Entries - County: Saline - Starting with C

Lonnie Leon Campbell was one of Arkansas’s first post–World War II sports legends. In addition to being a star Razorback football player during the team’s formative years at the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County), Campbell played for three professional football teams: the Baltimore Colts, Chicago Bears, and Pittsburgh Steelers. Campbell reportedly earned his nickname, “Muscles,” after bending a railroad spike with his hands. In 1946, he also played in the Razorbacks’ first Cotton Bowl game, against the Louisiana State University Tigers. Campbell was inducted into the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame in 1977. In 1996, he was one of the first inductees into the Bauxite Hall of Fame, now on display in the Bauxite Historical Museum in …

The Central Arkansas Development Council (CADC) was developed in direct response to the Economic Opportunity Act, which was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on August 20, 1964. Part of Johnson’s “War on Poverty,” CADC was created to “alleviate the causes and conditions of poverty” for central Arkansas residents. CADC’s focus is to help low-income individuals and their families become self-sufficient. To that end, CADC provides food, job training, affordable housing, transportation, and financial literacy to low-income individuals and families in central Arkansas. CADC’s Senior Activity Centers provide social activities and meals to people over the age of sixty. In the twenty-first century, CADC’s service area includes twelve Arkansas counties: Montgomery, Pike, Clark, Hot Spring, Dallas, Ouachita, Calhoun, …

Charlie Cole Chaffin of Benton (Saline County) served in the Arkansas Senate representing District 16 (Saline County, parts of Perry and Garland counties) from 1984 to 1994. She was a delegate to the 1979–1980 Arkansas Constitutional Convention and the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor in 1994 and 1996.  Charlie Francis Cole was born in Little Rock (Pulaski County) on September 13, 1938, to Grace Francis “Frank” Cole, who was a nurse anesthetist, and John Walton Cole, a fourth-generation physician. She was raised in Sheridan (Grant County) and Malvern (Hot Spring County) in a politically active family. Her grandfather, Dr. Charles F. Cole, served on the Grant County Quorum Court. Her father served on the Grant County Democratic Central Committee and eighteen years on the Arkansas Board of Education. Her uncle Ed McDonald was Arkansas’s secretary of state and a candidate for governor. Another uncle, Jim Cole, served as prosecuting attorney and state legislator. Her mother marched for civil rights with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and her brother, John Cole, served as prosecuting attorney and circuit judge. She and family members worked on campaigns …

The house at 211 South Main Street in Benton (Saline County) was the home of Niloak Pottery creator Charles Dean “Bullet” Hyten. Now owned by former Arkansas state senator Doyle L. Webb II, the house is home to a small business. Because of its connection with Hyten and construction at the height of his popularity, the house was added to the National Register of Historic Places on September 24, 2012. Charles Dean Hyten was born in Benton to John Franklin Hyten and Hattie Brown Hyten on March 14, 1877. He was one of four children. After the death of her husband in 1881, Hattie married a man named Frank Woosley. Hyten and his brothers, Paul and Lee, took control of the family …

Ann Veasman Clemmer is a professor, politician, and public servant from Saline County. She taught political science at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock from August 1992 to January 2015. She was elected to the Arkansas House of Representatives in 2008 and served three consecutive terms, followed by service in the Arkansas Department of Higher Education (ADHE). Carol Ann Veasman was born in Osceola (Mississippi County) on August 10, 1958, to Martha Lee Robinson Veasman, a teacher, and Joseph Christian Veasman, a farmer. Her father left farming for agricultural related public service, which included the Agency for International Development (USAID) in Vietnam (during the conflict years) as an agricultural advisor. The Veasman family lived in the Philippines during that …

Collegeville is one of Arkansas’s oldest unincorporated communities and the oldest in Saline County. The area was first settled by a group of planters led by Major Ezra Owen in an area between present-day Bryant (Saline County) and Alexander (Pulaski and Saline counties) in 1824, when Arkansas was still a frontier territory. In the twenty-first century, the community of Collegeville lies alongside State Highway 5 and Interstate 30, less than twenty miles from Little Rock (Pulaski County). Ezra Owen was born in Halifax County, Virginia, on March 17, 1770. He served with distinction in the War of 1812 with the Illinois Rangers before he moved to what was then Arkansas Territory. He supposedly served with frontiersman Daniel Boone in the Indian …

Congo is an unincorporated community in Salem Township located approximately six miles north of Benton (Saline County). Primarily a rural community, it is best known for the Congo Mercantile store that served as the heart of the community for decades beginning in the 1920s. Some of the earliest settlers of the Congo area were William and Jesse Wills, Joseph Scott, Willis Pipkin, William Duncan, and Isaac Ally, who arrived in the 1830s. Prior to the Civil War, the McCray, Goodwin, and Vandergrift families settled in the area. Residents of the community farmed the rich soil, raised cattle and hogs, and hunted and fished along the Saline River. Other than agriculture, no other major industries developed in the sparsely settled area …

William Ayers Crawford’s importance to Arkansas history stems from his service to the Confederacy and his participation in Arkansas’s postwar political crises, the most visible of which was the Brooks-Baxter War. William Crawford was born on June 24, 1825, in Washington County, Tennessee, the youngest of eleven children of William Ayers Crawford and Martha Blakely Crawford. His father was a farmer and breeder of fine horses; he died in 1834. Following his mother’s death in 1840, the orphaned Crawford left Tennessee with older siblings. After passing through Little Rock (Pulaski County) en route to Texas, they changed their original plan and made Saline County their permanent home, farming for a living. In June 1846, Crawford enlisted for service in the …

Crows, often referred to as Crows Station, is an unincorporated rural community in Dyer Township of Saline County, located at the intersection of Arkansas State Highways 9 and 5, approximately thirteen miles west of Benton (Saline County) and twenty-one miles east of Hot Springs (Garland County). The community takes its name from Jehu Crow, a notable Saline County sheriff, county, and probate judge. Early settlers to the area farmed and hunted the rich lands along the Saline River and eastern Ouachita Mountains. One of the earliest families to arrive in the area was the Dyer family, in whose honor the township was named. Charles Dyer and sons Given, Hassary, John, and Charles came to Saline County from Kentucky in 1835. …

Charles Franklin Cunningham Sr. was instrumental in the creation and leadership of the Central Arkansas Development Council (CADC) and served as its executive director for thirty-seven years. In 1981, he became the first African American mayor of Benton (Saline County). As mayor, Cunningham presided over Benton’s change from a city-manager system to a mayor-council form of government, which cut short his term in office. From 2003 to his death in 2017, he served as alderman for Benton’s Ward 2, which encompasses much of Benton’s Southside, including the communities of Christy Acres and the historic Ralph Bunche Community. Charles F. Cunningham was born on January 17, 1933, in South Pittsburg in Marion County, Tennessee, to Floyd S. Cunningham and Georgia Anna …