County: Hot Spring

Caney (Hot Spring County)

Caney is an unincorporated community in southwestern Hot Spring County. Centered on the intersection of Arkansas Highways 128 and 283 and Caney Road, the community is about one mile north of the Clark County line and seven miles southeast of Bismarck (Hot Spring County). The community is located in Montgomery Township and is about two miles east of DeGray Lake. Early landowners in the area included John Riddles, who obtained a federal land patent for 160 acres in the area in 1856. (Riddles is also spelled Riddle in some documents.) Little information on John Riddles is available, but other Riddles family members in the area also obtained land patents around the same time. Eli Riddles received a land patent for …

Central (Hot Spring County)

Central is a community located in Hot Spring County along U.S. Highway 67 about five miles south of Malvern (Hot Spring County). The community centered on the school that existed there in the early twentieth century. Early landowners in the area included John Ross and Sha Tah O Ka, who obtained land through the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek, which took land from Choctaw east of the Mississippi River while giving them land in Arkansas and the Indian Territory. Ross received a total of 318 acres in 1851, with most of it around the Central area but with additional land in what is now White County and Cleveland County. In 1857, William Ballard obtained 160 acres in the area. More …

Clark House (Malvern)

The Clark House in Malvern (Hot Spring County) was designed by noted Arkansas architect Charles Thompson. Incorporating design elements from both Victorian and Craftsman styles, the house was constructed in 1916 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. The home was constructed for Dayton D. Clark, a local lumber mill manager. His wife was Louise Clark, and the couple had two daughters. Clark commissioned the plans for the house from Charles Thompson’s architectural firm. The east-facing, one-and-a-half-story home is located on a corner lot at 1324 South Main Street. A porch fronts the house, wrapping around the eastern edge of the structure, which is accessed by a set of concrete steps from the circular drive. …

Clem Bottling Works

Clem Bottling Works in Malvern (Hot Spring County) was a bottling company in operation from 1907 to 1972. It produced about a dozen original flavors of soft drinks. Clem Bottling Works was started in March 1907 by J. M. Clem and his son, Dock. The Clem family produced and bottled soft drinks in a small building behind their home. In May 1914, the Clem Family built a bottling plant and warehouse at 937 South Main Street in Malvern. The first bottles the company used were embossed with “J. M. Clem Bottling Works” and were sealed with a wire and an inner seal. In the early 1920s, the company converted to bottles sealed with metal caps. The bottles at this time …

Cove Creek (Hot Spring County)

Cove Creek is an unincorporated community in Hot Spring County. Located about six miles northwest of Malvern (Hot Spring County), the community is directly south of Magnet Cove (Hot Spring County) and directly east of Jones Mills (Hot Spring County). An alternate name of the community is LeCroy, named after a local landowner. Early landowners in the area included John M. Ross, who obtained 162 acres in the section in 1858 using Choctaw scrip. Nehemiah Woods obtained 160 acres the same year, also using Choctaw scrip. Settlement of the area occurred slowly until the construction of the Diamond Joe Railroad. Officially known as the Hot Springs Branch Railroad, the more colorful nickname honored founder Joseph Reynolds. A section crew stationed …

Cross Roads (Hot Spring County)

Cross Roads is an unincorporated community located in far western Hot Spring County. It is also known as Crossroads. The community is located about one mile southwest of Bonnerdale (Hot Spring County) and nine miles northeast of Glenwood (Pike County). Cross Roads is located about three-quarters of a mile east of the Montgomery County line. The community of Bismarck (Hot Spring County) was also known as Cross Roads in the nineteenth century. The first settlers arrived in the area in the early nineteenth century, but the first federal land patents in the area were not issued until 1897. In that year, Jesse and Samuel Ballard each obtained about 160 acres in the Cross Roads area. Samuel Ballard was a North …

DeRoche (Hot Spring County)

DeRoche is located in the area of Arkansas Highway 84 between state highways 128 and 7. Located just south of Jack Mountain, the township lies about fifteen miles south of Hot Springs (Garland County) and eight miles east of Bismarck (Hot Spring County). The DeRoche community is enclosed on three sides by the Caddo and Ouachita rivers. Although the DeRoche Creek name appeared on maps in 1806, development of the area did not begin for another twenty-five years. “De Roche” is French for “of rock,” a possible reference to the rocky bed of DeRoche Creek, for which the community was named. Squatting was the primary way to obtain land in the area. Some worked the land for many years but then moved …

Dial, Rick

Rick Dial was a character actor, musician, and businessman from Malvern (Hot Spring County). Dial acted in fourteen Hollywood films, first appearing alongside childhood friend and fellow actor Billy Bob Thornton in Sling Blade (1996). In addition to his acting, Dial was part-owner of a furniture store in Malvern and was “the Voice of the Malvern Leopards,” announcing high school football games. Richard Halley Dial was born on March 9, 1955, in Malvern to Bill J. Dial and DeNora VanDusen Dial; he was one of three children. He graduated from Malvern High School in 1973, where he earned All-Conference honors on the Malvern Leopards football team. Dial married Phyllis Voss on September 22, 1973; they had three children. After high …

Dixon, Giles (Execution of)

Giles Dixon (sometimes spelled Dickson or Dickerson) was hanged at Rockport (Hot Spring County) on September 7, 1877, for the shooting death of Nathaniel (or Matthew) McCall, a man in Clark County, several years earlier. The 1870 federal census shows Giles Dixon living in Clark County’s Caddo Township with his wife Mary, six children, and his 102-year-old mother. The thirty-five-year-old African American man was employed in a brick yard. On the evening of December 30, 1873, McCall, who lived on the Draper farm south of Arkadelphia (Clark County), opened the door to his house to see why his dog was barking and was shot with a double-barreled shotgun, which the Southern Standard newspaper reported was “loaded with buckshot, three taking …

Donaldson (Hot Spring County)

The community of Donaldson in Hot Spring County was established in the 1870s. The timber industry and the Missouri Pacific Railroad were important to the town’s development. John Easley was appointed the first postmaster in 1876. There are two local stories regarding the town’s naming. One version posits that the town was named for a Mr. Donaldson who owned a sawmill there. According to another, there was a railroad superintendent named Donald there in the 1870s. His son opened a store for railroad employees, and so when people were going shopping, they were going to “Donald’s son.” A third possibility is that the community was named after William Rhind Donaldson (1843–1917), the son-in-law of Thomas Allen, president of the Cairo …

Duffie (Hot Spring County)

Duffie is an unincorporated community in Hot Spring County, located about one and a half miles northeast of the entrance to DeGray Lake Resort State Park and about four miles southwest of Bismarck (Hot Spring County). The community is about nineteen miles southwest of the county seat of Malvern (Hot Spring County). Early settlers in the area included Zacheriah Prince, who obtained a federal land patent for 160 acres in 1856, with an additional 160 acres in 1860. Born in North Carolina, Prince appeared in the 1860 federal census with his wife, Suseanah, and their four sons and two daughters. The family lived in Alabama before moving to Arkansas. Zacheriah Prince owned about $3,000 of real estate and $800 of …

Ebenezer (Hot Spring County)

A small unincorporated community in Hot Spring County, Ebenezer is located about three miles southwest of Malvern (Hot Spring County) and less than two miles northeast of Central (Hot Spring County). The community is centered on U.S. Highway 67. Few people lived in the area before the Civil War. Small numbers of settlers began to arrive in the mid-1870s after the construction of the Cairo and Fulton Railroad about one mile to the west. The establishment of Malvern to the northeast in 1873 attracted people to the area, as large tracts of land were still available for settlement and the railroad offered a nearby option to ship goods to market. Early settlers included Huston Robinson, who obtained a land patent …

Elmore (Hot Spring County)

Located about six miles southwest of Malvern (Hot Spring County), four miles northeast of Donaldson (Hot Spring County), and two miles southwest of Etta (Hot Spring County), Elmore was an unincorporated community related to the timber industry in the late nineteenth century. John Kelly (J. K.) Hall was born in Hot Spring County in 1856. During the Civil War, his father, James Hall, died as a Confederate prisoner of war in St. Louis in 1862; James’s wife raised Hall and his siblings. After spending a few years in Texas, where he married Nancy Guinn Nichols, Hall returned to Hot Spring County and worked for the Christopher and Clark Lumber Company. Purchasing the company in 1886, he renamed it the J. …