Hollywood Cemetery—Confederate Section

The Confederate Section of Hollywood Cemetery in Hot Springs (Garland County) is a 60′ x 54′ cemetery plot surrounded by a low concrete wall with ornamental concrete posts at all four corners and an opening on the western side inscribed “Confederate Veterans.” The plot contains thirty-four marked burials, a fieldstone monument, and four concrete benches.

David Stone Ryan, who served as a lieutenant in a North Carolina unit during the Civil War and later made a home in Hot Springs, purchased the Confederate Section in Hollywood Cemetery in 1900, on behalf of the Albert Pike Camp of the United Confederate Veterans (UCV), to ensure a final resting place for his fellow aging Confederates. The Albert Pike Camp was disbanded in June 1906, and camp members voted to transfer ownership of the plot to Hot Springs Chapter No. 80 of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) to “take charge of, enclose and keep repaired.”

After receiving control of the plot, the members of Chapter No. 80 worked for thirteen years to purchase a Confederate monument for the plot. The project was completed in 1919, with the erection of the impressive granite monument inscribed “Our Confederate Dead” that stands in the southern end of the plot.

Chapter No. 80 continued fundraising activities after the Hollywood Cemetery monument was erected. On June 2, 1934, a marble monument topped by a statue of a lone Confederate soldier was dedicated at the center of Como Square (now Landmark Plaza) in downtown Hot Springs. The last Confederate monument erected in Arkansas, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on April 26, 1996. A year later, the chapter purchased nine headstones and placed them on previously unmarked graves in the Confederate Section of Hollywood Cemetery.

Four concrete benches were placed in the plot by the UDC in 1974. Chapter No. 80, the Chadwick Butterworth Chapter of the UDC, and a local Sons of Confederate Veterans chapter hold a joint memorial service at the cemetery each year.

Though less prominent than the Hot Springs Confederate Monument in downtown Hot Springs, the Confederate Section of Hollywood Cemetery remains an important link to early efforts to commemorate the “Lost Cause” in Garland County. As the sole remaining historical resource associated with the long-defunct Albert Pike Camp of the UCV and the resource most closely associated with the early efforts of Hot Springs Chapter No. 80 of the UDC, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 6, 1996.

For additional information:
Christ, Mark K. “Confederate Section, Hollywood Cemetery.” National Register of Historic Places nomination form. On file at Arkansas Historic Preservation Program, Little Rock, Arkansas. Online at https://www.arkansasheritage.com/arkansas-historic-preservation-program (accessed April 18, 2024).

Logan, Charles Russell.“Something So Dim It Must Be Holy”: Civil War Commemorative Sculpture in Arkansas, 1886–1934. Little Rock: Arkansas Historic Preservation Program, 1996. Online at https://www.arkansasheritage.com/arkansas-preservation/programs/publications (accessed April 18, 2024).

Materials submitted by Mrs. Jimmie L. Jones, Hot Springs Chapter No. 80, United Daughters of the Confederacy. On file at Arkansas Historic Preservation Program, Little Rock, Arkansas.

Mark K. Christ
Arkansas Historic Preservation Program