Entries - County: Desha

Arkansas City (Desha County)

Arkansas City is a small town with a population of fewer than 400 people, as of the 2010 Census. Located in southeast Arkansas, it is nestled against a levee that protects it from the Mississippi River. However, before the Flood of 1927, Arkansas City was a major trade and cultural center and was one of the most important ports on the Mississippi River. European Exploration and Settlement At the time of the Marquette-Joliet Expedition, there were four Quapaw villages along the lower Arkansas River and the Mississippi River. Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet spent two days in these villages around 1673. They were the first recorded Europeans in the area. In 1682, René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle and Henri …

Arkansas City Executions of 1902

Lawrence Dunlap and David Jobe, both Black men, were hanged at Arkansas City (Desha County) on February 28, 1902, after being convicted of first-degree murder. The 1900 U.S. census shows Lawrence Dunlap, a farmer, living in Drew County’s Franklin Township with his wife, Maggie, and three children. His victim, day laborer Nathan Smith, twenty-three, was living in Randolph Township in Desha County. Newspapers reported that Dunlap and Smith were drinking together in Arkansas City and that Smith displayed a roll of cash. The two went to camp out for the night, and Smith fell asleep on the levee, awakening to find Dunlap rifling through his pockets. When Smith resisted, Dunlap shot him four times and fled. “The boy lived long …

Baker, Oliver Keith

Oliver Keith Baker is a Yale University physicist who has conducted groundbreaking research in particle physics and is a nationally known educator for his work on integrating technology into the classroom. He was inducted into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame in 2006. Oliver Baker was born on July 18, 1959, in McGehee (Desha County) to Oliver Walter Baker and Yvonne Brigham Baker of Tillar (Drew and Desha counties); he has ten siblings. His parents were both college educated, having met at what is now the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff (UAPB). He discovered a talent for science and mathematics while in junior high. His family moved to Memphis, Tennessee, when he was in middle school. After graduating from …

Big Island

aka: Montgomery Island

Big Island in Desha County was once the largest island in the continental United States. It is bordered on the east by the Mississippi River. The northern boundary is formed by the White River and the new channel of the Arkansas River, and the western and southern boundaries are formed by the old channel of the Arkansas River. The island is indicated on some maps as “Big Island,” while others—including U.S. Army Corps of Engineers maps—show it as “Montgomery Island,” named after William Montgomery, a prominent early settler in the area. Big Island is about eleven miles long and seven miles wide. However, the meanderings of the three rivers have caused many changes in the appearance of the island over the …

Brown, Evangeline Katherine

Evangeline Katherine Johnson Brown was a longtime educator and activist in the Arkansas Delta who served as a plaintiff and witness in Jeffers v. Clinton, a lawsuit that helped create new majority black districts for the Arkansas House of Representatives and the Arkansas Senate. She was inducted into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame in 1994. Evangeline Katherine Johnson was born in Norwood, East Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, on February 23, 1909, the fourth child of James M. Johnson and Mamie C. Gilmore Johnson. Her father was a farmer who owned the family’s farm (with a mortgage). It was fairly uncommon for area families to own their farms at that time. The family frequently moved, and Johnson attended high schools in …

Conway-Crittenden Duel

aka: Crittenden-Conway Duel

In 1827, Henry Wharton Conway and Robert Crittenden, both important figures in territorial Arkansas, fought a duel that had profound implications for the course of Arkansas history. Conway, a former naval officer and governmental employee originally from Tennessee, had relocated to Arkansas for a governmental post and eventually sought political office in Arkansas. Crittenden, originally from Kentucky, also served in the armed forces and later held political positions in Arkansas; he was originally a political supporter of Conway. Both were young, professional, and successful in their own right, but a conflict ensued between the two during an Arkansas election campaign, leading Crittenden to challenge Conway to a duel. Conway and Crittenden were friends and had worked together in an official …

Coulter, Wallace Henry

Wallace Henry Coulter was an engineer, inventor, and entrepreneur who was co-founder and chairman of Coulter Corporation, a worldwide medical diagnostics company headquartered in Miami, Florida. The two great passions of his life were applying engineering principles to scientific research and embracing the diversity of world cultures. Wallace Coulter was born on February 17, 1913, in Little Rock (Pulaski County) to Joseph R. Coulter and Minnie May Johnson Coulter. His father was a train dispatcher, and his mother was an elementary school teacher; he had one brother. Coulter spent his youth in McGehee (Desha County), graduating from McGehee High School. He attended his first year of college at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri; his interest in electronics, however, led him …

Dante House

The Dante House, built in 1965, is a one-story Mid-Century Modern house designed by the noted Arkansas architect Noland Blass Jr. Located at the southeast corner of Court Street and Puryear Street in Dumas (Desha County), it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on January 23, 2020. The Dante family was the most prominent of the Jewish families in Dumas. Charles Dante came to the United States alone from Poland in 1890 at the age of twelve, and a cousin in Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) urged him to spend some time in New York in order to learn English and earn some money. Two years later, Dante traveled to Pine Bluff and became a peddler and store …

Davis, Gail

aka: Betty Jeanne Grayson

Gail Davis was an Arkansas-born actress who starred as the legendary sharpshooter in the groundbreaking TV Western series Annie Oakley, which ran from 1954 through 1956. She appeared in thirty-two feature films, was guest on a number of TV shows, received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, was inducted into the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame, and was a role model for young women. Gail Davis was born Betty Jeanne Grayson on October 5, 1925. Her mother was a homemaker and her father, W. B. Grayson, was a physician in McGehee (Desha County), which did not have a hospital, so her birth took place in Little Rock (Pulaski County). When her father became the state health officer, the …

Desha County

Hardwood forests, alluvial soil, and flooding rivers marked the Native American territory that became Desha County. Lying at the confluence of the Arkansas, White, and Mississippi rivers, fertile land with abundant game provided sustenance for the Quapaw. Today, Delta soil and ample water make Desha County a leading agricultural producer. European Exploration and Settlement Explorers Hernando de Soto; Father Jacques Marquette; Louis Joliet; René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle; and Henri de Tonti visited area Indian tribes. Marquette and Joliet stopped in 1673 at the Indian village of Mitchagama, in the vicinity of the Arkansas River mouth. La Salle, visiting Indians in 1682, set up a cross in the same area. Frenchman Francis D’Armond erected a trading post on the …

Desha County Courthouse

The Desha County Courthouse in Arkansas City (Desha County) is a two-and-a-half-story brick structure built in 1900 in the Romanesque Revival architectural style. The courthouse was added to the National Register of Historic Places on July 12, 1976. After the establishment of Desha County in 1838, the first county seat was located at Napoleon in 1843, a river port at the confluence of the Arkansas and Mississippi rivers. Early courts were held at Wellington, a plantation in the Red Fork Township. In the fall of 1865, the old Marine Hospital building was leased by the county from the federal government for the purpose of conducting county business. By the 1870s, the county seat at Napoleon had been abandoned due to frequent flooding. In 1873, …

Desha County Historical Society

The Desha County Historical Society (DCHS) was founded in January 1969 at the county courthouse in Arkansas City (Desha County). The four charter members were C. C. Stuart, Mildred Stroud, Mary Gayle Tutt, and Pat Sherland. Later, the group decided to incorporate the organization, and a certificate of incorporation was issued to the Desha County Historical Society by the office of the Secretary of State on May 29, 1973. Since its inception, the society has gathered historical documents and a few artifacts. These items are located at the McGehee (Desha County) library in the Desha County Historical Society Research Room. The first issue of the society’s publication The Doctors of Desha County was published in 1969. From 1973 until 2000, …

Dickinson-Moore House

Constructed circa 1915, the Dickinson-Moore House in Arkansas City (Desha County) has experienced the ebb and flow of the city’s history, as well as its floodwaters. Like many buildings in Arkansas City, it was built upon a tall foundation to protect it from the high water that frequently inundated the area. This practical adaptation makes the Dickinson-Moore House a unique example of Craftsman architecture in Arkansas City. It is believed that a member of the Dickinson family had the house built. The Dickinson family patriarch in the town was planter and attorney Colonel J. W. Dickinson, of whom the Goodspeed history of the area speaks rather glowingly: “No name is entitled to a more enviable place in the history of Desha County …

Dumas (Desha County)

Dumas of Desha County is in the Arkansas Delta, west of the Arkansas and Mississippi rivers. Dumas has long been a business and agricultural asset to the state of Arkansas and is a welcome oasis to travelers through the delta region. Reconstruction through Early Twentieth Century In 1870, William B. Dumas, a planter, merchant, and railroad surveyor of French descent, migrated to the area and bought acres of farmland from the Abercrombie Holmes family, which had bought it from the state. The settlement eventually was named for this early planter. The town continued to develop, primarily as a result of the extension of the Missouri Pacific Valley Line Railroad, which not only made possible an influx of settlers from other …

Dumas Race Riot of 1920

In January 1920, federal troops were called out to quell a feared “race war” near Dumas (Desha County). The incident is indicative of the tensions in the area at the time. World War I had deepened racial animosity in Arkansas and across the nation. African American soldiers who had served their country in segregated units hoped they would increasingly be treated and paid as equals. The area around Dumas was heavily African American, and the area around the settlement where the incident occurred was estimated to be predominately Black at a ratio of 30–1. Many white residents of such areas saw such large Black populations as a threat. Farm organizations were increasingly attempting to organize Black farm laborers, increasing whites’ …

Erwin, Judson Landers, Jr.

Judson Landers (J. L.) Erwin Jr. served as the county judge of Desha County from 1947 to his death in 1968. He was never opposed for reelection. During his time in the position, he was a strong supporter of libraries and brought many improvements to the county. J. L. Erwin was born on August 11, 1909, in McGehee (Desha County), son of Judson L. Erwin Sr., who was a railroad engineer, and Batie Rhodes Erwin. He had three younger sisters, one of whom died in childhood. His father died when Erwin was seventeen. The family got by with only his after-school earnings and money from renting out rooms in the house; this experience shaped the lifelong frugal financial policies by …

Fleming, Sam (Lynching of)

On May 6, 1907, an African-American man named Sam Fleming—who was reportedly from Pine Bluff (Jefferson County)—was hanged at McGehee (Desha County) for winning a fight with a white bartender named Henry Vaughan. According to the Arkansas Gazette, Fleming was a “former Pine Bluff negro” who had lived in McGehee for several years. He was working in a saloon for black patrons owned by a man named Hellworth. Fleming had supposedly been in frequent trouble in Pine Bluff, once throwing a glass at a liquor dealer named Edward Wertheimer and wounding him in the head. Next door to Fleming’s workplace was a saloon for whites, also owned by Hellworth, where Henry Vaughan worked. Fleming and Vaughan had a fight, and …

Hines, Jim

Jim Hines, born in Dumas (Desha County), was an Olympic track and field star who won gold medals at the 1968 Olympics in the 100-meter dash and the 4×100-meter relay, as well as establishing world records for both. His record for the 100 meters stood for fifteen years. James Ray (Jim) Hines was born on September 10, 1946, in Dumas, the ninth of twelve children of Charlie Hines and Minnie West Hines. In 1952, the family moved to Oakland, California, where his father worked in construction and mother in a cannery. As a center fielder on the Lowell Junior High School baseball team, he caught the eye of the McClymonds High School track coach, who asked Hines to join the …

Hubert and Ionia Furr House

The Hubert and Ionia Furr House is located at 702 Desoto Avenue in Arkansas City (Desha County). Built in 1910 by local timber man Hubert Furr and wife, Ionia, the house was constructed in the Dutch Colonial Revival style. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2011, the home is also the only residence in Arkansas City that has face ornamental concrete block. Hubert Furr was born in Tennessee in 1875 and moved to Arkansas City in 1892. Furr was known as “the Hustling Real Estate and Timber Man of Desha County”; he seemed to be better versed in timber values than any other person in the county. Furr had become one of the most influential residents of Desha …

Hunter, Joseph Boone

Joseph Boone Hunter was Director of Human Services at the World War II–era Japanese American Relocation Center in Rohwer (Desha County) and the founding minister of Pulaski Heights Christian Church; in addition, he served on the faculty of Little Rock Junior College (now the University of Arkansas at Little Rock), taught continuing education courses for teachers for the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County), and became the first administrator of the Arkansas Council of Churches. He was also an interim minister in twenty-seven churches, mostly in Arkansas. Joe Hunter was born on December 27, 1886, to John W. Hunter and Mary Frances Compton Hunter on a farm near Allen, Texas. He was the ninth of fifteen children and …

Jackson, Henry (Lynching of)

On October 4, 1877, an African-American man named Henry Jackson was shot by a masked mob near Watson (Desha County) for allegedly murdering a justice of the peace referred to only as Mr. O’Neil. However, the circumstances of the event speak to the broader efforts in post-Reconstruction Arkansas to remove black elected officials from office. While it is impossible to identify O’Neil, there were two African Americans named Henry Jackson living in Desha County in 1870. The first was a twenty-nine-year-old farmer living in Red Fork Township who had personal property worth $500 and real estate valued at $250. The second was a twenty-seven-year-old farmer who was living in Jefferson Township and had personal property worth $125 and real estate …

Johnson, Anthony “Andy” (Execution of)

Anthony “Andy” Johnson, an African American man described as a “desperado,” was hanged at Dumas (Desha County) on June 21, 1895, for murdering his wife’s lover in Pine Bluff (Jefferson County). The 1880 federal census shows laborer Andy Johnson, age twenty-eight, living in Pine Bluff with his wife Rose, twenty-seven, and their three daughters. Laborer Howard Johnson, twenty-five, also lived in Pine Bluff with his wife Mattie, twenty-three, and their three children. Andy Johnson was enslaved by Joseph William Bocage of Pine Bluff but after the Civil War became deeply involved in local Reconstruction politics. Although he was described as “quarrelsome, loud-mouthed and uneducated” and “a desperado…universally feared by his race,” he was elected as the bonded constable of Jefferson …

Johnson, John Harold

John H. Johnson rose above abject poverty and racial discrimination to build a publishing empire that helped forever change the perception of African Americans in the United States. Johnson Publishing Company became the largest Black-owned and -operated publishing company in the world and launched Ebony and Jet, two very successful magazines that gave a voice to millions of Black Americans. Born Johnny Johnson on January 19, 1918, in Arkansas City (Desha County) to Leroy Johnson and Gertrude Jenkins Johnson, a cook in a Mississippi River levee camp, John Harold Johnson was a third-generation descendent of slaves. After the death of Johnson’s father in a sawmill accident when Johnson was eight years old, his mother married James Williams, who helped raise him. …

Kelso (Desha County)

Kelso (Desha County) is a historic community fourteen miles northeast of McGehee (Desha County). The community began with the local development of the railroad in the early twentieth century and is known as the site of an experimental agricultural station. The area that would become Kelso was the site of a minor Civil War skirmish that occurred on February 19–20, 1863. The skirmish began at Cypress Bend (Desha County) on the Mississippi River ten miles due east of the area of Kelso. Even today, residents remark of a cannonball embedded in a walnut tree near the Kelso Cemetery. During the war, many people living at Cypress Bend moved to the area of Kelso to escape cannon fire from Union gunboats …

Laconia Circle Levee

The Laconia Circle Levee is situated in the southeast corner of Mississippi Township in Desha County. The levee’s circular construction is so unique that Believe it or Not, a syndicated newspaper publication for the unusual, featured the levee in one of its 1970s publications. The levee encircled Laconia Circle, which consisted of 18,000 acres of Delta land located in Desha County, for protection against potential flooding from the Mississippi and White rivers. It was the first levee in the Arkansas Delta to be affected by the Flood of 1927. Before the Civil War, fourteen plantation homes were protected by the levee. The levee and the township were named after the Laconia Landing, one of the most active steamboat landings on …

Livingston, Abe (Lynching of)

Although apparently only one Arkansas newspaper covered it, in late August 1884 an African-American man named Abe Livingston was hanged in Desha County for allegedly robbing and threatening a white man named William Kite. A search of public records revealed no information on either Kite or Livingston. According to an August 26 article in the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Daily Independent, which was reprinted a week later in the Batesville Guard, Livingston was a “dangerous negro” who, sometime earlier in 1884, had robbed Kite. He was arrested at the time and put in jail in Arkansas City (Desha County). At some point in July, he escaped from jail. While he was free, he allegedly made several attempts to kill Kite and also …

Malpass, Charles (Lynching of)

On September 27, 1911, a white man named Charles Malpass Sr. was lynched in Desha County following a shootout in which his sons murdered two police officers. According to newspaper accounts, Charles Malpass was a descendent of early French settlers at Arkansas Post. In 1850, the Malpass family was living in nearby Red Fork Township. Farmer Rubin Malpass was living with his wife, Rebecca, and five children, including four-year-old Charles. The family was still in the area in 1860, but by this time there were eight children, among them sixteen-year-old Charles. According to the Arkansas Gazette, Charles began living with a “mulatto” woman named Bettie West in 1868. West had resources of her own, having inherited several thousand dollars when …

McArthur (Desha County)

McArthur (Desha County) is a historic community five miles north of McGehee (Desha County) on Arkansas Highway 1. It was first named McArthur Station in honor of Zack McArthur, an early settler in the area. A post office operated at McArthur from 1907 to 1918, but the settlement was never incorporated. Because McArthur is located near Macon and Coon bayous, once navigable waterways, it was already somewhat populated when the St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern Railroad (later called the Missouri Pacific Railroad, then Union Pacific) completed a railroad bridge over the Arkansas River at Yancopin (Desha County) in 1904. The railroad allowed timber to be harvested, processed, and shipped out. Several stores opened, and a one-room school was constructed there …

McGehee (Desha County)

McGehee (Desha County) is a small town located in southeast Arkansas. It had its beginnings as a hub of transportation—the railroad branched from it in four directions. Its progress has mirrored that of the railroads, growing during the railroad boom and declining as the railroad declined. Transportation is once again bringing hopes of prosperity, with the Yellow Bend Port on the Mississippi River and the possibility of the Interstate 69 corridor—a highway connector between Quebec, Canada, and Mexico City, Mexico—becoming a reality. Louisiana Purchase through the Gilded Age Benjamin McGehee came from Alabama in 1857 and settled in southeast Arkansas in what was then Chicot County. Benjamin brought with him his wife, Sarah, and his three children. The McGehees, like …

McGehee Lynching of 1894

On September 22, 1894, Luke Washington, Richard Washington, and Henry C. Robinson were lynched in McGehee (Desha County) for allegedly murdering local merchant H. C. Patton and robbing his store. One of the interesting aspects of this case is that the African-American population of McGehee (then known as McGehee Junction) reportedly took an active part in the three men’s lynching. On September 20, 1894, Patton locked his store, which was located on the edge of a cotton field some distance from the depot in McGehee, and proceeded along the walkway to his bedroom. There, Robinson and the two Washingtons allegedly killed him with a club. Although Patton was armed with a pistol, he was unable to use it in time. His attackers then …

McGehee National Guard Armory

The McGehee National Guard Armory was built in 1954 and reflects standardized plans that featured open floor plans, steel-framed roofs, and concrete block walls—a functional design typical of National Guard armories built during a period when larger facilities were needed. Citizen-soldier militias have had a constant presence in the United States since the colonial era, but it was not until Congress passed the Militia Act of 1903—also known as the Dick Act for sponsor Senator Charles W. F. Dick, chairman of the Committee on the Militia—that the National Guard became an official partner in the nation’s armed services, receiving federal support for training, equipment, and wages. Arkansas’s state militia was organized into the Arkansas National Guard as a result of …

Miami [Steamboat]

The Miami was a steamboat destroyed by fire on the Arkansas River in 1866 with a loss of as many as 200 passengers and crewmen. The Miami was a 175-ton sternwheel packet built in 1863 in Cincinnati, Ohio. The vessel initially operated between Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Louisville, Kentucky, on the Ohio River but was sent to Memphis, Tennessee, in August 1865 to make runs between that town and Little Rock (Pulaski County). Captain E. A. Levy was in command when the steamboat left Memphis at 9:00 p.m. on January 27, 1866, with a full load of cargo and as many as 300 passengers, including Gen. Ashley’s Band, an African-American musical group from Little Rock, and ninety-five men of Company E …

Mitchellville (Desha County)

Mitchellville, a city in the Arkansas Delta that borders Dumas (Desha County), is the result of experiments in city planning. A church association acquired the land in the 1940s, divided it into lots, and sold the lots to a specific group of buyers, while also planning the placement of roads and electric service. With the highest percentage of African-American citizens of any city in Arkansas, Mitchellville is also one of the poorest cities in the state. The rich soil of the Arkansas Delta drew investors who created plantations and grew cotton. Until the Civil War, work on the plantations was performed almost entirely by slaves. The Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution abolished slavery, but many of the former slaves and their descendants …

Mosely, Julius (Lynching of)

On July 13, 1892, Julius Mosely, an African-American man accused of raping his stepdaughter, was lynched near Halley (Desha County) by a mob of fellow black residents. While the majority of lynchings in the South were perpetrated by white mobs against blacks, in a very small number of cases, lynchings were carried out either by mixed-race mobs or by mobs of African Americans. William Fitzhugh Brundage speculates that perhaps African Americans doubted that the all-white legal system would deal properly with crimes occurring within the black community. In addition, such lynchings often took place in cases of family-oriented crimes like incest. Interestingly, Brundage finds that such black-on-black violence was most prevalent in the Mississippi Delta regions in Mississippi, Arkansas, and …

Napoleon (Desha County)

The town Napoleon of Desha County was located at the confluence of the Mississippi River and the Arkansas River. Although its founders had hoped that its location would make it a major city comparable to St. Louis, Missouri, or New Orleans, Louisiana, the town was badly damaged during the Civil War and then totally destroyed within ten years of the war by the flooding of the rivers. Jacques Marquette visited the area where these two rivers meet in 1673. The area may also contain the burial location of Pierre Laclede Liguest, the founder of St. Louis, who died and was buried on a trip north from New Orleans in 1778. The town was not established, though, until the time of …

Napoleon Expedition

By the summer of 1862, Federal forces under the command of Major General Samuel Curtis occupied the city of Helena (Phillips County). After the activation of the Emancipation Proclamation in early 1863, one of the regiments being formed at Helena was the Second Arkansas Regiment (African Descent). In May 1863, an expedition was sent down the Mississippi River to gather additional recruits for the regiment. Major General Benjamin Prentiss ordered that the steamboat Pike—escorted by a detachment of the First Indiana Cavalry, Thirty-sixth Iowa Infantry, and twenty-five men of the Second Arkansas Regiment (African Descent) with one howitzer—embark upon a recruitment expedition. The force, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel George W. DeCosta of the Second Arkansas, left Helena on …

Napoleon, Seizure of Ordnance Stores at

United States military supplies were frequently captured across the South as states began to secede in late 1860 and early 1861. While the seizure of the Little Rock Arsenal is a well-known example of state troops taking control of Federal military posts, the capture of other posts and military supplies took place in the state during the secession crisis, including the seizure of ordnance stores at Napoleon (Desha County). The debate over secession intensified in November 1860, when Abraham Lincoln was elected as president of the United States. In response to the prodding of Arkansas governor Henry Rector and other pro-secessionist politicians, the House of Representatives in the Arkansas General Assembly passed a bill on December 22, 1860, calling for …

Orton, Mat (Lynching of)

On September 8, 1884 (some papers give the date as September 9), a white man named Mat Orton was lynched in Arkansas City (Desha County) for allegedly setting a fire that destroyed many of the town’s businesses. There is some information about Mat Orton in newspaper accounts and public records. In 1880, he was thirty-three years old and was living in Arkansas City and working as a carpenter. He married Margaret McCoy there on March 14, 1882. An article in the Arkansas Gazette on May 16, 1883, indicates that Orton was a deputy sheriff and was sent to retrieve R. H. Costello (sometimes called Castelio, although census records list him as Costelo), who was wanted in Desha County for the …

Pendleton (Desha County)

Pendleton (Desha County) is the site of the only highway bridge over the Arkansas River between Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) and the Mississippi River forty miles downriver from the bridge. Pendleton is located in the northwestern-most part of Desha County. It was also the site of a major levee break on April 16, 1927, during the Flood of 1927. The Pendleton Post Office was open from 1867 to 1926 in one of the two general stores at the “town” of Pendleton. When much labor was required to farm the fertile land, a large community thrived in the area. The community was named for Dr. Samuel H. Pendleton, who was born in Amherst, Virginia. He moved his family to the area …

Pickens (Desha County)

Pickens (Desha County) is located three miles south of Dumas (Desha County). The unincorporated community was called Walnut Lake until 1932, when the name was changed to “Pickens” in honor of Burton Cecil Pickens, son of Reuben A. Pickens who settled in the area in 1881 along with his brother, William S. Pickens. The Walnut Lake/Pickens area community was established as the result of the relocation of the St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern Railroad from Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) to Napoleon (Desha County) in 1879. Napoleon, once the county seat, was located at the convergence of the Arkansas and Mississippi rivers. The relocation of the railroad into the interior of the county sparked the establishment of other communities along the route. A …

Pindall, Xenophon Overton

Xenaphon Overton Pindall—attorney, Mason, civic leader, Democrat, and legislator—served as acting governor of Arkansas from May 14, 1907, until January 11, 1909. Rising to the position through an improbable series of circumstances, Pindall focused on the administrative detail of the office and used the power of appointment to shape the policies of state government. X. O. Pindall was born on August 21, 1873, in Monroe County, Missouri, to Colonel Lebbeus A. and Elnorah Snell Pindall. His father was an attorney and later served in the Arkansas legislature. His mother was from a prominent Missouri family. He had three brothers, two of whom died in infancy and one who died at the age of sixteen. During the Civil War, Pindall’s father …

Powell, Dwane

Dwane Powell was an award-winning political cartoonist who spent most of his career in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he crafted an artistic chronicle of state politics. Powell brought to life in his portrayals the influential conservative Senator Jesse Helms and the colorful four-term Democratic governor Jim Hunt, among others. Drexel Dwane Powell Jr. was born on November 7, 1944, in Lake Village (Chicot County) to Drexel Dwane Powell and Minnie Louise Ruth Powell. Not long after Powell was born, the family, which eventually included four children, moved to a farm outside McGehee (Desha County). The family grew cotton, rice, and soybeans while also raising whiteface Herefords, Brahma bulls, and Angus cows. After graduation from McGhee High School following an undistinguished …

Reed (Desha County)

Reed of Desha County is a small community on U.S. Highway 65, six miles north of McGehee (Desha County). It was established as a predominately African-American community in the mid-twentieth century. Much of the impetus for the creation of Reed lay in the emergence of Mitchellville (Desha County), which arose following World War II when the government provided land north of Dumas to returning soldiers. Mitchellville became something of a model black community, its leaders working with white leaders from Dumas to get proper sewer, water, and street improvements. African Americans around McGehee and Tillar (Drew and Desha counties) were thus motivated by a desire to govern themselves and follow Mitchellville’s example. In 1961, they incorporated the town of Reed in an …

Reed, Adolph Sr.

Adolph Reed Sr. was a distinguished educator and activist. As a political scientist, he approached politics from an academic perspective but also actively participated in the broad political process, being particularly involved with labor and civil rights efforts. Adolph Reed was born in 1921 to Alphonso Reed and Mary Reed. While he spent his early years in Dumas (Desha County), he attended Dunbar High School in Little Rock (Pulaski County). Like many African Americans during this period, his family migrated north, arriving in Chicago in the late 1930s. There, he worked as a railroad dining car waiter before heading to Nashville, Tennessee, where he attended Fisk University. While he ultimately earned his degree from Fisk, his studies were interrupted by …

Rohwer (Desha County)

Rohwer of Desha County is a historic community ten miles northeast of McGehee (Desha County). It is perhaps best known as the site of the Rohwer Relocation Center, one of two internment camps for Japanese Americans during World War II located in the area. In September 1904, the St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern Railroad (later acquired by the Missouri Pacific) completed a rail line over the Arkansas River from Helena (Phillips County). The railroad allowed local timber to be harvested, processed, and shipped out. Several stores opened in Rohwer to support the sawmills and the numerous families farming nearby. Prior to the railroad construction, the community was mostly non-existent. The post office, which was first called the Harding Post …

Rohwer Relocation Center

The Rohwer Relocation Center in Desha County was one of two World War II–era incarceration camps built in the state to house Japanese Americans from the West Coast, the other being the Jerome Relocation Center (in Chicot and Drew counties). The Rohwer relocation camp cemetery, the only part of the camp that remains, is now a National Historic Landmark. The camp housed, along with the Jerome camp, some 16,000 Japanese Americans from September 18, 1942, to November 30, 1945, and was one of the last of ten such camps nationwide to close. The Japanese American population, of which sixty-four percent were American citizens, had been forcibly removed from the west coast of America under the doctrine of “military necessity” and …

Schexnayder, Charlotte Tillar

Journalist and state politician Charlotte Tillar Schexnayder co-owned the Dumas Clarion newspaper in Dumas (Desha County) with her husband for more than four decades and served in the Arkansas House of Representatives for fourteen years. She was the first woman appointed to the Arkansas Board of Pardons and Parole, and she was the first female president of the Dumas Chamber of Commerce. She was also president of several associations for professional journalists, including the Arkansas Press Women, the Arkansas Press Association, the National Federation of Press Women, and the National Newspaper Association. Charlotte Tillar was born on December 25, 1923, in Tillar (Drew and Desha counties) to Jewell Stephen Tillar and Bertha Terry Tillar. The family moved to McGehee (Desha County) in …

Sharp, William (Murder of)

Several online lynching lists and the Equal Justice Initiative indicate that an African American man named George Bert was lynched in Desha County on July 21, 1883. Investigation of this lynching reveals a number of confusing reports. While the Wheeling Intelligencer lists the victim as George Bert, other papers identify him as Albert Beth, Albert Best, Albert Vess, and Albert Vest. The incident also led to an interesting discussion at the time on the state’s practice of leasing state prisoners to convict farms across Arkansas. The reported lynching arose out of the murder of a prisoner named William Sharp by an overseer named Alfred Werner (occasionally referred to as Warner) on the Desha County prison farm. (The Wheeling Intelligencer gives …

Shingu, Nami

Nami Shingu, an American citizen born of Japanese parents, arrived in Arkansas as an internee in a World War II relocation camp and left a decade later after her family’s successful farming endeavors allowed them to return to California. Nami Yoshida was born in San Francisco, California, on January 31, 1918. There is little record of her parents, Japanese natives who had come to the United States seeking new opportunities. The family returned to Japan when Nami was ten years old, but as she grew up, she came to recognize the oppressive nature of the militaristic Japanese government, seeing friends who expressed opposition to its policies suddenly disappear. In the mid-1930s, she met a man living in her village named …

Smith, Leroy (Lynching of)

On May 11, 1921, fourteen-year-old Leroy Smith was hanged at McGehee (Desha County) for allegedly attacking J. P. Sims and Arabella Bond as they drove along a road between McGehee and Arkansas City (Desha County). It is one of many accounts of alleged roadside attacks, some of which are referred to in historian Kristina DuRocher’s book, Raising Racists. Although early reports, including the one in the Arkansas Gazette, indicated that the name of the lynching victim was unknown, an article in the St. Louis Argus identified him as Leroy Smith, a teenager from Lake Providence, Louisiana, which is about sixty miles from McGehee. The 1920 census lists a teenager named “Lawyer” Smith, born around 1908, living in Police Jury Ward …