Entries - County: Garland

Arkansas Derby

The Arkansas Derby is the most lucrative thoroughbred horse race in Arkansas, currently offering a “purse” of $1 million. The purse is the prize money that is divided among the horses competing in the race, based upon their finish, with the winner receiving sixty percent. The one-and-one-eighth-mile race is restricted to horses that are three years old. It is traditionally held each year at Oaklawn Racing Casino Resort in Hot Springs (Garland County) on the second Saturday of April. Over time, it has developed into one of the nation’s leading preparatory races for the Triple Crown, which comprises the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes, and Belmont Stakes. The Arkansas Derby was first held in 1936 and carried a $5,000 purse. The winner …

Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts

Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts (ASMSA) in Hot Springs (Garland County) is the only public residential high school in the state and one of only fourteen state-supported residential math and science schools in the nation. Its mission is to educate gifted and talented eleventh and twelfth grade students in Arkansas who have an interest and aptitude in mathematics, sciences, or the fine and performing arts. In addition, the school is expected to develop curricula and materials to improve instruction of mathematics, sciences, and fine and performing arts for all students in the state. As of 2015, the school educates approximately 230 students on its residential campus and more than 3,000 students in 60 counties through its distance …

Arlington Hotel

The Arlington Hotel in Hot Springs (Garland County) was built at the dawn of the city’s golden era as a resort destination, a time before Las Vegas or Florida had been developed into tourist destinations. Always among the largest hotels in the state, the Arlington is one of the most recognizable landmarks associated with the city of Hot Springs and its bathhouse district, and has been a destination for the wealthy and famous throughout its history. Following the Civil War, the city of Hot Springs quickly began to regain its popularity as a tourist destination. In response to a shortage of hotels to accommodate the growing number of visitors arriving to enjoy the natural thermal springs in the area, Samuel …

Army-Navy Hospital

aka: Hot Springs Rehabilitation Center
aka: Arkansas Career Training Institute

The building that later became the Hot Springs Rehabilitation Center (HSRC) and then the Arkansas Career Training Institute (ACTI) began its existence as the first combined general hospital for both U.S. Army and Navy patients in the nation. The Army-Navy Hospital was created ahead of the Navy Hospital Corps and over twenty years before the founding of  the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. The facility in Arkansas was quite an economic and social boon for rural Arkansas in the eyes of America and remains an imposing presence on the local skyline, regularly featured in pictures of the community. In the early 1800s, people believed that bathing in mineral waters had therapeutic value, which brought many people to the town of …

Babbie, Earl Robert

Earl Robert Babbie of Hot Springs Village (Garland and Saline counties) is an acclaimed sociologist best known for his book The Practice of Social Research, which has been reprinted in fifteen editions and is acknowledged to be a standard text in the field of social research. In addition to social research, his other textbooks deal with communications, criminal justice, and social work and, like his social research texts, are reprinted in foreign language editions around the world. He is also known for the Earl Babbie Research Center, which was established in his name at Chapman University in California. In addition, he is recognized for his online project, “Solutions Without Problems,” for which he coined the term “SoluProbs.” Earl Babbie was …

Bachman, Joseph

Joseph Bachman is widely recognized as Arkansas’s leading developer of grape varieties. During his career, he received national and international attention for his development of grape vines, winning several awards and supplying cuttings and plants to numerous nurseries. Joseph Bachman was born in 1853 in Lucerne, Switzerland. Little is known about his childhood, including his family, education, and early career. According to immigration records, Bachman arrived in New York on May 9, 1878, on a ship that had departed Le Havre, France, earlier that year. By 1881, following the advice of his relatives, Bachman had settled in the town of Altus (Franklin County), where many of his other countrymen resided. He held a wide array of occupations, serving as the …

Bailey, Marian Breland

Marian Ruth Kruse Breland Bailey was a pioneer in the field of animal behavior. Marian and her first husband, Keller Breland, were the first to use operant conditioning technology for commercial purposes. From their Hot Springs (Garland County) farm, the Brelands exported the new technology all over the world. Marian Ruth Kruse was born on December 2, 1920, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to Christian Kruse and Harriet Prime Kruse. Christian Kruse owned an auto parts supply house. Harriet was a registered nurse. Marian had one brother, Donald. She was known as “Mouse” to her friends; Marian’s father was the first to call her “Maus,” a common German term of endearment for girls. Later, when Marian met her soon-to-be husband, Keller, he …

Bathhouse Row

Bathhouse Row Historic District extends along the foot of the mountain that gives rise to the thermal springs in Hot Springs National Park. Located in downtown Hot Springs (Garland County), the scene is dominated by the most recent of a succession of bathing buildings dating back to 1830. Bathhouse Row includes eight surviving bathhouses: the Hale, Maurice, Buckstaff, Fordyce, Superior, Quapaw, Ozark, and Lamar. The landscape features sculptured fountains, water displays, and the Grand Promenade. Bathhouse Row has become the architectural core for downtown Hot Springs. History The first structures in the area to take advantage of the thermal springs were likely the sweat lodges of local Native Americans, which were followed by an unplanned conglomeration of buildings subject to …

Bear (Garland County)

Bear of Garland County was a boom town of the 1880s whose phenomenal growth was fueled by rumors that gold, silver, and other precious metals could be found in the nearby Ouachita Mountains. One enterprising fraud claimed to have found the legendary Lost Louisiana Mine. However, all such rumors ultimately proved false, and the town diminished as quickly as it had grown. Before the gold rush, people had homesteaded in the area around Bear Mountain—the mountain from which the town later took its name. One early settler was Melson Larkin. The first post office was established in 1882. As early as 1884, rumors of gold in the area began to spread. That year, the first plat of Bear was filed. A …

Bellaire Court Historic District

The Bellaire Court Historic District is a tourist court in Hot Springs (Garland County). Constructed in 1936, the court consists of eight Craftsman bungalow-style cottages and a manager’s office. The district is also known as the Bellaire Apartments, as it was converted to apartments in the 1970s. Located at 637 Park Avenue, the court is laid out in an L shape. The manager’s office faces Park Avenue, and five units are attached to the rear of the office, perpendicular to the street. The remaining three units are part of a separate building, facing Magnolia Avenue at the rear of the property. An asphalt driveway connects the property to Park Avenue. Little is known about the construction of the court. Located …

Big Chalybeate Spring

The Big Chalybeate Spring is located approximately three miles north of downtown Hot Springs (Garland County) on present-day Park Avenue. Pronounced “kuh-lee-bit,” the spring is aptly named for its abundant iron and mineral content. References to the spring date as far back as December 7, 1804, during the Hunter-Dunbar Expedition commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson to survey the Louisiana Purchase, and again by Major Stephen Harriman Long during his January 1818 visit to Hot Springs. Having an average temperature of 79˚F, the spring is designated “thermal” by the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. References to the spring appear in the Arkansas Gazette in both 1827 and 1829 as a potential resort destination due to its strong hydrological discharge …

Bill Clinton Boyhood Home

aka: Birnbaum-Shubetz House

The boyhood home of President Bill Clinton is today a private residence located at 1011 Park Avenue in the northern part of Hot Springs (Garland County). On May 18, 1995, it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. Also known as the Birnbaum-Shubetz House, it was constructed between 1896 and 1900, originally built in the Queen Anne style and redesigned in the Tudor Revival style in 1938. Although a two-story wood frame structure, it appears to be one and a half stories due to a steeply pitched gabled roof. Its exterior is stucco, stone, and wood half-timbers. The front porch has been described as Swiss Chalet style. The Arkansas Historic Preservation Program has termed it the area’s finest …

Blakely (Garland County)

The small community of Blakely originated as a logging camp of the Dierks Lumber and Coal Company. Named for Blakely Mountain and Blakely Creek in the Ouachita Mountains, the camp moved twice before reaching its permanent location just west of Highway 7 near Jessieville (Garland County). Blakely remains as a tangible reminder of the Dierks company’s legacy in Garland County. Dierks Brothers Company was founded in the 1880s by Hans, Herman, Peter, and Henry Dierks, sons of German immigrant Peter Henry Dierks. In 1895, the company became Dierks Lumber and Coal Company, and the company owned and operated numerous lumber yards in Iowa and Nebraska. In 1900, the Dierks brothers made their first purchase in Arkansas, acquiring a mill in …

Bolling, Raynal Cawthorne

Raynal Cawthorne Bolling was a lawyer as well as a pioneering aviator who led a mission to Europe during World War I to determine how the United States should pursue wartime aircraft production. Raynal Cawthorne Bolling was born in Hot Springs (Garland County) on September 1, 1877, the son of Sanford C. Bolling and Ada Lenora Hart Bolling. His father was a businessman, and the family apparently moved frequently, with census records showing Sanford Bolling working as a superintendent of an Illinois life insurance agency in 1900 and as a real estate salesman in New York in 1910. The younger Bolling followed a more successful career path, graduating from Harvard University in 1900 and earning a degree from Harvard Law …

Breland, Keller Bramwell

Keller Bramwell Breland was perhaps best known in Arkansas as the co-owner and operator of the IQ Zoo, a tourist attraction in Hot Springs (Garland County) that featured trained animals performing a variety of amazing acts. In addition, Breland played a major role in developing scientifically-validated and humane animal training methods and in promoting the widespread use of these methods. Keller Breland was born on March 26, 1915, in Poplarville, Mississippi, to Aden Breland, a Methodist minister, and Eugenia Breland, an elementary school teacher. The youngest of eleven children, Keller was an inquisitive, resourceful child. An entrepreneur from an early age, he sold magazines door to door with his older brother, Homer, and picked cotton during the summers. Breland graduated …

Buckville (Garland County)

The community of Buckville, located on the upper Ouachita River in Garland County, emerged as a small town amidst the sparsely settled Ouachita Mountains after the Civil War. The town typified rural upland Arkansas with its small farms and reliance on agriculture. Following the construction of Blakely Mountain Dam in the 1950s, the waters of Lake Ouachita covered the site of Buckville. The lake’s completion necessitated a total, permanent evacuation of the town. Extensive archaeological remains exist in the upper Ouachita River valley; many fields bordering on the river contain evidence of Native American presence in the area. Caddo occupied the Ouachita Mountains in relatively small, widely dispersed settlements in the northern part of the region. By 1700, no European or Indian resident …

Buckville Cemetery

The community of Buckville (Garland County) was inundated by the waters of Lake Ouachita in the 1950s; the remains lie under the lake’s surface. The Buckville Cemetery is the only reminder of the town that occupies its original location. The cemetery, which is located in northern Garland County off Buckville Road about two miles south of Avant (Garland County), was added to the National Register of Historic Places on September 27, 2007. The town of Buckville developed in the years following the Civil War. A post office was established in 1884, and a thriving community existed by the 1900s. A decline began by the 1920s when Arkansas Power and Light (AP&L) embarked on the construction of three dams on the …

Bump, Dallas

Dallas Bump of Royal (Garland County) was a fourth-generation chair maker who constructed handcrafted furniture for more than seventy-five years. One of his handmade chairs, the “Bump Rocker,” spread his renown around the world. Along with being named an Arkansas Living Treasure by the Arkansas Arts Council in 2013, he saw his work featured in Southern Living magazine, spotlighted on television’s Good Morning America, and lauded by the Smithsonian Institution. One of his rockers found a home in the White House during the Bill Clinton administration. A Bump rocker is unique, as each step, from the fallen tree onward, was controlled by Dallas Bump and his family. The chairs are made one at a time and assembled with the family’s …

Burks, Ruth Coker

Ruth Burks is an Arkansas woman who, in the midst of the 1980s AIDS epidemic, provided support for dozens of men who were dying of AIDS—men who were often abandoned by their families, with even some health professionals being reluctant to treat them. According to Burks, she also ensured that they would have a proper final resting place, providing for the burial of dozens of men in Files Cemetery. However, later investigation into her story has raised significant doubts about the narrative she has promoted about herself. Frances Ruth Coker was born in Hot Springs (Garland County) on March 19, 1959, to James Isham Coker and Aline Lawlor Coker. Her father, who was almost twenty years older than her mother, …

Butchie’s Drive-In

What was originally called Butchie’s Drive-In is a small restaurant located on Park Avenue in Hot Springs (Garland County). Designed in Art Moderne style, the building was constructed in 1952 and added to the National Register of Historic Places on February 11, 2004. Bailey’s Dairy Treat began operations in the building in 1995. An outstanding example of a tourist-focused business that existed in Hot Springs during the mid-twentieth century, it is the only remaining restaurant from the period on Park Avenue. A number of businesses catering to visitors to Hot Springs appeared along Park Avenue in the 1930s. The roadway led travelers from Little Rock (Pulaski County) into the city, and multiple tourist courts, motels, and restaurants were constructed along …

Camp Hot Springs

To alleviate overcrowding of German and Italian prisoners of war (POWs) in Great Britain and the rest of Europe, the United States assisted its Allies by transporting around 425,000 POWs to the United States. Approximately 500 POW camps were located across America, and Arkansas accepted its first POWs in 1943. Eventually, the state took in about 23,000 German and Italian prisoners, mainly from Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps. In 1945, the U.S. Army designated a portion of Lake Catherine State Park as a prisoner-of-war camp and identified it as Camp Hot Springs. The compound seems to have been located on what later was known as Picnic Hill. It was one of thirty-three branch camps, or side camps, from the …

Canada, Eugene “Bud”

Eugene “Bud” Canada was a longtime member of the Arkansas General Assembly, serving in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Over the course of his distinctive career, he became known as a passionate opponent of the state’s tax on groceries, believing that the tax placed an unfair burden on Arkansas families. Eugene Canada was born on June 6, 1925, in Hartshorne, Oklahoma, to Laura Inez Canada and William Canada. “Bud,” as he was known, grew up in Hot Springs (Garland County). He sold newspapers while in high school, where he was an accomplished athlete, starring for the Hot Springs High School football team and winning the Arkansas Gold Gloves. His athletic success earned him many college scholarship offers, …

Carpenter Dam

aka: Lake Hamilton

Carpenter Dam is the second of three dams constructed along the Ouachita River in the vicinity of Hot Springs (Garland County), following Remmel Dam (completed in 1924) and preceding Blakely Mountain Dam (completed in the 1950s). The concrete gravity dam was built by Arkansas Power and Light (AP&L), which later became Entergy, for purposes of producing hydroelectric power. It impounds the 7,200-acre Lake Hamilton. Carpenter Dam was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on September 4, 1992, in recognition of its role in the growth and development of Hot Springs. Flavius Josephus (Flave) Carpenter, an associate of AP&L president Harvey Couch, selected the site for the construction of Carpenter Dam, ten miles upstream from Remmel Dam, and so …

Cary, James Alexander

James Alexander Cary, a park policeman at Hot Springs National Park from 1923 to 1927, was the first employee of the National Park Service to be murdered in the line of duty. His body was found on March 12, 1927, in Hot Springs National Park within a few feet of the spot where he had arrested men transporting illegal whiskey across federal property three months before. The case remains officially unsolved. James Cary was born on December 19, 1895, in Osage, Missouri, to Lillie D. Cary and James B. Cary. He grew up on a family farm in Osage as the third of five children. On June 1, 1917, Cary joined the U.S. Navy and served until February 4, 1919. …

CCC Company 3767 Powder Magazine Historic District

The CCC Company 3767 Powder Magazine Historic District, located near Jessieville in Garland County, consists of two small stone and concrete structures originally constructed to store powder and blasting caps for use by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on March 30, 2007. Civilian Conservation Corps Company 3767 was established on June 1, 1935, in Warrensburg, Missouri, and moved to Jessieville on July 8, 1935. The company built the powder magazine and blasting cap magazine to store explosives for use on road and bridge construction or conservation projects within the Ouachita National Forest. Company 3767 was transferred to Camp Hollis in Perry County in December 1936. The powder magazine is the …

Cedar Glades (Garland County)

The community of Cedar Glades, located on the upper Ouachita River in Garland County, served as a transportation and commercial center amidst the sparsely settled Ouachita Mountains before the Civil War. The town typified rural upland Arkansas with its small farms and reliance on agriculture. Following the construction of Blakely Mountain Dam in the 1950s, the waters of Lake Ouachita covered Cedar Glades and the surrounding area. The lake’s completion necessitated a total, permanent evacuation of the town, and it ceased to exist. Extensive archaeological remains exist in the upper Ouachita River valley; many fields bordering on the river contain evidence of Native American presence in the area. Caddo occupied the Ouachita Mountains in relatively small, widely dispersed settlements in the northern part …

Central Theater

Built in the 1930s, the historic Central Theater is located at 1008 Central Avenue in downtown Hot Springs (Garland County). It is said to be the oldest stage and motion picture theater in Hot Springs. Chris Rix acquired the property in 2020 and set about restoring it, upgrading HVAC, safety mechanisms, and technical systems to modern standards. Many of the original Art Deco design elements from the 1930s can still be seen in the auditorium, which seats more than 300 people. The 10,000-square-foot Central Theater building was constructed in the 1930s as a garage; pillars remain where the garage doors once were. The building was converted to a theater in 1937. It presented first-run movies through the post–World War II …

Chewaukla Mineral Springs Co.

The cold-water springs below the site of the bottling factory of Chewaukla Mineral Springs Co. (later the Sleepy Hollow Water Co.) outside Hot Springs (Garland County) became a national sensation, with backers from Chicago and an “expert” touting their “radioactive medicinal value.” Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians wrote a song dedicated to this “Sleepy Water of Hot Springs, Arkansas.” Radio programs and newspapers such as the Chicago Tribune disseminated testimonials of what the water could cure. The bottling factory was located on what is now Sleepy Valley Road off of Highway 7 South just north of Hot Springs proper and within Hot Springs National Park. In the twenty-first century, the remains of the facility are not marked by any …

Chitwood, Oscar (Murder of)

Oscar Chitwood was murdered on December 26, 1910, at the Garland County Courthouse in Hot Springs. A deputy sheriff who was with Chitwood at the time of the murder claimed that a lynch mob killed Chitwood, but other witnesses contradicted his account. The murder remains officially unsolved. On August 17, 1910, Garland County sheriff Jake Houpt and his chief deputy (and younger brother) Sid Houpt attempted to arrest Oscar Chitwood and his brother George Chitwood for stealing horses. The Chitwood brothers resisted arrest, and a gunfight broke out on the grounds of the Garland County Courthouse. When the fight ended, George Chitwood was dead, and Jake Houpt was mortally wounded. Oscar Chitwood escaped, although badly wounded. Sid Houpt was unharmed. …

City of Hot Springs v. Creviston

The Arkansas Supreme Court upended fifty-two years of financial practice by Arkansas cities and counties and numerous decisions of the Supreme Court when it ruled on March 3, 1986, that the Arkansas Constitution required the state and local governments to get voters’ approval before issuing bonds for capital improvements or any other purpose. The decision, in a case styled City of Hot Springs v. Tom Creviston, stunned local governments and financial institutions and briefly halted the issuance of financial instruments called revenue bonds, which were debts that were to be repaid from revenues generated by the project rather than from taxes. But a constitutional amendment to lift the election requirement was hastily drafted, petitions placed it on the ballot, and …

Corbin, Donald Louis

Donald Louis Corbin had a career as a state legislator and appellate judge spanning forty-four years. As a state representative, Corbin developed a reputation as a plainspoken maverick, and, as a judge, a reputation for pushing his colleagues to take unpopular stands, particularly on social issues. As his twenty-four-year career as a justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court was coming to an end in 2014, he had a bitter disagreement with other justices whom he thought had connived to avoid rendering a decision in the controversy over legalizing marriages of same-sex couples. Donald L. Corbin was born on March 29, 1938, in Hot Springs (Garland County), where his father, Louis Emerson Corbin, was a meat-market manager for a Kroger grocery …

Cordell, Carl Richey “Cotton”

Few figures were more recognized in the multi-billion dollar sportfishing industry than Arkansas native Carl Richey “Cotton” Cordell Jr., who built a fishing tackle empire based in Hot Springs (Garland County) that grew to be the largest in America. Carl Cordell Jr. was born in Benton (Saline County) on December 9, 1928, the only child of Carl R. Cordell and Alice J. Barnes Cordell. His father worked for Alcoa but moved the family in November 1945 to Lake Catherine near Hot Springs, where he had purchased a marina and resort. Cordell, nicknamed “Cotton” because of his light hair, spent most of his youth traversing the Arkansas outdoors for fish and game, becoming able to help his father at the marina …

Cottage Courts Historic District

Cottage Courts Historic District is a motel located at 603 Park Avenue in Hot Springs (Garland County). Constructed in 1950, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places on February 11, 2004. Park Avenue was an important transportation route in the early twentieth century, as travelers from Little Rock (Pulaski County) and other cities to the north of Hot Springs used the road to reach the growing tourist town. Service stations, lodging, and other amenities were constructed along the road to serve these visitors. Cottage Courts (or Court) was constructed late in this period and was designed as a motel rather than a traditional tourist court as many others had been in Hot Springs. The units are joined …

Couchwood Historic District

The Couchwood Historic District is the summer vacation estate of the late Harvey Couch (1877–1941). Couch founded Arkansas Power and Light (AP&L), was president of the Louisiana and Arkansas Railway and Kansas City Southern Railway, and was a developer of rural telephone systems in northern Louisiana and southern Arkansas. Couchwood consists of eight buildings on 170 acres and sits on a peninsula overlooking Lake Catherine between Hot Springs (Garland County) and Malvern (Hot Spring County). The property remains in the Couch family and is not open to the public. During the late 1920s and 1930s, notables such as future president Herbert Hoover and humorist Will Rogers visited Couchwood. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt also visited Couchwood during the 1936 Arkansas centennial …

Council for the Liberation of Blacks (CLOB)

The Council for the Liberation of Blacks (CLOB) was established in 1969 in Hot Springs (Garland County) and was active for less than two years. It was one of several grassroots civil rights organizations that emerged across the state during a period of unrest due to racial injustices such as segregated facilities, poor housing, and a lack of economic opportunities. The group was founded by John Paschal (1939–2001), a high school industrial arts teacher. Paschal, who taught at the all-black Langston High School in Hot Springs, was one of the first African-American teachers transferred to the newly integrated Hot Springs High School during the 1968–69 school year. CLOB got its start one night as Paschal and others—including Ralph Porter Jr., …

Cove Tourist Court

The Cove Tourist Court is located on the corner of Park Avenue and Cove Street in Hot Springs (Garland County). Constructed in 1937, the court is designed in the International style with Craftsman-style details. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on February 11, 2004. The thermal waters found in Hot Springs have made the area an attractive destination for visitors for centuries. The widespread adoption of automobiles in the early twentieth-century, coupled with the improvements made to highways in Arkansas, made it easier than ever for tourists to reach Hot Springs in the 1930s. In response to the growing demand for lodging in the area, numerous tourist courts and other amenities were built along Park Avenue. …

Crystal Bathhouse

The Crystal Bathhouse in Hot Springs (Garland County) was the first purpose-built bathhouse to exclusively serve the needs of African Americans in Arkansas. It opened in 1904 and became a destination for those who were attracted to the nationally known thermal waters of the Spa City during the era of the Jim Crow segregated South. The Crystal Bathhouse was located at 415 Malvern Avenue on Block 66 in the black business district of town. Two local contractors, Michael H. Jodd and Albert P. Aldrich, built the bathhouse. They chose architect John McCaslin to design a two-story brick building with parlors, dressing rooms, cooling rooms, tubs, vapor cabinets, restrooms, and eleven rooms for lodging accommodations. Externally, the building had double-hung sash …

Crystal Springs (Garland County)

Crystal Springs (Garland County) is an unincorporated community located south of Lake Ouachita in the Ouachita National Forest. The community is about five miles west of Royal (Garland County) and seventeen miles west of Hot Springs (Garland County). The community is less than two miles south of Crystal Springs Campground on the shore of the lake. The Crystal Springs area was part of Montgomery County during its earliest settlement. On February 23, 1917, the easternmost portion of Montgomery County, including Crystal Township where Crystal Springs is located, was transferred to Garland County. Settlement of the area did not begin until after the end of the Civil War. Early settlers in the area include Francis Springer, who obtained 160 acres from …

Day, Patrick Alan (Pat)

Patrick Alan Day is a retired thoroughbred jockey with 8,803 victories, many of which came at Oaklawn Racing Casino Resort in Hot Springs (Garland County). Born on October 13, 1953, in Brush, Colorado, Pat Day wrestled in high school, once winning the state championship for his weight class. After graduating, he participated briefly in professional rodeo bull riding before turning his attention to thoroughbred horse racing. Standing four feet eleven inches tall and weighing about 100 pounds, Day adapted quickly to the sport, riding Foreblunged to his first career victory on July 29, 1973, at the Prescott Downs Racetrack in Prescott, Arizona. Day dominated thoroughbred racing throughout the Midwest in the 1970s and secured his first major win on the East …

Dryden Pottery

Dryden Pottery was founded in Kansas by A. James Dryden, who relocated his business to Hot Springs (Garland County) in 1956. Dryden Pottery has become collectible and has been listed in Schroeder’s Antique Guide for many years. Dryden, the son of a successful hardware merchant in Ellsworth, Kansas, grew up working in his father’s store. After serving during World War II in the South Pacific, he returned to Ellsworth and needed a job. He had always had an interest in art with a special aptitude for cartooning, but his attempts at cartooning for publication were not going to support his family. A chance meeting on the streets of Ellsworth with nationally known ceramicist Norman Plumber presented Dryden with an idea …

Edwards, Daniel Richmond

Daniel Richmond Edwards, a native Texan, received the Medal of Honor for his actions during World War I. He also claimed a wide range of other adventures before moving to Arkansas and becoming a Lake Ouachita fishing guide. In its entry on Edwards, the Texas State Cemetery website states: “The events of Medal of Honor recipient Daniel Edwards’ life, from birth to death, are unclear. He was prone to embellishment, a trait most likely enhanced by his celebrity, and records from the time he lived are often incomplete, making many of his claims impossible to disprove and many true events difficult to confirm.” Daniel Richmond Edwards was born on April 9, 1897, in Mooreville, Texas, to Jefferson Dudley Edwards and …

Evans, Timothy C.

Timothy C. Evans of Hot Springs (Garland County) was the first African American to be elected as chief judge of the Cook County Circuit Court of Illinois. He was inducted into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame in 2010. Timothy Evans was born on June 1, 1943, in Hot Springs, to George Evans and Tiny Marie Evans. His father would later become a bailiff for the Illinois State Supreme Court, a position he held for twenty-seven years. Evans has two siblings: George W. Evans and Sandra M. Johnson. As a child in Hot Springs, Evans wanted to be a doctor. The family moved to Chicago, Illinois, shortly after Governor Orval Faubus closed Little Rock (Pulaski County) public schools to impede …

Farr’s Mill, Skirmish at

On July 4, 1864, the Fourth Arkansas Cavalry (US) was ordered on a scouting expedition to Caddo Gap (Montgomery County). About 250 men of the Fourth Arkansas set out on July 5 and almost immediately began skirmishing with Confederate irregulars. They proceeded to Farr’s Mill near the confluence of Gulpha Creek and the Ouachita River near Hot Springs (Garland County) and camped on July 8. A detachment of Union troops proceeded into Hot Springs the next day, chasing a band of Confederates through town. About 100 Confederates in Cook’s and Crawford’s bands of irregulars then attacked the camp at Farr’s Mill, where a fierce Federal counterattack drove them off. The Confederates lost four dead and six wounded, while the Fourth …

Farrar, Clayton Ponder (Clay), Jr.

Clayton Ponder (Clay) Farrar Jr. was a longtime civic leader in Hot Springs (Garland County) as well as a respected historian and writer. He served as president of the Greater Hot Springs Chamber of Commerce, along with the nonprofit Hot Springs Fifty for the Future program, a public service organization he co-founded. Farrar championed efforts to revitalize Hot Springs National Park and led the drive to save it from being reclassified to a lower rank in the National Park Service, a designation that would have had a negative impact on the Hot Springs community. Farrar also helped secure federal funds to develop the National Park Visitor Center on historic Bathhouse Row in Hot Springs. Farrar’s most recent campaign was to …

Fernandez, Josie

Josie Fernandez was superintendent of Hot Springs National Park from 2004 to 2018—the first woman to lead the park. Fernandez served a total of twenty-five years in the National Park Service, with fourteen being spent in Hot Springs (Garland County). Under Fernandez’s leadership, Hot Springs National Park rehabilitated its historic bathhouses and founded community engagement programs such as the Artist in Residence Program. Josie Fernandez was born in Cuba in September 1956; she has one younger brother. Her family eventually fled Cuba for political reasons and immigrated to the United States when she was twelve, settling in Hialeah, Florida, in 1969. She became an American citizen on July 4, 1976. She spent one year at Miami Dade Junior College and …

Files Cemetery

The Files Cemetery in Hot Springs (Garland County) is located on a quarter-acre lot off Arkansas Highway 7 South, on Files Road. It has been the resting place of Ruth Coker Burks’s family since the late 1880s. The oldest headstone dates back to the mid-1880s and the most recent was from 2019. Aside from the Burks family, the cemetery is also reportedly the burial place for more than three dozen men who died from AIDS in the 1980s. While most of the headstones in the cemetery are simple rectangles with name, birthdate, and death date, and occasionally a cross or flower engraved, some are marked with symbols and iconography. One such headstone is that of Emma L. Files Burrough, which …

Flynn-Doran War

The Flynn-Doran War was an early 1880s struggle for control of gambling in Hot Springs (Garland County) between the gang of Frank “Boss Gambler” Flynn and the forces of rival James K. Lane and his chief hired gun, S. A. Doran. Frank Flynn arrived in Hot Springs in 1871 and, within five years, effectively controlled gambling in the town, though he also dabbled in newspapers and railroads. James K. Lane, who ran bar operations in one of Flynn’s gambling dens, decided to branch out on his own, opening the Palace Saloon and Club (at which his wife, Gracie, served as madam to its brothel operations), and the Monarch, both on Valley Street, around 1882. Angered by the competition, Flynn and …

Fordyce, John Rison

The son of Hot Springs (Garland County) entrepreneur and Cotton Belt Railroad president Samuel Wesley Fordyce, John Rison Fordyce forged his own way into Arkansas history. He was educated as a mining engineer but was also an inventor, manufacturer, leader in commerce, public servant, and amateur archaeologist. John R. Fordyce was born in Huntsville, Alabama, on November 7, 1869. He moved to the health resort of Hot Springs at age five with his father and mother, Susan Chadick, after his father, suffering from malaria contracted during the Civil War, found renewed health in the local thermal springs. The third of five children, Fordyce—along with his three surviving siblings—was educated in Hot Springs schools. His father was instrumental in Hot Springs’ …

Fordyce, Samuel Wesley

Samuel Wesley Fordyce was a businessman who spearheaded efforts to build thousands of miles of railway in the South and Southwest during the late nineteenth century, including the Cotton Belt route that crossed Arkansas. He also was a major force behind the transformation of Hot Springs (Garland County) from a small village to major health resort. The town of Fordyce (Dallas County) is named for him, as is the Fordyce Bath House in Hot Springs. Samuel Fordyce was born on February 7, 1840, in Senecaville, Ohio, the son of John Fordyce and Mary Ann Houseman Fordyce. As a boy, he never liked school, but he attended Madison College in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, and North Illinois University in Henry, Illinois, before becoming …

Fountain Lake (Garland County)

Fountain Lake is a city on State Highway 5 in Garland County. Located about halfway between Benton (Saline County) and Hot Springs (Garland County), Fountain Lake also borders on Hot Springs Village (Garland and Saline counties) to the northwest. Evidence of ancient inhabitants has been found scattered around Garland County, although the relationship of Native Americans to the Hot Springs area has been exaggerated at times to promote tourism. The Caddo inhabited the region when the 1541–1542 Hernando de Soto expedition first traveled through the area, but settlement was sparse. Only a handful of American settlers had claimed land in what would later be northern Garland County by the time of the Civil War. John Holland and Isaac Collins were …