Entries - County: Lawrence - Starting with T

The Telephone Exchange Building is the oldest commercial building still standing in Powhatan (Lawrence County) in the twenty-first century and visually represents the commercial and civic characteristics of the town during the nineteenth century. The Powhatan Telephone Exchange Building is a one-story brick building that reflects Greek Revival architecture and design. The building was constructed between 1887 and 1888, placed in the heart of the thriving town where commerce, business, and social interaction took place. The Telephone Exchange Building is a rectangular structure with long, straight, flat sides. There are no windows on the south side, and the north side has two windows like those on the front of the building. The design style of the time called for buildings …

Alice French was a leading writer of local color stories and journalistic essays under the pseudonym Octave Thanet. Some of her best work is based on the years she spent at her winter home in Clover Bend (Lawrence County) in the Black River swamp country. French also published stories and essays in such national periodicals as the Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s, Scribner’s Magazine, and Century Magazine. She prided herself on the accurate depiction not only of the physical setting of her stories but also of the customs and dialect of the characters in them. Alice French was born on March 19, 1850, in Andover, Massachusetts, to George Henry French and Frances Morton. The French family also included sons George, Morton, Nathaniel, and …

The weekly Walnut Ridge (Lawrence County) newspaper the Times Dispatch has been in continuous publication since 1910 when Dave A. Lindsey moved his newspaper operations from Pocahontas (Randolph County) to Walnut Ridge. The newspaper’s website gives this characterization of the paper: “The Times Dispatch has traditionally been a conservative, Democratic newspaper, with a mission to provide complete news coverage of Lawrence County and to serve as a crusader and primary supporter of Lawrence County and its businesses.” In 1913, Lindsey sold the paper to Walter Smith. Smith published the paper for approximately eight years before selling it to James L. Bland Sr. of Perry County and Austin Wilkerson, editor and publisher of the Newport Independent. By 1922, Bland was the …

Francis William (Frank) Tucker came to Arkansas from Massachusetts, first settling in Lawrence County, where he managed (and later co-owned) the Clover Bend plantation. He later moved to Little Rock (Pulaski County), where he became chair of the state Republican Party and served as U.S. Collector of Revenues. Frank W. Tucker was born on December 3, 1843, at Canton, Massachusetts, to Francis William Tucker and Prudence Hoyt Tucker. As an adult, he went by the name Frank and also appears in documents as Captain or Colonel F. W. Tucker. In August 1862, he enlisted in the Fiftieth Massachusetts Infantry. His daughter Ruth wrote in her unpublished biography of family friend Alice French (an author who wrote under the name Octave …