John Yancey was born on April 27, 1918, in Plumerville (Conway County) to Mary and John Benjamin Yancey, who owned a gas station; his younger brother, John Benjamin Yancey Jr., became a Little Rock (Pulaski County) police officer. He attended what is now Ouachita Baptist University (OBU) but left college in 1942 to join the Marine Corps as World War II was beginning. After basic …