Entries - County: Jackson

Allen, Henry (Lynching of)

Henry Allen was lynched in Jacksonport (Jackson County) on September 10, 1881, three days after he stabbed a man in nearby Newport (Jackson County). The information on the lynching comes from a special telegram to the Arkansas Gazette published the day after the affair. Henry Allen had reportedly stabbed a man named Williams (his first initial is not legible on the main surviving copy of the Gazette, but his middle initial is E.) on September 7, leaving him in serious condition. Afterward, Allen was arrested and jailed at Jacksonport. According to the report, at approximately 2:00 on the morning of September 10, “a large number of masked men in arms” surrounded the jail at Jacksonport. The mob demanded that “Jailor …

Allwhite, Louis (Lynching of)

Louis Allwhite, a white man, was lynched just outside of Newport (Jackson County) on December 31, 1904, for having allegedly participated, with his son, in the rape and murder of two women on Christmas Day. The incident is particularly indicative of the brazenness of lynch mobs and how their violence was abetted by local law enforcement officials, who typically ruled that the victim of a lynching died at the hands of people “unknown” even when the act was carried out in broad daylight. At the time of the murder, Louis Allwhite was forty-three years old and Newton Allwhite nineteen. In the 1900 census, the Allwhite family is recorded as living in Big Bottom Township of neighboring Independence County, the family …

Amagon (Jackson County)

Amagon is a town in southern Jackson County on Highway 14. It is best known as the birthplace of Mike Beebe, Arkansas’s forty-fifth governor. About 600 archaeological sites in Jackson County indicate that the land has been populated for around 10,000 years. However, the area around Amagon was only sparsely populated until the twentieth century. In 1900, Will Pennington owned the land where Amagon stands. He granted some land to the Bonnerville and Southwestern Railroad (also called at one time the Bonnerville and Southern), which was built in 1905 to link Bonnerville—now Bono (Craighead County)—to Estico (Jackson County). The line was later extended through Amagon to Algoa (Jackson County). The railroad, which soon became part of the St. Louis–San Francisco …

Arkansas State University–Newport (ASU–Newport)

Arkansas State University–Newport (ASUN) is a comprehensive, two-year accredited college providing college transfer and career and technical education to students throughout northeast Arkansas. ASUN’s mission is to “provide integrity of programs and services; affordable life-long learning; and enhanced quality of life in the diverse community we serve.” It is part of the Arkansas State University System. Funded by Act 227 of 1973, ASUN was originally named White River Vocational-Technical School and was established to provide technical training and educational opportunities to the residents of Jackson County and surrounding areas. In 1991, the legislature passed Act 1244, converting vocational-technical schools into two-year colleges. White River Vocational-Technical School therefore became White River Technical College. The following year, it became a satellite of …

Auvergne (Jackson County)

Auvergne of Jackson County is a small unincorporated community located about ten miles southeast of Newport (Jackson County) on land that was home to some of the area’s first settlers. Though occupied by the 1830s, no settlement began to emerge until the 1870s. During its heyday in the late nineteenth century, the community, positioned on a ridge between the White and Cache river bottoms, was home to a thriving timber trade and ample farming. James T. Henderson, sometimes called the “father of Auvergne,” moved from Tennessee and settled in the area with twenty-five slaves in 1860. Establishing a large farm and orchard, he built his house just west of where the settlement would be. Local history records that it was …

Barnes, Jim “Bad News”

Velvet James (Jim) “Bad News” Barnes was an American basketball player and Olympic gold medalist originally from Tuckerman (Jackson County). Barnes enjoyed great success in his collegiate career, which later led him to be the first pick in the 1964 National Basketball Association (NBA) draft. As a professional athlete, Barnes played for five different teams over seven seasons until an Achilles tendon injury largely forced his retirement. Regarding the nickname “Bad News,” Boston Celtics coach Red Auerbach said he was so named “for the damage he did to opposing teams and players.” Jim Barnes was born on April 13, 1941, in Tuckerman. As a child, Barnes picked and chopped cotton and played basketball wearing socks, since his family was too …

Beebe, Mike

A veteran of state government, Mickey Dale (Mike) Beebe was inaugurated as Arkansas’s forty-fifth governor on January 9, 2007. He remained popular with Arkansas’s electorate across his entire eight-year term of service, with support that crossed party lines during a time of polarization in American politics. The steadiness of the Arkansas economy and state finances during the Great Recession, the near total elimination of the state’s sales tax on groceries, and the culmination of the Lake View School District No. 25 v. Huckabee public school lawsuit were the hallmarks of the Beebe governorship, which was often characterized as “pragmatic.” However, Beebe also served as the leader of the state Democratic Party during its historic fall from power. Mike Beebe was …

Beedeville (Jackson County)

Beedeville is a town in southeastern Jackson County. It is located on State Highway 37 near the Cache River. Sawmills built in Beedeville early in the twentieth century attracted the interest of railroad investors, but the line that included Beedeville in its name was never completed to the town. The Cache River served as a transportation corridor both before and after European explorers entered Arkansas. The actual river valley, prone to flooding, remained sparsely settled even after Arkansas became a state. William H. Beede, who arrived around 1866, was probably the first settler to occupy the current site of Beedeville. He helped to organize the first public school in the area in 1880. A Church of Christ was established near …

Black, Pickens W., Sr.

Pickens W. Black Sr. was one of the most remarkable African-American agriculturalists in northeast Arkansas in the post–Civil War years. Although little has been written about his life, he is rightly entitled to appear in the annals of Arkansas history as an entrepreneur, community developer, philanthropist, and advocate for the education of black children in Jackson County. Pickens Black Sr. was born a slave about 1861 (no later than 1863) near Gadsden, Alabama. His mother, Mary Johnston, and her first and second husbands (the second was his father) were the slaves of a white plantation owner named Black, and they took the surname of their master. Black had an older half-brother, John V. Lee, from his mother’s first marriage. Black …

Boyd, Leonard (Lynching of)

On August 2, 1887, a white man named Leonard Boyd was lynched outside of Jacksonport (Jackson County) for having allegedly murdered his wife. The brief account of the lynching of Leonard Boyd in Jacksonport appears only as a paragraph in the “Arkansas State News” column of several state newspapers, such as the Southern Standard of Arkadelphia (Clark County) and the Osceola Times of Osceola (Mississippi County). According to this account, a coroner’s jury was conducting an inquest regarding the death of Boyd’s wife, who had allegedly committed suicide. However, the jury concluded that “she had come to her death by being hanged by the neck by a rope in the hands of her husband.” Specifically, the inquest concluded that “she …

Burgess, Sonny

aka: Albert Austin Burgess

Albert Austin “Sonny” Burgess was best known as one of the original rock and roll recording artists for Sun Records in Memphis, Tennessee, and as one of the pioneers of rock and roll. He and his band, the Pacers, made a hit of his first recording, “Red Headed Woman,” and the flip side, “We Wanna Boogie,” both of which Burgess wrote. The record sold approximately 100,000 copies, a phenomenal number for that era. Burgess and the Pacers performed at various events in the United States and Europe until his death in 2017. Sonny Burgess was born on May 31, 1929, in Newport (Jackson County). His parents, Albert and Esta Burgess, raised him, his two brothers, and his three sisters on …

Cache River Bridge, Skirmish at

On May 28, 1862, a reconnaissance under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Hiram F. Sickles of the Ninth Illinois Cavalry prevented Captain Richard Hooker’s Confederates from completely destroying the Cache River bridge near Augusta (Woodruff County). Confederate Major General Earl Van Dorn’s departure from Arkansas to the Western Theater with the bulk of Arkansas’s defensive capabilities left the city of Jacksonport (Jackson County)—and the rest of the state—unprotected. Hastily attempting to build a substantial Confederate defense of Arkansas, Major General Thomas Hindman—the newly appointed commander of the Trans-Mississippi Department—commissioned a number of local officers, such as Capt. Hooker in Jackson County, to raise units across the state. These units were encouraged to harass the Federals wherever they were found while …

Cambridge [Steamboat]

The steamboat Cambridge was carrying a regiment of Confederate soldiers on the White River when it struck a snag and sank near Grand Glaise (Jackson County) on February 23, 1862. The Cambridge was a 242-ton sternwheel paddleboat built in 1856 for Captain William Dean, who ran it on a route going from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Cincinnati, Ohio, to St. Louis, Missouri. Around January 1862, Captain John Williams bought the Cambridge for $7,000, operating out of Memphis, Tennessee. The Cambridge became a troop transport by coincidence. Colonel G. W. LeMoyne had assembled his Seventeenth Arkansas Infantry Regiment (CS) in Little Rock (Pulaski County) and was preparing to go to Pocahontas (Randolph County) when a measles outbreak struck the Confederate troops. LeMoyne …

Campbell Station (Jackson County)

Campbell Station—originally known only as Campbell—is a city in Jackson County located along the Union Pacific Railroad tracks and U.S. Highway 367. It is adjacent to the city of Diaz (Jackson County) and is between Newport (Jackson County) and Tuckerman (Jackson County). Campbell Station claims a portion of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Highway 67. The earliest settlements in Jackson County, such as Jacksonport (Jackson County) and Newport, were stops along the transportation corridor of the White River between the Mississippi River and Batesville (Independence County). The rest of the county was dominated by hardwood forests and farmland. Jacksonport was significant as a crossroads, as well as a common White River stop, as the Southwest Trail connecting southeastern Missouri to northwestern Texas …

Coal Mining

Coal fields in Arkansas are located in the Arkansas River Valley between the western border of the state and Russellville (Pope County) an area only about thirty-three miles wide and sixty miles long. Until about 1880, most coal mined in Arkansas was used near its original location, often to fuel the fires of blacksmiths. Between 1880 and 1920, coal was Arkansas’s first mineral/fuel output, used especially for locomotives and steam-powered machines, as well as for heating homes and businesses. After 1920, oil and oil byproducts pushed aside the popularity of coal as a fuel, and mining of coal decreased. Much of the coal mined in Franklin County and Sebastian County around the year 2000 was used in the manufacture of …

Coffey, Cornelius Robinson

Cornelius Robinson Coffey was the first African American to establish an aeronautical school in the United States. His school was also the only aviation program not affiliated with a university or college to become part of the Civilian Pilot Training Program (CPTP). His pioneering efforts led to the integration of black pilots into the overall American aviation industries, both civilian and military. Cornelius R. Coffey was born in Newport (Jackson County) on September 6, 1903, to Henry Coffey and Ida Wright Coffey. In 1916, Coffey had his first experience riding in an aircraft and was convinced that aviation was his calling. In 1925, Coffey left Arkansas for Chicago, Illinois, to pursue a career in aviation by enrolling in an auto mechanics’ …

Davis, Howard (Lynching of)

On October 25, 1914, a mob in Newport (Jackson County) took an African-American man named Howard Davis from county authorities and hanged him for allegedly murdering Marshal James S. Payne. Davis was supposedly assisted in the murder by an accomplice, John Woodard. Some national reporting indicates that there may have been at least one more accomplice. While there is no information available on Davis or Woodard, or on Bob Griffin, to whose house Davis fled after the shooting, Payne was apparently a popular resident of Newport. He was forty-three years old at the time of these events and had a wife and five children. Born in Missouri in 1871, he married Parlee Belford in 1892, and by 1900 they were …

Diaz (Jackson County)

The city of Diaz, created by the railroad industry in the late nineteenth century, is just north of Newport (Jackson County) about halfway between Jacksonport State Park and the Newport Municipal Airport. It is bypassed by Highway 67 (the Rock ’n’ Roll Highway) but connects with Highway 367 as well as several state highways. Jacksonport (Jackson County), and later Newport, were important cities built along the White River, but the area that became Diaz was first cleared for farmland. Some residents referred to the incipient community of farmers as Shiloh. Elijah Blansett and George Sink were the first landowners to settle there, shortly before the Civil War began. They were soon joined by several other families, including that of William F. Cox. …

Dye, “Aunt Caroline”

aka: Caroline Tracy Dye

Caroline Tracy Dye, better known as “Aunt Caroline,” was a highly respected seer whose name was recognized in Arkansas and the Mid-South in the early years of the twentieth century. The fact that she was an uneducated African American made her popularity at the time all the more unusual. Caroline Tracy’s parents’ names are unknown, and there has been an abundance of conflicting information through the years about her date of birth and early life. A 1918 obituary described her as being eighteen years of age at the start of the Civil War, which would put her birth year around 1843; however, the 1880 federal census records her age as twenty-seven, which would put her birth year at 1853. Her …

Elgin (Jackson County)

Elgin is located on Jackson County Road 64 about six miles west-southwest of Tuckerman (Jackson County) and about three miles east-southeast of Cord (Independence County). Elgin lies in the Black River bottoms, excellent terrain for large productive farms, although devastating floods sometimes occur. The bridge on Highway 37 occasionally closes because of high water. The bottoms once grew mainly cotton, but today soybeans and other crops dominate. Historically, Elgin was an important riverboat town, with its ferry being on the main road between Batesville (Independence County) and Jacksonport (Jackson County), about eight and a half miles south of the confluence of the Black and White rivers. Elgin was the name of a 3,000-acre plantation in the Black River bottoms owned …

Elizabeth (Jackson County)

Elizabeth (sometimes called Elizabethtown) thrived as a port on the White River and became the seat of Jackson County in 1839. However, the river later shifted course and eroded away what remained of the community. Native Americans were the first to take advantage of the Black and White rivers for transportation and trade, followed by French hunters, trappers, and fur traders, many of them from Canada, who plied the area’s rivers during the eighteenth century and continued after the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 until about 1815. Keelboats were an early mode of transportation for the early settlers, who could use them on the upper White River to maneuver the sharp bends, rapids, and low water levels along the river during …

Galloway’s Farm, Affair at

aka: Shelling of Jacksonport

  Following the March 1862 Battle of Pea Ridge in northwestern Arkansas, Major General Samuel Curtis led his Army of the Southwest on an ambitious attempt to capture Little Rock (Pulaski County). Supplying the army during the campaign was a difficult task, with rivers being vital to his success. River port towns such as Jacksonport (Jackson County), situated along the White River, became important supply centers, attracting attention from both Confederate and Union forces. The occupation of the town by Brigadier General Frederick Steele’s forces on May 4 brought renewed interest from Confederate forces. After receiving orders to occupy Jacksonport in the spring of 1862, Gen. Steele’s forces departed northeastern Arkansas on April 22. Delayed by heavy rain, they did not …

Gause, Lucien Coatsworth

Lucien Coatsworth Gause was a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives. He represented the First District of Arkansas in the Forty-Fourth and Forty-Fifth Congresses, serving from 1875 to 1879. Lucien C. Gause was born near Wilmington, North Carolina, on December 25, 1836, to Samuel Sidney Gause and Elizabeth Ann Gause. The family, which included another son, moved to Lauderdale County, Tennessee, where Gause received his earliest education, studying with a private tutor. After graduating from the University of Virginia at Charlottesville, he studied law at Cumberland University in Lebanon, Tennessee. After graduating from Cumberland, he was admitted to the bar and began to practice law in Arkansas at Jacksonport (Jackson County) in 1859. Gause was reputedly an excellent …

Graham, Josephine Hutson

Josephine Hutson Graham was a prolific artist, educator, author, and folklorist of Arkansas’s White River culture and cuisine. She won many local, regional, and national art awards and held more than twenty one-woman shows throughout the South and Southwest, as well as shows in New York, Washington DC, and Dallas, Texas. Josephine Hutson was born in Newport (Jackson County) on April 12, 1915, to Thomas Hutson (a cotton broker) and Mary Bailey Hutson; she had one younger brother. After high school graduation in Newport, Graham attended the University of Texas for three years before transferring to the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County). She earned a bachelor’s degree in English. She married Thomas Nathan Graham, a farmer and …

Grand Glaise (Jackson County)

aka: Grand Glaize (Jackson County)

During its heyday in the 1850s, the river port town of Grand Glaise (Jackson County), located on one of the highest points on the banks of the White River, was one of the largest towns in the area. Before the Civil War, the town, located about ten miles downriver from present-day Newport (Jackson County), served as an area commercial hub. The first white settler, Stith Tucker, arrived in the area in about 1817. By the late 1820s, a thriving river port named Grand Glaize had begun to develop. The first steamboat in the port, the Laurel, docked there in 1829. Further growth was prompted by the construction of a road in 1847 connecting the town to Searcy (White County). Several …

Grubbs (Jackson County)

The city of Grubbs is in eastern Jackson County, near the Cache River. Founded as an agricultural center, the city—with the help of the railroad—became a lumber town for a time. In the twenty-first century, the focus of Grubbs is again agricultural. A Church of Christ congregation was established in eastern Jackson County in 1877. The congregation was first known as Robinson’s Chapel. Citizens of the area appealed to the county government to create Grubbs Township, and the county did so in 1884. The name of the township and the developing community came from farmer and politician James C. Grubbs, whose home was used as the first voting precinct of the township. A post office, established in 1888, was also named for Grubbs. …

Harvey, Robert Drennen (Bob)

Robert Drennen (Bob) Harvey was a farmer and lawyer in Jackson County who spent thirty-two years in the Arkansas General Assembly after World War II, most notably fighting relentlessly for a lean state government. He announced to his colleagues in 1978 that he was not going to run for the Arkansas Senate again because he had finally recognized the loneliness and futility of trying to maintain frugal government in Arkansas. Harvey, a soft-spoken bachelor, was an icon in Jackson County, his forebears having arrived there in 1849. Bob Harvey was born on May 22, 1914. His father and mother, William Richard Harvey and Lula Belle Shaver Harvey of nearby Strawberry (Lawrence County), were farmers near the town of Swifton (Jackson …

Hodges, Kaneaster, Jr.

Kaneaster Hodges Jr. served as a Democratic interim U.S. senator representing Arkansas from December 10, 1977, to January 3, 1979. He was appointed to the post by Governor David Pryor after the death of the incumbent senator, John L. McClellan. Hodges also served as city attorney and deputy prosecuting attorney of Newport (Jackson County) and held a number of positions in state government. Kaneaster Hodges Jr. was born to Harryette Hodges and Kaneaster Hodges Sr. in Newport on August 20, 1938; he was one of six children. His father, whose career path Hodges would follow, was a lawyer. Hodges graduated from Newport High School in 1956 and went on to receive his bachelor’s degree from Princeton University in 1960 and …

Hunley, Dan (Lynching of)

On October 6, 1885, an African-American man named Hunley (or Hunly) was murdered for an alleged attack on a young white girl near Tuckerman (Jackson County). Although most reports identify the girl as Priscilla Bundy, census records reveal that her name was probably Drucilla Bandy. One account identifies Bandy’s attacker by the last name Hunly, but it is probable that Dan Hunley was the alleged perpetrator, as, in 1880, a widow named Nelly Hunley was living in Breckenridge Township of Jackson County with her two sons, Anderson (thirteen) and Dan (nineteen), and a daughter, Judy (ten). At the time of the 1880 census, nine-year-old Drucilla was living in Bird Township of Jackson County with her parents, farmer George W. Bandy …

Jackson County

Jackson County is in northeastern Arkansas. Although the land rises somewhat in the west, most of the county is flat, low river bottom. Since the late 1800s, the county’s largest town has been Newport, the county seat. European Exploration and Settlement Native Americans called this area home as far back as 10,000 years ago. Evidence of their existence is found in the nearly 600 archaeological sites known to exist in Jackson County. Some researchers have claimed that famed explorer Hernando de Soto passed through the area that would become Jacksonport and that he spent the winter of 1541–42 there , though current research places his winter camp on the lower Arkansas River. French and Spanish trappers hunted in what would …

Jackson County Courthouse

The Jackson County Courthouse, built in 1892, is located on 208 Main Street in downtown Newport (Jackson County). The Arkansas Historic Preservation Program recognizes the three-story building as architecturally and historically significant as a fine example of a preserved Victorian-era building in the county and as one of the oldest courthouses in the state. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on November 18, 1976. When construction of the Cairo and Fulton Railroad came through in 1873, the previously impoverished river town of Newport found itself in an economic boom, with a new flow of people and commerce arriving from across the country. The railroad also replaced the river as the way to move goods and people. …

Jackson County Historical Society

The Jackson County Historical Society (JCHS) was created primarily in response to the planned destruction of the county’s old courthouse at Jacksonport (Jackson County). In late 1961, an organizational meeting for a historical society was called. At this meeting, it was announced that the former courthouse at Jacksonport would be razed for the bricks. Lady Elizabeth Luker, whose ancestors were among the founders of that old river town, became the face of the fledgling historical society and led the way for the restoration of the old courthouse for use as a museum. The Jackson County Historical Society was formally chartered in April 1962 at Newport (Jackson County), with Luker as the first president. While the JCHS was interested in preserving …

Jacksonport (Jackson County)

Jacksonport is a town in central Jackson County, located about one-half mile from the confluence of the Black and White rivers and three miles northwest of the county seat of Newport (Jackson County). Its location at the convergence of two navigable waterways enabled Jacksonport to thrive in a time when river transport was the most reliable method of transportation in Arkansas. Its twenty-first-century circumstance as a remote community on the White River belies the true history of Jacksonport; in the mid-nineteenth century, much of the trade throughout northern Arkansas and southern Missouri was facilitated via this once-bustling river town. Its importance as a trade center began to diminish when Jacksonport was bypassed by a railroad built through Jackson County in …

Jacksonport State Park

Jacksonport State Park lets visitors relive nineteenth-century Arkansas history—including the days of the pioneers, steamboats, the Civil War, Reconstruction, the Victorian Age, and the Industrial Revolution—through its various exhibits and interpretive programs. The 1872 courthouse serves as a museum, and the last sternwheeler riverboat to ply the White River is permanently moored nearby. Due to its location near the confluence of the Black and White rivers, Jacksonport became a trading center during the 1820s and thus was significant for the early settlement and economic development of Arkansas. The first steamboats arrived in 1833, and the town grew around the landing site. Jackson County, established in 1829, moved its seat of justice from Augusta (now in Woodruff County) to Jacksonport in …

Jacksonport, Affair at

aka: Skirmish at Stoney Point

A brief engagement along the banks on the White River, this event was part of a Federal push to disrupt Confederate recruiting and organizational efforts in northern Arkansas. Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Black of the Third Missouri Cavalry (US) led his command north from Little Rock (Pulaski County) in late November 1863. Passing through Old Austin (Lonoke County), the Federals joined a unit of Arkansan Unionists in engaging an enemy force. Pushing the Confederates back to Bayou Des Arc, Black dispersed the enemy before moving on to Searcy (White County). On November 21, Black sent a battalion under the command of Major John Lennon to Jacksonport (Jackson County) with orders to capture the ferry across the White River. About 100 Confederate …

Jacksonport, Attack on

Having moved to Jacksonport (Jackson County) from Batesville (Independence County) in April 1864 to improve supply allocation, communication, and potential access to reinforcements, Colonel Robert R. Livingston’s camps were attacked by a combined Confederate force commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Joseph B. Love on April 20, 1864. The attack was unsuccessful. Commanding the District of Northeastern Arkansas, Union colonel Robert R. Livingston was finding his post at Batesville difficult to maintain due to a lack of resources aggravated by guerrilla harassment of foraging expeditions. Over time, it became clear that movement down the White River to a more practical location such as Augusta (Woodruff County), or even as far as DeValls Bluff (Prairie County), was necessary. Leaving 450 men in Batesville, …

Jacksonport, Skirmish at

aka: Augusta Expedition (April 22–24, 1864)

On April 24, 1864, the advance guard of Colonel Robert R. Livingston’s column returning from an expedition to Augusta (Woodruff County) briefly engaged elements of J. H. McGehee’s Regiment of Arkansas Cavalry outside of Jacksonport (Jackson County). After a short skirmish, Livingston’s column returned to Jacksonport as planned. Moving from Batesville (Independence County) to Jacksonport, Colonel Livingston, commanding the District of Northeastern Arkansas, had planned to fortify a camp and gather much-needed supplies there before marching on to Augusta to clear supply lines further and obtain reinforcements. On April 20, 1864, Livingston’s men successfully defended Jacksonport from a surprise attack by Confederates. Later that night, he received a dispatch from Brigadier General Christopher C. Andrews in Augusta requesting that Livingston …

Kell, George Clyde

George Clyde Kell was a professional baseball player, announcer, and businessman and is a member of the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame and the National Baseball Hall of Fame. A lifelong resident of the small Arkansas town in which he was born, Kell also served for ten years as a member of the state’s Highway Commission and was campaign chairman for Dale Bumpers in the 1970 gubernatorial race. George Kell was born August 23, 1922, in Swifton (Jackson County) to Clyde and Alma Kell. His father, a barber, was a pitcher on the local semiprofessional baseball team, and Kell and his two younger brothers grew up playing the game. After high school, Kell began studying at Arkansas State College (now …

King of Clubs

Part of an informal network of roadside nightclubs, often called roadhouses, the King of Clubs operated for more than fifty years under the ownership of Bob and Evelyn King until they sold the club in 2003. Located on U.S. Highway 67, just north of Swifton (Jackson County), the club was a familiar stop for some of the most famous pioneers in rock and roll music in the 1950s. These performers traveled constantly, making extra money and promoting their records by playing dances and shows in countless venues in cities, small towns, and in roadhouses such as the King of Clubs, which was especially favored by those who played the more southern form of rock and roll commonly termed rockabilly. Those …

Lightfoot, G. P. F. (Lynching of)

In December 1892, African-American Baptist minister G. P. F. Lightfoot, referred to in most accounts as “Preacher Lightfoot,” was murdered by a group of African Americans in Jackson County in retaliation for taking their money and promising them nonexistent passage to Liberia. Interest in immigrating to Africa started early in the United States. The Back-to-Africa movement dates back to 1816, when the American Colonization Society (ACS) was established to help free blacks resettle in Africa. The Republic of Liberia was established in 1847 and was recognized by the U.S. government in 1864. Following the Civil War, many newly freed Arkansas slaves became interested in the movement, especially those in majority-black counties in the Arkansas Delta. The Liberian Exodus Arkansas Colony …

Macks (Jackson County)

The community of Macks lies in western Jackson County near the Independence County line, approximately halfway between Oil Trough (Independence County) and Newport (Jackson County) in the Oil Trough Bottoms on Highway 14. Young Gering Milton Mack Sr. was born in Wayne County, Tennessee, in 1838. In 1854, at age sixteen, he moved to Arkansas with his family. His father, Aquilla Wilson Mack, settled the family on 280 acres located in Section 12, Township 13, between Batesville (Independence County) and Moorefield (Independence County), along Blue Creek. This property is still known as Mack Farm and is owned by Mack family descendants. In July 1861, Young Mack enlisted in the Confederate army in Jacksonport (Jackson County), becoming a captain in Company …

Madden, Ed

Ed Madden is a poet, activist, and educator who has written, co-written, and edited numerous books and anthologies. His poem “Sacrifice” was selected for the Best New Poets 2007 anthology. In 2015, he was named the first poet laureate of Columbia, South Carolina. Ed Madden was born on September 13, 1963. Originally from Newport (Jackson County), Madden grew up on a rice farm. His family was devoutly Christian. Madden studied English and French at Harding University in Searcy (White County) and graduated with a BA in 1985. He received a BS in biblical studies from the Institute for Christian Studies in Austin, Texas, in 1992; an MA from the University of Texas (UT) at Austin in 1989, and a PhD …

McLendon, Will (Reported Lynching of)

In many cases, newspapers across the country published reports on lynchings, which were then listed in books and other resources. In some cases, even though subsequent reports indicated that the lynching had not happened, initial accounts were not corrected. Such was the case with an African American man, Will McLendon of Woodruff County, who was reportedly lynched in August 1893. In his 1993 dissertation, citing an August 6 report in the Memphis Appeal Avalanche, historian Richard Buckelew commented on this presumed lynching, which he dated at August 5. In her 1894 book A Red Record, Ida Wells Barnett gave the date of the lynching as August 9. It seems, however, that McLendon actually died in jail in Newport (Jackson County) …

Nance, Jack

Arkansas native Jack Nance was a musician, songwriter, and entertainment manager who worked with many of the top acts in the music business. Nance first gained notice in Sonny Burgess’s backing band the Pacers. He later went on to play with Conway Twitty—and in fact wrote one of Twitty’s biggest hits. In his later years, while based in Nashville, Tennessee, Nance worked in tour management and as a music promoter for acts such as Michael Jackson, Dionne Warwick, the Rolling Stones, the Moody Blues, and the Monkees. Richard Jackson (Jack) Nance was born on April 22, 1935, in Newport (Jackson County), the youngest of three children born to the farming family of Arkansas natives Roscoe A. Nance and Mary E. …

Newport (Jackson County)

Newport is a rural community with deep agricultural ties. Its location on the White River at the transition from the Ozark foothills to the Delta flatland is ideal as a northeast Arkansas crossroads for road, river, and rail traffic. Newport’s economy, based upon natural resources, had strong growth through the first half of the twentieth century and the postwar era. Pre-European Exploration through Early European Exploration Newport is located on a wide bend in the White River where it leaves the Ozark hill country and enters the Mississippi Delta flatlands.  It was an ideal crossing point for animals (including deer, bear, and occasionally bison) and for the tribal hunters that followed them.  Native people, likely ancestors of the Quapaw, resided …

Newport Air Field

During World War II, one of the army’s seven training airfields built in Arkansas was located at Newport (Jackson County). Over 4,000 men trained during the three years the Newport Army Air Field was in operation. At one point, over 4,800 people were living on the base, more than doubling Newport’s 1940 population of 4,301. Newport was chosen as a site through the encouragement of Congressman Wilbur D. Mills. The flat land already lent itself to airport usage as most trees had been cleared and the ground had been drained for farming. The project was announced in the middle of May 1942, and construction began almost immediately. Thirty-four farm families were displaced from the main site, along with those living …

Newport Fire of 1926

A devastating fire in Newport (Jackson County) on March 1, 1926, destroyed some thirty city blocks and caused significant damage, though only one life was lost. The conflagration began just after 2:00 p.m. on March 1 when a spark from the flue of an African American’s cabin on the White River near the V. O. Jones Lumber Company caught its roof on fire, with flames soon jumping to the lumber yard, where a half dozen blazes started. From there, the fire ignited the homes of several other Black families living beside the White River before reaching the stave yards of the Merryman Cooperage Company; the fire raced from there to several other homes. “A high west wind was blowing and …

Olyphant (Jackson County)

The community of Olyphant is most noted for being the site of the last train robbery in Arkansas. On November 3, 1893, eight men hijacked Iron Mountain passenger train No. 51, robbed the passengers, and murdered the conductor, William P. McNally. The robbers were tracked down, tried, and found guilty, and three were hanged in Newport (Jackson County) in the only known multiple execution in Jackson County history. Olyphant is located on Highway 367 halfway between Newport, eight miles to the north-northeast, and Bradford (White County), eight miles to the south-southwest. Before the Civil War, Grand Glaise (Jackson County), a river port on White River, was the dominant community in the area and the second-largest town in the county. The …

Olyphant Train Robbery

During the nineteenth century, travelers on steam locomotives were at risk for train robberies. In Arkansas, one particularly high-profile train robbery happened in the small town of Olyphant (Jackson County) in 1893. What followed was a sensationalized manhunt and the execution of three bandits involved in the incident. On November 3, 1893, the seven-car Train No. 51 of the St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern Railway pulled off to a side track so that the Cannonball Express, a much faster train, could pass. It was about 10:00 p.m. on a cold and rainy night; the train had left Poplar Bluff, Missouri, at noon that day and was headed to Little Rock (Pulaski County). Many of the 300 passengers were wealthy …

Pickett, Alexander Corbin (A. C.)

Known personally and professionally as A. C. Pickett or Colonel Pickett, Alexander Corbin Pickett was a lawyer in Jacksonport (Jackson County) and later Augusta (Woodruff County), organizer of the Jackson Guards (CS) in the Civil War, and later a colonel in the Tenth Missouri Infantry (CS). Following the war, Pickett was head of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) in Woodruff County during Reconstruction. A. C. Pickett, whose birth date is unknown (sources range from 1820 to 1823), was the sixth of the nine children of Steptoe Pickett and Sarah Chilton Pickett who survived into adulthood. Originally from Warrenton in Fauquier County, Virginia, the Picketts came to Mooresville, Alabama, around 1820, just as the area was opening to settlement. Pickett and …