Entries - County: Miller - Starting with H

Loy Haley, an African-American man, was lynched on June 15, 1915, likely near Lewisville (Lafayette County), for allegedly murdering Roy Lester, owner of a plantation in Lafayette County located in the Red River bottoms. Probably the earliest report on the violent chain of events was a June 13, 1915, article in the Arkansas Gazette. Though titled, “Lynching Near Lafayette County,” the article does not, in fact, describe a lynching but rather reports on the intended lynching of Loy Haley. According to the report, Roy Lester had remained on his plantation despite flooding on the Red River that had left his farm entirely surrounded by water, and made him “the only white man on the place.” No details of Lester’s murder …

Billy James Hargis was a fundamentalist Christian minister who asserted that large segments of the American population were communists or had been infiltrated by communists. He may have been involved with the 1959 Labor Day bombings in Little Rock (Pulaski County), although this was never proven in a court of law. He was one of the first evangelicals to focus on abortion as an issue for Protestants. Scandal marked his later life after he coerced students at American Christian College, which he had founded, into sexual acts. Born on August 3, 1925, in Texarkana (Miller County), Hargis was adopted by Jimmie Earsel Hargis, a railroad worker, and Laura Lucille Hargis. The family had little money, especially during the Great Depression. …

On June 3, 1898, Bud Hayden was lynched in Texarkana (Miller County) for allegedly assaulting twelve-year-old Jessie Scott, the daughter of the late James V. Scott, former circuit clerk. Although Hayden claimed to be twelve years old at the time, the authorities estimated his age to be at least eighteen. The Arkansas Gazette’s reports of the lynching were carried in newspapers across the country, including the Atlanta Constitution, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Herald. At the time of the 1880 census, J. V. Scott was living in Cut Off Township in Miller County. He was a twenty-four-year-old farmer living with his wife, Talitha, who was twenty. There was only one African-American family named Hayden in the county. …

Thomas Melvin Hinton was a classically trained artist who produced many realistic and impressionistic oil paintings, watercolors, and drawings. His paintings won many awards in Arkansas and nationally and are on permanent exhibit at museums and other public and private venues. Thomas Hinton was born on October 4, 1906, to a prominent Texarkana (Miller County) couple, Thomas Jonathan Hinton, who was a plantation owner and businessman, and Mina Kinser Hinton. He had two sisters. As a toddler, he was stricken with polio and became crippled in one leg, though his father made sure that his son learned to ride horses and manage the plantation. Commuting from the city to the farm on Red River became increasingly difficult, so Hinton’s mother’s …