Situated on higher land several miles east of the Black River, Tuckerman was bypassed by the construction of the four-lane Highway 67 in 2009. Charming, well-preserved older houses still line the old highway, which was designated “Rock ’n’ Roll Highway” by the Arkansas state legislature that same year because of the many star performers who honed their skills in the small towns up and down this road—performers including Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Sonny Burgess, Conway Twitty, and many more. When European explorers and settlers first came to Arkansas, the north shore of the White River was included in land claimed by the Osage as hunting grounds, although they lived farther north in what would become the state of Missouri. When …
The Tuckerman Water Tower, located on the south end of Front Street in Tuckerman (Jackson County), was constructed in 1935 and installed with assistance from the Public Works Administration (PWA), a New Deal public relief agency. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on May 22, 2007. As the United States struggled with the Great Depression of the 1930s, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration enacted the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) to ease the effects of businesses closing. The act included an organization called the Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works (or Public Works Administration), which was created on June 16, 1933, to help finance federal construction projects and create jobs. The City of Tuckerman decided to …
Tupelo is an incorporated town located in the southern tip of Jackson County along a sandy ridge that runs along the edge of the White River bottoms from Augusta (Woodruff County) north to Jacksonport (Jackson County). Located about eighteen miles south of Newport (Jackson County), the town was at one time a station on the narrow gauge Batesville and Brinkley Railroad (B&B). The railroad allowed local crops, especially cotton and timber, to be shipped to market. Micajah B. McCoy came to the area from South Carolina in the early 1840s. Acquiring both land and influence, McCoy represented Jackson County in the Arkansas House of Representatives in 1844 and 1845, and his plantation was called “Tupelo.” McCoy obtained land patents granted under the …