Entries - County: Ouachita - Starting with B

On the afternoon of January 20, 1944, a B-26 bomber with a total of eight crew members and passengers crashed in rural Ouachita County. There were no survivors. The Martin B-26 Marauder served as a twin-engine medium bomber in the U.S. Army Air Forces and other allied militaries during World War II. The aircraft first flew in late 1940 and entered military service the next year. On January 20, 1944, a B-26C aircraft departed from Hunter Field outside of Savannah, Georgia. The aircraft was part of the 598th Bombardment Squadron, a unit of the 397th Bombardment Group. Carrying six crew members and two passengers, the plane was on a training mission to Sheppard Field outside of Wichita Falls, Texas, with …

Bearden, originally founded as a railroad town, has been an important center for the timber industry in Arkansas. It is home to the annual Gazebo Festival. Post Reconstruction through the Gilded Age Bearden was founded as one of many whistle-stop communities along the Cotton Belt Railway Line during the steam engine years. The city limits for the town of Bearden were set in 1882 by the Southwest Improvement Association, an agency of the Railway Land Office. This office was part of what would become the Cotton Belt Railway Line. Bearden was named after one of the lawyers for the agency, Judge John T. Bearden. Among the first settlers were the Byars, Clemmons, Hollingsworth, and Shaddock families. The small town soon …

On May 9, 1893, three African Americans were lynched in Bearden (Ouachita County) for what was called a “murderous assault” on Jesse Norman, a prosperous young businessman. At midnight on Saturday, May 6, Jesse Norman was hit over the head with an axe and robbed. The victim was probably the Jessie J. Norman listed in the 1880 census, thirteen years before the event. In 1880, he was nine years old and was living with his parents Eleazer (variously spelled Elezer and Elesa) Norman and Panthaia (variously spelled Panttairer and Panthier) Norman in Union Township of Ouachita County; his parents were still living in the county in 1900. According to the Arkansas Gazette, Norman’s skull was crushed with an axe, and …

The Bearden Waterworks, located on the northwest corner of North Second and North Cedar streets in Bearden (Ouachita County), was constructed in 1936 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 October 5, 2006. As the United States struggled with the effects of the 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. Though …

Lasker Bell Sr., founder of the Las Bell Variety Show television and radio program, hosted the show from 1967 to 1985, ushering in a shift in entertainment options in southern Arkansas and the Arkansas-Louisiana-Mississippi region. Bell also made contributions in public affairs in Arkansas, holding civil appointments under Governors Dale Bumpers, David Pryor, and Bill Clinton. Las Bell was born in Homer, Louisiana, on May 21, 1928. He was the son of Union Bell and Bethena Randolph. Bell was raised by Frank and Irene Brooks, his maternal grandparents. Early in his life, Bell worked as a sharecropper alongside his grandparents. Bell only attended school through the eighth grade and, in 1944, relocated to Camden (Ouachita County) to find employment. He …

The Ben Laney Bridge is located in Camden (Ouachita County). Spanning the Ouachita River, the bridge carries traffic from U.S. Highway 79 Business and Arkansas Highway 7. The bridge, which was constructed in 1947, was added to the National Register of Historic Places on June 9, 2000. Camden’s early economy was directly tied to its location as the head of practical navigation on the Ouachita River. As the major commercial center in southern Arkansas, it needed reliable infrastructure in order to continue to grow. However, the city did not have a bridge over the river for decades and, instead, utilized a ferry. During the Camden Expedition of 1864, a pontoon bridge was used by the Union army, while Confederate forces …

Boxcar Bertha (1972) was the second exploitation film shot in Arkansas by B-movie director Roger Corman. The first was Bloody Mama (1970), and both were set in the 1930s. Corman chose Arkansas because many rural areas in the state could still pass for the Depression-era South. Interiors and street scenes for Bertha were shot around Camden (Ouachita County). Train sequences and other exteriors were shot on the Possum Trot Line of the Reader Railroad in Nevada and Ouachita counties. Rather than direct the film himself, Corman served as producer and hired a relatively unknown young director, Martin Scorsese, who had impressed Corman with his first feature film, Who’s That Knocking on My Door (1967), also titled I Call First. Corman gave Scorsese …

Beth Brickell is an actor, producer, and writer with many stage and screen credits, and is especially known for her leading role on the television series Gentle Ben. She has also engaged in film production and investigative journalism, the latter relating to the 1957 disappearance of Maud Crawford. Beth Brickell was born on November 13, 1936, in Brinkley (Monroe County) and was raised in Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) and Camden (Ouachita County). She graduated from Camden High School in 1954, and then attended Arkansas State Teachers College (today’s University of Central Arkansas) in Conway (Faulkner County) and the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County), where she majored in history and political science. After graduating with a bachelor’s degree …

Buena Vista (Ouachita County) is an unincorporated community located about nine miles southwest of Camden (Ouachita County) and eight miles northeast of Stephens (Ouachita County). The name of the community is likely a reference to the Battle of Buena Vista fought near Monterrey, Mexico, in February 1847, during the Mexican War. Former Arkansas governor and U.S. representative Archibald Yell was killed in the battle while leading the Arkansas Regiment of Mounted Volunteers. It is also possibly in reference to a nearby hill that is the highest point in Ouachita County, leading to the adoption of the Spanish translation of the phrase “good view.” The area surrounding Buena Vista belonged to Union County when Arkansas joined the union in 1836. With …

Henry G. Bunn was a prominent lawyer and judge in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Highly respected in the legal community, he served for eleven years as chief justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court. Henry Gaston Bunn was born on June 12, 1838, near Rocky Mount in Nash County, North Carolina, to David and Elizabeth Bunn. The family moved to Fayette County, Tennessee, in 1844 and, two years later moved again, settling in Calhoun County, Arkansas. Bunn received his early education in the county schools before returning to North Carolina to Davidson College, which he attended until 1861. Returning to Arkansas, he joined the Confederate army, helping raise a company that became part of the Fourth Arkansas Infantry …