Entries - County: White

Little Red River, Skirmish at (May 17, 1862)

The Skirmish at Little Red River on May 17, 1862, was one of many that took place as foraging parties of Union major general Samuel R. Curtis searched for much needed provisions. On this rainy Saturday morning, about 100 Rebels, loosely organized but determined to thwart the Federals in their advance toward Little Rock (Pulaski County), attacked the foraging party sent by Colonel George E. Waring Jr. of the Fourth Missouri Cavalry. This skirmish—which took place two days before the most significant engagement in White County, the Action at Whitney’s Lane—coupled with skirmishes continuing into June, ultimately led to Curtis’s abandonment of his assignment to take the capital city and assume military authority over the state. Following the Union victory …

Little Red River, Skirmishes at (June 5 and 7, 1862)

As the Federal forces under Major General Samuel R. Curtis attempted to move from Batesville (Independence County) down the Little Red River area toward Little Rock (Pulaski County), the Rebels were determined to keep up the constant harassment of the enemy. During May and June 1862, Rebel forces repeatedly thwarted Curtis’s efforts to advance toward his goal of capturing Little Rock and assuming control over the capital city and the Arkansas River and its tributaries. The skirmishes in early June that occurred near the Little Red River—following the most significant action in White County, the Action at Whitney’s Lane—contributed greatly to the abandonment of Curtis’s objective. The Little Red River flows through north-central Arkansas for approximately 100 miles, merging on …

McDougal, Jim

aka: James Bert McDougal

James Bert (Jim) McDougal was at various times a political aide, politician, instructor of political science, real estate developer, and banker who attained national attention due to his involvement in what came to be called the Whitewater scandal. His second wife, Susan Henley McDougal, was also implicated in the investigation. Jim McDougal was born on August 25, 1940, in Bradford (White County), the only child of Leo and Lorene McDougal. He attended public schools. In 1960, he helped with the presidential campaign of John F. Kennedy in Arkansas and was later offered a position as an aide in the office of Senator John McClellan. McDougal left the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County) after his freshman year to …

McKay, Eugene

Eugene McKay was a prominent educator in Arkansas in the second half of the twentieth century. He is most closely identified with Arkansas State University–Beebe (ASU–Beebe), where he spent just short of five decades, eventually rising to become the school’s chancellor, a post he held for a little over twenty years before retiring in 2016. Eugene McKay was born on May 5, 1941, in Amagon (Jackson County). His parents were farmers. Much of McKay’s early life was spent picking and chopping cotton. The McKay family moved frequently to do farm work, but they were usually in the Amagon area. McKay attended a number of rural schools in Amagon, Wiona (Independence County), and Charlotte (Independence County) before the family settled in …

McRae (White County)

McRae is an incorporated city in southern White County, located about nine miles southwest of Searcy (White County). McRae has its origins in the construction of the Cairo and Fulton Railroad through White County in 1872, which entailed the use of abundant virgin timber and arable lands in the area, but McRae did not exist as a defined community until the establishment of its first post office in 1889. The construction of McRae’s own rail depot in 1897 enabled further development and robust growth, which allowed it to emerge as a local contender in timber and strawberry production. The community was named in honor of Searcy attorney and Confederate brigadier general Dandridge McRae. Two men instrumental in shaping McRae during …

McRae Jail

The McRae Jail, located in a field in McRae (White County), is a one-story, reinforced concrete structure built in 1934. The McRae Jail was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on July 20, 1992. The small railroad town of McRae, with its local economy dependent on the timber and strawberry industries, was apparently in need of a jail when President Franklin D. Roosevelt initiated his Depression-era New Deal agencies. While the National Register nomination states that the jail was constructed by the Works Progress Administration (WPA), it also says the McRae Jail was built in August 1934. The WPA would not operate in Arkansas until July 1935, however, and the jail is not included in a comprehensive list …

McRae, Dandridge

Dandridge McRae was a Searcy (White County) attorney who during the Civil War rose to the rank of brigadier general in the Confederate army and led troops in most of the major battles in Arkansas. Following the war, McRae held various state and federal government positions and was active in promoting the state. The town of McRae (White County) is named in his honor. Born on October 10, 1829, in Baldwin County, Alabama, Dandridge McRae was the eldest of eleven children born to D. R. W. McRae and Margaret Bracy McRae. His father was a plantation owner, a lawyer, and a member of the Alabama legislature. Young McRae was tutored on the family plantation. In 1845, he was admitted to …

Mills, Wilbur Daigh

Wilbur Daigh Mills served in the U.S. House of Representatives from January 1939 to January 1977, becoming one of the top three longest serving Arkansas officials. Mills is known for his role as architect for Medicare, interstate highways, Social Security, tax reform, and many other policies. He was also the longest continuously serving chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, becoming a member of the committee in 1942, becoming chairman in 1958, stepping down as chairman in 1975, and retiring from the committee and Congress in 1977. When anyone in Washington DC spoke of “Mr. Chairman,” everyone understood that the reference was to Mills. Wilbur Mills was born May 24, 1909, in Kensett (White County) to Ardra Pickens Mills, …

Montgomery, Bonnie

Bonnie Montgomery is a singer, songwriter, and musician from Arkansas. A classically trained singer and pianist, she has made a name for herself in the field of country music, releasing several full-length albums and touring and performing with nationally known acts. Musician Dale Watson called her a “sophisticated badass who was born to sing,” while Counterpunch praised her “white trash arias, soaked in alcohol and sex.” Montgomery herself says music “connects us all” and is a “beautiful, spiritual thing.” Bonnie Jill Montgomery was born on August 18, 1979, in Searcy (White County) to Vani Quattlebaum Montgomery and Little Rock (Pulaski County) native Marcus Montgomery. Her father was a farmer and owner of a trucking company. Her mother became the owner …

Morris House (White County)

aka: Conley-Siler Residence

The pre–Civil War Morris House is one of the oldest surviving rural houses in White County. Constructed along the Military Road in 1860, the house served as a stopover station for many visitors traveling through the state during the early nineteenth century. In the late 1840s, Henry Patrick Morris, one of four brothers who left Virginia for Arkansas, settled on a farm just north of Searcy (White County) with his wife, Sarah Howerton Morris. In 1860, Henry and Sarah Morris made a contract with the builder John Ransom for a house to be built on the farm at the cost of $200. They built the house about halfway between the developing towns of Searcy and Batesville (Independence County) on a …

National Education Program

The National Education Program (NEP) was founded by Harding College (now Harding University) president George S. Benson to disseminate his ideas on Americanism. These included three fundamental principles: belief in God, belief in the U.S. Constitution, and belief in the free-enterprise system. Sources disagree about the date the NEP was founded, citing 1936, 1941, and 1948. The NEP wedded fundamentalist Christian religion with free-enterprise economic thought, which became foundational to the conservative movement that gained prominence with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. A native Oklahoman and a member of the Church of Christ, Benson completed his bachelor’s degree at Harding College and afterward served as principal of its high school division. In 1925, he and his wife, Sallie …

Neel, Margarete Ethel

Margarete Ethel Neel became the symbol of the International Red Cross after World War II. The White County chapter submitted to the national headquarters a wartime photo of Neel guiding the wheelchair of wounded Private Gordon Pyle of California. It was reproduced as a poster for the organization’s post-war fundraising activities. A plaque commemorating Neel’s Red Cross service stands in front of the Searcy American Legion Hut, where the White County chapter of the Red Cross is located. The chapter was dedicated to Neel just after her death in 1971. Neel was among the first women listed on the rolls of the U.S. Women’s Memorial when it was dedicated in Washington DC in 1997. Margarete Neel was born on December …

Noble, Marion Monden

Marion Monden Noble was an Arkansas-born lifelong communist who is one of three Arkansans known to have served with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade during the Spanish Civil War (the others being pilot Frank Glasgow Tinker and composer Conlon Nancarrow). Marion Noble was born on May 4, 1911, in Garner (White County), one of six children of Isom J. Noble and Cora Noble. His father was a railroad worker known for treating both black and white workers equally, but he lost his job along with thousands of others during a railroad strike. By 1920, the family was living in Higginson (White County), where his father started a car repair business. Noble worked there as a mechanic before leaving to attend the …

Pangburn (White County)

Pangburn is an incorporated second class city in extreme northwestern White County, located on Arkansas Highway 16 about halfway between Searcy (White County) and Heber Springs (Cleburne County). The city is located a quarter-mile south of the Little Red River, which made possible the arrival of the first white settlers in the 1850s, decades before any railroad was built through the isolated, hilly terrain. Pangburn once served boats on the Little Red back when the river was commercially navigable. It incorporated in 1911, shortly after the Missouri and North Arkansas Railroad (M&NA) built a line through the city. At one time, Native Americans had inhabited the area, as the first white settlers to the area reportedly discovered the remnants of an …

Prock, Clifford John

Clifford John Prock served as head football coach for the Harding University Bisons from 1964 to 1987. At the time of his retirement, he was one of the all-time most successful football coaches in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), with 114 victories. Prock is credited with helping reestablish intercollegiate football at Harding, which resumed play in 1959 after a hiatus of nearly thirty years. John Prock was born on March 13, 1929, in Hollis, Oklahoma, the only child of Alonzo (Lonnie) Prock and Lillie Mae Hooks Prock. His father was a short-run freight hauler; the 1930 Harmon County census described his vocation as a “drayman” (truck driver). His mother was a homemaker. The Procks struggled to survive during …

Remount Camp, Skirmish at

Brigadier General Joseph O. Shelby assumed command of all Confederate forces north of the Arkansas River beginning in late May 1864. Union control of the Arkansas River and the capital at Little Rock (Pulaski County) effectively isolated Shelby from the secessionist state government and most Confederate fighting forces in the southwest corner of the state. Three years of warfare had taken its toll; poverty and devastation were rampant in Arkansas’s northern counties, and the area was full of deserters from both armies. Civilians who did not or could not flee their homes teetered on the verge of starvation, as passing Union and Confederate forces pressed the common citizens for supply and forage, while roving guerrilla bands freely plundered whatever was …

Robison, Fabor Allen

Fabor Allen Robison (mistakenly referred to as “Robinson” in some sources) was an influential record producer, label owner, and music promoter from Arkansas. Called “one of the most enigmatic figures in country music” by scholar Michael Streissguth, Robison managed prominent country acts in the 1950s, including Johnny Horton, Jim Reeves, and the Browns. But while he wielded great power in the music industry in the 1950s, his dubious and exploitative business practices—not to mention egregious personal behavior—have tarnished his legacy. Facts about Robison are sketchy. He refused to give interviews, and he did not have a reputation for honesty. Robison was born in Beebe (White County) on November 3, 1911, though later in life he sometimes gave his birthplace as …

Romance (White County)

Romance is an unincorporated community in White County. The area was settled around 1850 by pioneers from Kentucky before the Civil War. The families, who traveled in a caravan of about five or six wagons, included the Pruetts, the Owens, and the Hills. Looking for land suitable for building and farming, they settled in the fertile valley along the Des Arc Creek. Because the families had come from Kentucky, they called the area Kentucky Valley. In 1884, the residents petitioned for a post office, but the U.S. Post Office rejected the name of Kentucky Valley, wanting to avoid confusion. Local belief differs on how the current name was chosen. The most common story says that a schoolteacher named J. J. …

Rose Bud (White County)

Rose Bud is a town in western White County, located at the intersection of State Highways 5 and 36. Settled before the Civil War, it has long been a center for agriculture and education, but the town did not incorporate until 1969. Several families from western Kentucky moved to Arkansas around 1851. They chose to settle in the lowlands of western White County because of the natural springs that watered the area. Cotton was their chief cash crop, although they dedicated much of their land to subsistence farming. A post office was established for the area in 1858. The name of the post office, Rose Bud, was reportedly supplied by Louise Hill, younger sister of the first postmaster, William “Jimmy” Hill. …

Russell (White County)

Russell sits along U.S. Highway 67 and Arkansas Highway 367 in White County. In the late 1880s, Russell Kaufman, an employee of the St. Louis and Iron Mountain Railroad Company, was in the area locating sites for the railroad company to store supplies at five-mile increments, and he platted the town that would eventually bear his name. In 1875, a post office in the area opened named Russell, but the name was changed to Plants 1878 and back to Russell in 1884. In 1922, a house bought from the Sears, Roebuck and Co. catalog was built in Russell for the Klotz family on what is now Highway 367. The building still stands in the twenty-first century. Also around this time, …

Russell Jail

The Russell Jail, located off Elm Street in Russell (White County), is a one-story, reinforced concrete structure built around 1935 with apparent assistance from the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a Depression-era federal relief agency. The Russell Jail was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on July 23, 1992. The small railroad and farming community of Russell was apparently in need of a jail during the Great Depression and turned to the WPA, one of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal agencies, for funding around 1935, though no record of the project exists in WPA project files at the Arkansas State Archives. The Russell Jail is one-room building constructed of steel rod–reinforced cast concrete, including a concrete roof and foundation. …

Searcy (White County)

Searcy has been the White County seat since the county’s organization in 1835. Located on the Little Red River near the county’s geographic center, the city continues to be the county’s commercial, educational, and healthcare center. Louisiana Purchase through Early Statehood The Little Red River and the White Sulphur Springs figure in Searcy’s founding. On the west bank of the Little Red, below the mouth of Gin Creek, a Spanish land grant was surveyed for Frenchman Jean LaFayac (LaBass) and patented to him in 1805. By 1834, the White Sulphur Springs, developed by Samson Gray, were attracting visitors with their healing properties. The home of David Crise, about halfway between the springs and the river, was the site of the …

Searcy Confederate Monument

The Searcy Confederate Monument is a commemorative sculpture erected in 1917 at the White County Courthouse to honor local men who had served in the Confederate army during the Civil War. White County sent eight companies of infantry and cavalry troops to fight for the Confederacy, and shortly after the turn of the twentieth century, local members of the United Confederate Veterans (UCV) decided it was time to raise a monument in their memory. The Reporter, a trade magazine for monument makers and dealers, included a notice in 1904 saying, “At the recent reunion of Camp Walker-McRea [sic] U.C.V., held at Searcy, Ark., a committee was appointed to co-operate with a committee of the local chapter of the U.D.C. in …

Searcy, Affair at

A small engagement fought during a scouting mission by Union troops, this action is typical of the type of fighting during this point of the war in the state. Federal outposts worked to keep their supply lines open and disrupt any enemy movements by sending out multiple scouting parties. Colonel Oliver Wood commanded the Federal post at Brownsville (Lonoke County) and worked to ensure that Confederate forces in the area remained off balance and unable to launch an effective attack on the men stationed in the area. Scouting parties also gathered food from the surrounding countryside to supplement the meager rations issued to the Union troops. In May 1864, Wood accompanied a scouting party as it searched for enemy troops …

Searcy, Skirmish near (August 13, 1864)

Starting in May 1864, Brigadier General Joseph Shelby was in sole command of all Confederate forces north of the Arkansas River; he actively recruited local men of fighting age and mustered his force effectively to harass Union garrisons and supply lines along the White River. Within Shelby’s Iron Brigade, munitions were in short supply and were acquired through raids on the enemy. By mid-July, a detail led by Colonel Thomas H. McCray and his brigade had procured for Shelby more than 800 firearms and badly needed ammunition from a transport on the Mississippi River. Successful hit-and-run tactics over the summer sufficiently frustrated Union command at Little Rock (Pulaski County) and warranted more than one expedition mounted to deal with Shelby. …

Searcy, Skirmish near (September 13, 1864)

After the Union’s Red River Campaign of 1864 failed, most military action in Arkansas was limited to guerrilla maneuvers and quick cavalry strikes for the remainder of the war. By this time, Confederate forces across the state were too small and thinly concentrated to mount an effective frontal assault on Union-held areas. Local Union commanders were focused more on protecting their own garrisons and maintaining a hold on Arkansas’s rivers than on conquering additional territory, which would bring logistical problems of protecting longer supply lines and imposing local order. This was the climate in which Confederate brigadier general Joseph O. (Jo) Shelby operated following his promotion on May 27 as commander of Confederate forces north of the Arkansas River. From …

Tinkle Pot

The Tinkle Pot is a novelty musical toilet created by Searcy (White County) drug store owner Frank Headlee, who also served as mayor of Searcy from 1951 to 1956. Essentially, it is a modified plastic commode for a child that plays music when the seat and lid are put down; when closed, the seat compresses a pin and lever that activate a music box inside the Tinkle Pot. In order to play, the music box must first be wound by hand. The Tinkle Pot itself weighs between one and two pounds, and it also features a handle on the back of the toilet for easy carrying. Headlee had the idea to manufacture the Tinkle Pot for sale in his drug …

Titan II Missile Accident (1965)

Titan II ICBM Launch Complex 373-4 near Searcy (White County) was the site of an accident on August 9, 1965, in which fifty-three workers were killed—the largest loss of life ever suffered in a U.S. nuclear weapons facility. Titan II ICBM Launch Complex 373-4 was one of eighteen Arkansas launch complexes operated by the 308th Strategic Missile Squadron headquartered at the Little Rock Air Force Base in Jacksonville (Pulaski County). Construction of Launch Complex 373-4 had commenced on January 3, 1961, and was finished on July 31, 1962—the first of the 308th’s sites to be completed and the first to go on alert (meaning that it was fully operational and ready to respond) on May 16, 1963. After it had …

Troxell, Leona

Leona Troxell was a political activist who played a major role in the development of the Republican Party in Arkansas, her adopted home. She was also involved with the Republican Party at the national level. Leona Anderson was born on April 22, 1913, in Johnstown, New York, to Frank and Clara Anderson. When she was young, the family moved to Iowa, settling in LeMars. Her father was the executive secretary of the Iowa Baptist Convention for sixteen years. Anderson graduated from North High School in Des Moines in 1930 and then attended Drake University in Des Moines. Active in the student community, she was president of the Drake University YWCA. She graduated from Drake in 1934 with a liberal arts …

Watkins, William (Execution of)

William Watkins was hanged in White County on April 25, 1873, for the murder of his landlord; his execution made national headlines when he attempted to choke himself to death on the gallows. William Watkins, a native of Franklin, Georgia, moved to White County around 1871 and rented land near Searcy (White County) on the Little Red River from farmer William Swaggerty, possibly as a sharecropper. A newspaper reported of Watkins that “instead of working it [the land] he hunted and fished,” leading Swaggerty to ask “him to work his crop and loaf less.” Watkins, who reportedly had killed three men before moving to White County, in what was called “unquestionably one of the most cowardly and brutal murders imaginable,” …

West Point (White County)

The incorporated town of West Point is located in central White County, about five miles southeast of Searcy (White County). West Point thrived in its early days as a bustling river port and overcame the ravages of the Civil War, but the arrival of local railroads in the 1870s overshadowed the supremacy of trade via steamboats and diminished its importance as the commercial hub of White County. The earliest evidence of human habitation around West Point is a burial mound constructed sometime after AD 1300. From the mid-seventeenth century onward, the West Point area was part of a hunting ground under the dominion of the Osage until the arrival of white settlers to White County, beginning in 1789. The foundation for a town …

West Point, Engagement at

aka: Little Red River Raid

The Confederacy suffered a crushing defeat on July 4, 1863, following an unsuccessful assault on the Union garrison at Helena (Phillips County), which was intended to relieve pressure on besieged Vicksburg, Mississippi. Vicksburg surrendered on July 4, and the defeat at Helena—coupled with Confederate surrender at Port Hudson, Louisiana, on July 9—severed Arkansas, Texas, and western Louisiana from the rest of the Confederate states. Major General Sterling Price was formally tasked with the defense of Arkansas on July 23, but increasing desertions within the Rebel ranks thinned the already meager forces available to resist the imminent Union push to capture Little Rock (Pulaski County). The Little Rock Campaign involved the movement of two Union columns: a division led by Brigadier …

White County

White County is the second largest county in land area in the state. Geographically, it is a microcosm of the state as a whole. The eastern half of the county is alluvial land that today is mostly used for farming and timber production. The western half of the county is rocky higher ground where much of the land is used for dairy and beef cattle ranching. The county seat, Searcy, contains the greatest population and number of industries of any town in the county. Even though the county was formed before statehood, its boundaries have altered little through time. Southeastern White County is mostly farmland and lowland forests. The Little Red River flows northwest to southeast across the county and …

White County Courthouse

The White County Courthouse in the northeastern Arkansas city of Searcy (White County) is located in a historic district. The courthouse has hosted many local events over the years ranging from farmers’ markets to the annual Get Down Downtown festival. The Arkansas Historic Preservation Program recognizes the White County Courthouse as historically significant, and it was added to the National Register of Historic Places on August 3, 1977. White County built its first courthouse when the county was still in the Arkansas Territory. In 1835, one year before Arkansas’s statehood, the Territorial Legislature created White County and established a five-man commission to determine its county seat. David Crise, one of the commissioners, hosted the local government in his home, which …

White County Historical Society

The White County Historical Society has been the guiding force in the preservation of the history of White County’s people and institutions. It continues to work to preserve the heritage and records of the county. The first meeting of what would become the White County Historical Society was held at the Searcy City Library on July 28, 1961, and attended by thirteen people. From the beginning, the society was dedicated to preserving the history of White County, providing information for those interested in genealogy, and encouraging the dissemination of information. In June 1962, the society began publishing White County Heritage on a quarterly schedule. The first edition was sent to over thirty people and contained several stories and two cemetery …

White County Record

The White County Record was one of the longest-running newspapers in White County. Published in Judsonia (White County), it operated for almost one hundred years. Surprisingly for a paper with such a long history, it had few ownership changes. When the paper closed in 2014, it had a long record of solid news reporting. Ralph C. Mann Sr. purchased the Judsonia Weekly Advance newspaper in 1915 and ran it as a Democratic paper until 1920. After purchasing the paper, Mann installed new printing machinery, including a cylinder press and linotype machine, and was able to increase his subscribers by the hundreds. In 1921, Mann changed the Weekly Advance to an independent affiliation and, in 1922, began publishing on Thursdays instead …

Whitney’s Lane, Action at

aka: Skirmish at Searcy Landing

The Action at Whitney’s Lane was the first major contact between Federal and Confederate forces in Arkansas after the Battle of Pea Ridge on March 6–7, 1862. This action and subsequent events led the Union army to give up its objective to capture Little Rock (Pulaski County) in May 1862. Little Rock did not fall under Federal control until September 1863. Union Major General Samuel R. Curtis’s defeat of the Confederate forces under Major General Earl Van Dorn at the Battle of Pea Ridge had not been altogether decisive, but he could claim victory. Consequently, Confederate command staff in the east conceded much of the western region of the Confederacy known as the Trans-Mississippi and ordered Van Dorn to take …

Yarnell’s Ice Cream Company

Yarnell’s Ice Cream Company, headquartered in Searcy (White County), maintained operations through four generations of the Yarnell family from 1932 to 2011. The only ice cream-producing company in Arkansas, it had branches in Fort Smith (Sebastian County), Hot Springs (Garland County), Paragould (Greene County), Texarkana (Miller County), and West Memphis (Crittenden County). The company closed amid bankruptcy in 2011, but was purchased in 2012 by Schulze and Burch Biscuit Co. and relaunched in April 2012. The predecessor of Yarnell’s, the Grisham Ice Cream Company, produced Grisham’s Angel Food Ice Cream. Grisham was headquartered at Searcy in 1923, though it had plants in McGehee (Desha County) and Morrilton (Conway County). The company merged in 1927 with the Terry Dairy Co., which had locations …