Entries - County: Lonoke - Starting with E

On November 6, 1873, George Alexander “Dock” Eagle, his son Will, and his nephew Robert J. (R. J.) Eagle were murdered in Lonoke County, allegedly by a group of African Americans. Some newspapers erroneously described the murders as a lynching. The Eagles were members of a prominent local family. George “Dock” Eagle was the uncle of William H. Eagle (one of the county’s wealthiest landowners and a member of the Arkansas General Assembly) and the brother of James P. Eagle, who served both in the Arkansas legislature and as Arkansas governor. Dock Eagle was born in North Carolina in 1826 and was the son of Joseph and Rosanna “Sena” Furr Eagle. According to the census, in 1870, he was living …

On April 25, 1898, three men were shot to death in Lonoke (Lonoke County). These killings—and the conflicts that took place before and after—have come to be called the Eagle-Booe Feud. The prominent Eagle family of Lonoke County, including the brother of a former Arkansas governor, was roped into the feud and ended up being defended in court by a distant relation who would became governor himself, and later a U.S. senator. Approximately a week before the killings, on or about April 19, 1898, an unknown assailant shot Charles (Charley) Booe (wrongly spelled sometimes as Booie) outside of his law office in England (Lonoke County). Charley Booe, for reasons unknown, accused Robert (Bob) Eagle of shooting him. Booe’s father, William …

Established next to the town of Lonoke in 1917, during World War I, Eberts Field ranked second among aviation training fields maintained by the U.S. government, and it was one of the leading training centers for aviators during the war. Named for West Point graduate Captain Melchior McEwan Eberts, an early Arkansas aviator, it had an enlistment of about 1,000 cadets being trained in aviation. About 1,500 enlisted men and officers were stationed at the field. Lonoke County outbid Pulaski County to get the aviation school to locate in Lonoke, which offered 960 rent-free acres and a new railroad spur connecting the field with the Rock Island Railroad tracks. The U.S. government accepted the Lonoke offer on November 19, 1917, …

England is a small farming community located in the southeastern part of Lonoke County. While England has a rich history as a center of agriculture, in the late twentieth century, it became a bedroom community for Little Rock (Pulaski County) and Pine Bluff (Jefferson County), though many local farmers still reside in the area. England lies in the alluvial flood plains of the Arkansas River. It was originally covered by hardwoods such as oak and red gum, but most of this natural vegetation has been removed for commercial farm crops. The soil surrounding England has been classified as some of the most productive in the country, supporting cotton, rice, soybeans, and corn. Post Reconstruction through the Gilded Age In the …

The England Food Riot of 1931 occurred after the drought of 1930 caused major crop failure across the region, leaving many farmers unable to feed their families. The Depression was occurring across America, and the majority of people in England (Lonoke County) and the surrounding area were destitute and desperate. As a result, approximately fifty angry farmers converged on the town of England, demanding food to feed to the starving members of their community. The crowd grew to include hundreds once in town, and the merchants, with assurances of repayment by the Red Cross, agreed to open their doors and offer all they had to avert any violence from the mob. The crowd dispersed peacefully, but the incident created a …

John Calhoun England was a prominent lawyer, businessman, and real estate developer in central Arkansas during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Due to his involvement in the development of southwestern Lonoke County, the town of England (Lonoke County) was named in his honor. On January 18, 1850, John C. England was born in Brownsville (Lonoke County) to John William Harrison England and Laurena Boyett England. He received a basic education in the local schools, but the approaching Civil War interrupted his formal education. The death of his father in April 1860 was hard on the family, resulting in the loss of most of their wealth during the next few years. Sometime during the war, England moved to Huntersville, …