Entries - County: Washington - Starting with J

Douglas Arthur James served as a professor of biological sciences at the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County) from 1953 to 2016. He was considered the authority of the birds of Arkansas, co-authoring Arkansas Birds with Joseph C. Neal in 1986, and became one of the state’s leading conservationists in the second half of the last century, helping to start the Arkansas Audubon Society in 1955 and the Arkansas Audubon Society Trust in 1972. He arranged the first meeting of what would become the Ozark Society, which was responsible for saving the Buffalo River from damming. Starting with studies of scrubland birds in northwestern Arkansas, James expanded to studying scrubland birds in Africa, Nepal, and Belize. He was …

The Joe Marsh and Maxine Clark House in Fayetteville (Washington County), often referred to as the Joe Marsh Clark House, is located along the northern side of Rockwood Trail on the eastern slope of Mount Sequoyah. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on February 3, 2020. The Joe Marsh Clark House was designed and constructed by acclaimed Arkansas architect Fay Jones between 1959 and 1961 for Joseph Marsh Clark and Maxine Clark, a couple who had retired to Fayetteville. Joe Marsh Clark, a geologist, and wife Maxine Bradford Clark, a botanist, were both charter members of the Ozark Society with Dr. Neil Compton. They also were both the long-time editors of the award-wining Ozark Society Bulletin. …

The John G. Williams House No. 2 in Fayetteville (Washington County) is located on the east side of North Sang Avenue, near its intersection with West Markham Road. The house was constructed between 1969 and 1970, and was designed by John G. Williams, founder of the Fay Jones School of Architecture at the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville. It was designed in the Organic style of Mid-Century Modern architecture, following the ideas of Frank Lloyd Wright. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on February 13, 2020. The ideal location for Williams to design a new home for his family presented itself in 1967 when Evangeline Pratt-Waterman-Archer hired him to design a residential subdivision on a …

On April 10, 1969, Johnny Cash played what would be his only concert for prisoners at Cummins Unit (Lincoln County). The concert was held during Winthrop Rockefeller’s ongoing campaign for prison reform, which the governor had made a central component of his political platform since 1966. While Cummins had just begun to see noticeable positive changes, Cash’s appearance brought attention to the plight of inmates and gave Rockefeller good publicity as he sought to overhaul the management of the corrupt and violent prison farms. Cash and Rockefeller knew each other well. In 1968, Cash had played a handful of summer and fall concerts in Arkansas during Rockefeller’s reelection campaign. By then, Cash had released his seminal At Folsom Prison album, …

Johnson is a bedroom community situated between Fayetteville (Washington County) and Springdale (Washington and Benton counties). Though Johnson was incorporated in 1961, its history spans a much longer time. The known history of Johnson begins in 1830–1834 when John Trusdale purchased a mill site west of present-day Johnson from a “widow Sutton.” In 1835, he built a gristmill utilizing the water flow from a number of springs north of the property. The mill was burned during the Civil War in 1864. Following the Civil War, Jacob Queener (J. Q.) Johnson and William Mays purchased the site and rebuilt the mill in 1865. In about 1884, Mayes sold his share of the mill to B. F. Johnson, brother of J. Q. …

James William (Jimmy) Johnson was a defensive end for the University of Arkansas (UA) Razorback football team and served as the head coach for Oklahoma State University and the University of Miami before going on to become head coach for the Dallas Cowboys and Miami Dolphins. Jimmy Johnson was born on July 16, 1943, in Port Arthur, Texas. He graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School, now known as Memorial High School, in 1961. A defensive end on the high school football team, Johnson continued in that position at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville (Washington County). An All-Southwest Conference player, he belonged to the 1964 team recognized by the Football Writers Association as the national champion. After graduating from UA …

Samuel Johnson was a young Union soldier who received the Medal of Honor for gallantry when fighting in a Pennsylvania regiment in the 1862 Battle of Antietam. He eventually settled in Arkansas. Samuel Johnson was born on January 28, 1845, in Springfield Township, Pennsylvania, the oldest of eight children of John Johnson and Sara Kemp Johnson. He grew up in Connellsville, Pennsylvania, and attempted to join the U.S. Army in April 1861 following the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter in South Carolina, but he was rejected because of his age. The sixteen-year-old tried again three months later and was mustered into Company G, Ninth Pennsylvania Reserve Regiment, on July 27, 1861. The Ninth Pennsylvania saw action at Dranesville, Virginia; during …

Jones Truck Lines was a catalyst for change and growth in Springdale (Washington County). Established in 1918 by businessman Harvey Jones, the company made Springdale a regional center for the transportation of goods. In 1918, Harvey Jones began hauling dry freight for individuals and businesses. Originally, he hauled hardware and groceries from Springdale to Rogers (Benton County) and Fayetteville (Washington County) with two mules and a wagon. Local business owners quickly discovered that they could place an order one day and have it delivered the next. Jones sold his mules and wagon in 1919 and bought his first truck. When the Missouri and North Arkansas Railroad (M&NA) went on strike in 1920, Jones began hauling freight between Seligman, Missouri, and …

“Slowly, but with infinite grace,” the Washington Post once enthused of Fayetteville (Washington County) author Douglas Clyde Jones, “[he] is creating a masterful fictional history of America.” Over the course of three decades, Jones, a career military officer turned award-winning novelist, wrote more than a dozen books—including his bestselling The Court-Martial of George Armstrong Custer (1976)—that dealt with everything from the American Revolution and the opening of the Western frontier to the Spanish-American War, assorted Native American conflicts, and the Great Depression. His tales, most of which were either set in Arkansas or featured Arkansan protagonists, were spirited and sprawling, his historical backdrops vividly portrayed, and his characters brutal or benevolent in measures consistent with their times and circumstances. Born …

Harvey Jones founded Jones Truck Lines and made it the largest privately owned and operated truck line in the United States. By 1980, Jones Truck Lines was traveling more than 100,000 miles a day, with forty-one terminals in fifteen states and 2,300 employees. Harvey Jones was born on August 19, 1900, just east of Springdale (Washington County) to farmers Taylor and Jimmie Jones; he was the older of two children. At age sixteen, Jones moved to Springdale, where he set up his first business venture, a mercantile store. Two years later, in 1918, when the railroad went on strike, Jones purchased an old Springfield wagon and two mules and began hauling goods between Rogers (Benton County), Springdale, and Fayetteville (Washington …