Entries - County: Ouachita - Starting with G

On May 29, 1925, an African American man identified only as George was shot by a mob near Camden (Ouachita County) for allegedly attempting to attack a white woman in nearby Louann (Ouachita County). George, originally from Little Rock (Pulaski County), was working in the oil fields that had sprung up around Camden in the early 1920s. According to a later report, early on May 29, George had come to the home of a widow near Louann, where she lived with her three children. He approached her on the porch and said he had been watching her for some time, “waiting to get [her] alone some time, and now’s good enough.” He grabbed her, but she managed to escape. At …

Grapette soda was developed by Benjamin Tyndle Fooks in Camden (Ouachita County) in 1939. Once one of the bestselling non-cola soft drinks in the United States, Grapette virtually disappeared from the marketplace for most of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s after being bought by a leading competitor. As the twenty-first century began, Grapette International in Malvern (Hot Spring County), the last remaining subsidiary of Fooks’s Grapette Company, re-acquired the Grapette and Orangette trademarks, reuniting the original flavors with the brand names. Currently Grapette, Orangette, and two other flavors made by Grapette International are distributed nationwide exclusively in Walmart Inc. stores as part of their store brand line of soft drinks. Fooks bought a soft-drink bottling plant in Camden in 1926 …

The Green Cemetery, located about two miles northwest of Stephens (Ouachita County), is a family cemetery holding eighteen known graves, with the earliest dating to 1853. Holding the remains of members of one of the early prominent families in the southern part of the state, the cemetery was added to the National Register of Historic Places on May 5, 2017. The Green family, led by Simon and Esther Green, moved to Ouachita County around 1845 and settled near the community of Seminary (Ouachita County). Located about eighteen miles southwest of the county seat at Camden (Ouachita County), Seminary was a small farming village. The name of the settlement comes from an early school for female students that operated in the …