Entries

Pineville (Izard County)

Pineville, a small town located in northwest Izard County, was once a center of commerce and trade for area residents. Though most area residents farmed the land or raised cattle, timber harvesting also played a role in the growth of the settlement. Early settlers such as James, William, and Allen Whitfield were attracted to the White River valley for its rich farm land. By the 1830s, the military road that intersected with the road leading to Jacksonport (Jackson County) connected the area to the White and Black rivers, important trade routes. Robert Calvin Matthews, who settled in the area by 1860, was a major influence in the development of the settlement. He built the area’s first house and, in 1861, …

Pinnacle Mountain State Park

Pinnacle Mountain State Park is located in central Arkansas near the northeast corner of the Ouachita Mountains. The park’s namesake is the first prominent cone-shaped mountain encountered by early westward travelers as they emerged from the alluvial plains of east Arkansas. Its cone-like appearance has long beckoned travelers and residents alike to ascend its peak for breathtaking views of the surrounding hills and valleys. Rising 756 feet from the adjacent flood plains, Pinnacle’s rocky peak reaches an elevation of 1,011 feet above sea level. The cone-shaped peak was first mentioned in the book A Journal of Travels into the Arkansas Territory During the Year 1819, written by naturalist Thomas Nuttall. During the colonial and early American periods, the mountain was …

Pinnacle Springs (Faulkner County)

Pinnacle Springs is an abandoned resort community located in northern Faulkner County, approximately five miles north of Greenbrier (Faulkner County), along the east side of Cadron Creek. The springs were noted in 1880 by Jeff Collier. Collier was herding cattle in the area when he came across the springs and noticed they had an unusual taste. Collier told his employer, James D. Martin, about the springs. Martin and other businessmen from the area incorporated the Pinnacle Springs Land Company in 1881 to develop a resort town using the spring water. The Martin family conveyed 360 acres of their land to the company to develop the town. Marketing for Pinnacle Springs emphasized the curative properties of the springs, the malaria-free environment, …

Pippen, Scottie Maurice

Scottie Pippen is one of the most talented and successful athletes from the state of Arkansas. An essential member of the championship Chicago Bulls basketball team from the 1990s, Pippen was in 1996 named one of the “50 Greatest Players in NBA History.” During his seventeen seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA), he participated in the play-offs in all but his last season, was named to the NBA All-Star team seven times, and won six NBA championships, all with the Bulls; Pippen also has won gold medals with two Olympic basketball teams. Scottie Maurice Pippen was born on September 25, 1965, in Hamburg (Ashley County) to Preston and Ethel Pippen, the youngest of their twelve children. Pippen’s father worked …

Pippin, Essex (Execution of)

Essex Pippin (sometimes listed as Pipkin), a nineteen-year-old African American man, was hanged at Vanndale (Cross County) on October 11, 1901, after being convicted of raping two women. On July 29, 1901, a man reportedly raped a Black woman named Leah Wooden and then attacked Mrs. Allen Taylor, described in contemporaneous newspaper accounts as “a respectable white woman, who is the wife of a prominent farmer living near Wynne” in Cross County. Essex Pippin, who lived about a quarter mile from Vanndale, was soon arrested and rushed to the state penitentiary in Little Rock (Pulaski County) by local lawmen to protect him from “lynching at the hands of a rapidly forming excited populace,” providing “a narrow escape from death by …

Pirate Perch

The pirate perch (Aphredoderus sayanus) belongs to the order Aphredoderiformes (or by some sources, Percopsiformes) and family Aphredoderidae. There are two subspecies, A. s. sayanus and A. s. gibbosus. It is the only living member of the family and ranges from the Atlantic and Gulf slopes from Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and New York south to the Gulf of Mexico and west to the Brazos River drainage, Texas. In Arkansas, A. sayanus occurs throughout the Coastal Plain physiographic region extending westward into the central areas of the state. It is quite rare in the Ozark uplands, and there are no records from the northwestern part of the state. The Aphredoderidae contains one fossil genus, Trichophanes, with possibly two of three valid …

Pisgah (Pike County)

Pisgah is a community located in Pike County about four miles south of Delight (Pike County) and four miles east of Billstown (Pike County). The first settlers to the area included Green Oldham, who obtained a federal land patent for about 200 acres of land in 1859 and 1860. Other early land owners included Andrew Stelle and John Harris, who arrived in the area around the same time, obtaining parcels of farmland. The name of the community came from the Bible and was chosen by early settlers who viewed the area as a promised land. A number of local men served in the Confederate army during the Civil War. Many served in the Nineteenth Arkansas Infantry Regiment and were captured …

Pitman’s Ferry, Skirmish at (April 1, 1862)

The April 1, 1862, Skirmish at Pitman’s Ferry took place as Brigadier General Frederick Steele moved his division of the Union army from southeastern Missouri to join Major General Samuel Curtis’s Army of the Southwest in Arkansas. On March 19, 1862, Steele ordered Colonel William P. Carlin to establish a base at Doniphan, Missouri, or Pitman’s Ferry on the Current River to gather supplies for his division as it moved into Arkansas. Pitman’s Ferry, located on the Southwest Trail, was a major route for travel between Arkansas and Missouri and would be the site of four skirmishes in 1862—on April 1, July 20, October 27, and November 25. Carlin led his own Thirty-eighth Illinois Infantry along with the Twenty-first Illinois …

Pitman’s Ferry, Skirmish at (October 27, 1862)

On October 27, 1862, Union Colonel William Dewey surprised Confederate Colonel John Q. Burbridge’s Brigade at Pitman’s Ferry (Randolph County). Dewey’s rapid combined-arms attack temporarily won control of the ferry and allowed for the reconnoitering of the Pocahontas (Randolph County) area. This was the last major Civil War engagement in Randolph County. The location of Pitman’s Ferry on the Current River made it an important possession for the antagonists in Arkansas. Settled by William Hix about 1803, the location served as the key entry point from Missouri on the Southwest Trail (also called the Military Road, Congress Road, or the Natchitoches Trace) into northeast Arkansas. Purchased by Dr. Peyton Robinson Pitman before Arkansas statehood, Pitman’s Ferry had a strategic importance …

Pittman, Jennie Carr

Jennie Carr Pittman was one of Arkansas’s most prominent and influential figures in the campaign to secure the prohibition of alcohol in the United States. A major force in the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), the nation’s largest temperance organization, she played a substantive role—at both the state and national level—in the group’s ultimately successful effort to help enact the Eighteenth Amendment. Jennie Carr was born on December 26, 1858 (some sources have it as 1856), in Fredonia—later called Biscoe (Prairie County)—to Charles Turner Carr and his second wife, Susan Wesley Capehart Carr. Not much is known about her youth. While she was christened Mildred Jane, she later went by the name Jennie Mildred Carr until her marriage. On her …

Pittman, Margaret

Margaret Pittman was known worldwide for her pioneering research into the microbiology and immunology of infectious diseases. Her work in developing a vaccine for whooping cough remains the scientific basis (with later improvements) for protecting the children of Arkansas and the world from this potentially deadly disease. Margaret Pittman was born near Prairie Grove (Washington County) on January 20, 1901, to James Pittman, a country doctor, and Virginia Alice McCormick. In 1909, the family moved to the village of Cincinnati (Washington County), where Margaret and her sister sometimes helped with administering anesthesia and vaccinating patients in their father’s practice. After his early death, Virginia Pittman took her children—Margaret, Mary Helen, and James—to Conway (Faulkner County), where she did dressmaking and …

Pittman, Montgomery

Montgomery Pittman was a television writer, director, and actor noted for writing the movie Come Next Spring set in a fictional version of Cushman (Independence County) in the 1920s. Other credits include writing and directing episodes of The Twilight Zone, Maverick, and 77 Sunset Strip. According to his California death certificate, Social Security records, and other official documents, Montgomery Cherlez Pittman was born in Louisiana on March 1, 1917; however, his World War II draft card gives his date of birth as March 1, 1920, and place of birth as specifically New Orleans. His parents’ names are often given as John Griffin Pittman and Mary Belle Thompson, but he is not listed as a member of their household in the …

Pittman, Samuel Pinckney

Samuel Pinckney Pittman came to prominence in northwestern Arkansas as a Confederate veteran, civic leader, Washington County official, memoir writer, and advocate for agricultural and educational interests. Born to James and Mary Pittman on June 27, 1836, ten miles southwest of Fayetteville (Washington County) in what is now Prairie Grove Township, Samuel Pinckney Pittman grew up on the family farm. He received an education at Ozark Institute in Mount Comfort (Washington County). After his father’s death in 1847, Pittman continued to farm and raise livestock. In 1858, Pittman married Sarah Boone. They had a son named William in 1859; he died of typhoid fever at the age of eighteen. Their daughter, Mary was born in 1866; she died in 1904. …

Pitts, Elijah Eugene

Elijah Eugene Pitts was a football player who grew up in Mayflower (Faulkner County), played at Philander Smith College, and starred for the Green Bay Packers in the first Super Bowl. He was one of the early Black stars of the National Football League (NFL) from the segregated South and had a long career as a player and a professional coach. Elijah Pitts was born on February 3, 1938, one of two sons of Samuel and Gertha Pitts, who were sharecroppers on land near Mayflower. Since there was no nearby school for African Americans, he attended the Pine Street School in Conway (Faulkner County), which Black children from Conway and surrounding communities attended before the schools were integrated in 1968. …

Place Names

The names given to Arkansas places—including natural features, counties, towns, and roads—reflect a variety of influences and often tell stories about the places themselves and the people who gave them the names. Toponymy is the scholarly study of place names, and Arkansas lags in much toponymic scholarship compared to other states. A handful of articles have traced French influences in early names, and Ernie Deane’s 1986 collection of stories is to date the only significant gathering of the tales behind Arkansas place names. Deane’s collection, Arkansas Place Names, was based largely on his many decades of traveling across the state, talking to residents, and picking up tales in newspapers and books. When Europeans began visiting the area now known as …

Plainview (Yell County)

The city of Plainview began in the early twentieth century as a lumber town. Since the decline of the timber industry, the city has struggled with various problems, including industrial pollution, but it remains home to more than 600 citizens in the twenty-first century. Plainview is in the forested hills of Yell County near the Petit Jean River. Prior to the Civil War and Reconstruction, the area was sparsely populated. Most of the residents were subsistence farmers, although the farmers also sold wheat, corn, hogs, and cattle. A ferry crossing on the Petit Jean River was established around 1876. Samuel and Augustus Ward both owned land near the river, and a settlement called Ward appears on some maps. Two school …

Planarians

aka: Triclads

There are at least seven species of planarians found in Arkansas, on land and in water. Planarians belong to the superphylum Lophotrochozoa, phylum Platyhelminthes, subphylum Catenulidea, class Rhabditophora (some consider the artificial grouping Turbellaria), order Tricladida, suborder Paludicola, and families Dugesiidae, Kenkiidae, Planariidae, and Dendrocoelidae. These flatworms are often simply referred to as triclads or triclad worms. Currently, the order Tricladida is split into three suborders, including the marine forms (Maricola); those found mostly in freshwater habitats of caves, although at least one species occurs in surface waters (Cavernicola); and land planarians/freshwater triclads (Continenticola). Scientists have argued about the systematics of platyhelminths for many years, and with the advent of molecular approaches (18S and 28S ribosomal DNA sequences), older classification …

Plane Crash of January 14, 1936

On the evening of January 14, 1936, an American Airlines twin-engine Douglas airliner crashed into a swamp near Goodwin (St. Francis County), killing all seventeen people aboard, including Arkansas’s Works Progress Administration (WPA) state administrator, William Reynolds Dyess. Dyess and Robert H. McNair Jr., the WPA’s director of finance and reports for Arkansas, were returning to Little Rock (Pulaski County) after conferring with agency officials in Washington DC. They were among fourteen passengers on the plane, known as the Southerner, along with pilot Jerry Marshall, co-pilot Glenn Freeland, and stewardess Perla Gasparini. The plane left the Memphis, Tennessee, airport at 7:04 p.m. The last contact with Marshall was at 7:18 p.m. as the plane headed to Little Rock. At about …

Planned Parenthood

Through education, advocacy, and direct services, Planned Parenthood seeks to ensure healthy sexuality, family health, and access to high-quality sexual and reproductive healthcare. The topic of reproductive education and healthcare has long been a source for debate both nationally and in Arkansas. At the height of the Depression, Little Rock (Pulaski County) activist Hilda Cornish was convinced that the ability to limit family size could be crucial to a family’s financial survival. In February 1931, Cornish established the Little Rock Birth Control Clinic, the first such service in Arkansas. Services were provided at a minimal fee for any married woman whose family made less than $75 per month. Establishment of this clinic was met with public resistance; one woman wrote, …

Plantation Agriculture Museum

The Plantation Agriculture Museum in Scott (Pulaski and Lonoke counties) is situated in the Arkansas River lowlands beside Horseshoe Lake, about twenty miles southeast of Little Rock (Pulaski County). The museum is dedicated to Arkansas’s rich cotton agriculture heritage. William Scott emigrated from Kentucky at an unknown date to the area that would become the town of Scott. His son Conoway Scott Sr. was born in 1815. By 1862, the Scott family owned 2,000 acres, ten slaves, and other property, valued at $37,895. Conoway Scott Sr. died in 1866 just before the birth of his son, Conoway Jr. Conoway Scott Jr. eventually operated several successful ventures, including the family plantation and a general store. Scott’s landholdings were eventually crossed by …

Planters Bank Building

The Planters Bank Building is a historical commercial structure located at 200 East Hale Avenue, at its intersection with Pecan Avenue, in Osceola (Mississippi County). Designed in 1920 by Missouri architect Uzell Singleton Branson, the building was originally constructed for the Citizens Bank. Upon the bank’s closure in 1928, the building became the home of First State Bank, which closed in 1930. For a number of years, the building was used by a large mercantile store. In 1943, the City of Osceola leased the building to house its city hall. In May 1944, a citizens’ group that included Congressman William J. Driver of Osceola chartered a financial institution known as the Planters Bank. The new depository took over the former …

Pleasant Grove (Stone County)

aka: Redstripe (Stone County)

The community of Pleasant Grove is located along Highway 14 about twelve miles east-southeast of Mountain View (Stone County), the county seat. Pleasant Grove is between Marcella (Stone County) and St. James (Stone County). The White River lies just over two miles to the east, accessible via the Martin Public Access. What is left of the old Hess/O’Neal/Grigsby Ferry is used by a local farmer to transport goods across the river. Pleasant Grove was originally known as Red Stripe, but the name of the community changed its name following the infamous Connie Franklin murder case. One of the first settlers of Red Stripe was a veteran of the War of 1812, Jacob Hollandsworth from Virginia by way of Tennessee. He …

Pleasant Hill United Methodist Church (Saline County)

The single-story Pleasant Hill United Methodist Church building at the confluence of West Lawson Road, Avilla West, and Lake Norrell Road is the one of the oldest religious buildings in Saline County. The simple wood-framed church was built in the Greek Revival style by Walter Overhault with help from local residents in 1894; the congregation had been meeting since 1880. Pleasant Hill United Methodist Church retains all the principal features that typify rural, vernacular Greek Revival churches of the late nineteenth century. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on June 5, 1991. Pleasant Hill is an unincorporated community near Avilla (Saline County) that was settled in Saline County before the Civil War. Located on what was …

Pleasant Plains (Independence County)

Pleasant Plains is a town located on U.S. Highway 167 between Bald Knob (White County) and Batesville (Independence County). Although it is not as old as Batesville, Pleasant Plains is one of the oldest settlements in Arkansas, with origins in the territorial period. Families traveling in covered wagons came into Missouri and Arkansas, following the Southwest Trail until they found promising land that was unclaimed. The earliest settlement, which called itself Fairview, was located about two miles north of the present Pleasant Plains. The first settlers wrote to their relatives about the bounty of their new home, with prairie chickens and eggs, wild berries (particularly strawberries), and good timber for firewood and for construction. When the settlers applied for a …

Pleasant Street Historic District

The Pleasant Street Historic District in Hot Springs (Garland County), located near Bathhouse Row in Hot Springs National Park, represents the most intact area of the city’s historic African-American community. In fact, it is the largest historic district in Arkansas composed of buildings constructed by and for African Americans. Originally, the district included ninety-six homes, but that number had fallen to seventy-seven by the twenty-first century. Buildings in the district represent the remaining fragment of the neighborhood, now surrounded by new development and ever-changing major thoroughfares through the city (E. Grand/Highway 70 and Malvern Avenue). Two buildings in the district were previously listed on the National Register of Historic Places: Visitors’ Chapel A.M.E. Church at 317 Church Street and the …

Pleasant Valley (Scott County)

Pleasant Valley is an unincorporated community in eastern Scott County located along Highway 80. The community was established east of Waldron (Scott County) along the Poteau River. The agricultural industry has contributed to the economy and way of life in Pleasant Valley. Prior to European exploration, the area surrounding Pleasant Valley was a wilderness. Several species of wildlife that no longer inhabit the area, such as elk and buffalo, were present throughout the region. Numerous archaeological sites and burial mounds are located along the banks of prominent waterways such as the Poteau River. Archaeological findings have provided evidence of early inhabitants dating to the Archaic, Woodland, and Mississippian periods. Further archaeological evidence has indicated that the people of the Caddo …

Plum Bayou Culture

Plum Bayou culture was a people who built religious centers with a formal arrangement of earthen platforms or mounds that bordered a rectangular open area used for religious and social activities. The misnamed Toltec Mounds site in central Arkansas (preserved by the Plum Bayou Mounds Archeological State Park) was the primary center. Plum Bayou culture, dating about AD 650 to 1050, was one of the first cultures to have such centers in Arkansas. Most of the Plum Bayou people lived in small villages and hunted, fished, gathered wild plant foods, and farmed. Villages were present primarily on the floodplains of the Arkansas and White rivers, but they were also in the adjacent uplands. Plum Bayou developed out of the earlier …

Plum Bayou Log House

The Plum Bayou Log House is a unique structure placed in the heart of downtown Little Rock (Pulaski County). Originally located in Plum Bayou, a farming community in Scott (Pulaski and Lonoke counties) about ten miles southeast of Little Rock, this 1850s farmstead was moved to the grounds of what is now Historic Arkansas Museum in 1976. The cabin serves as an example of nineteenth-century farm life in rural Arkansas. The one-story cabin is composed of two units separated by a covered central hall or “dog trot,” a common architectural style. The structure is made from hewn cypress logs, and a two-room detached kitchen is connected to the house in an ell fashion. William Stith Pemberton was born on December …

Plum Bayou Mounds Archeological State Park

Plum Bayou Mounds Archeological State Park (previously the Toltec Mounds Archeological State Park) near Scott (Pulaski and Lonoke counties) is one of Arkansas’s most significant pre-European archaeological sites. The Toltec Mounds Site, with the state’s tallest Indian mounds, is also a National Historic Landmark. In 1812, Louis Bringier, a French explorer from New Orleans, Louisiana, traveled to present-day Arkansas and became the first European to discover the mounds. His description of the site’s “tolerably regular” alignment of mounds and the height of the two tallest mounds in contrast to the surrounding alluvial flatlands, the first such description, was reported in newspapers in 1821. William Peay Officer and his wife, Mary Eliza, purchased the area in 1849. There they maintained a …

Plum Bayou Project

The Plum Bayou Project was part of a New Deal plan designed to help rural residents receive federal relief and assistance during the economic crisis of the 1930s. Located approximately seventeen miles north of Pine Bluff (Jefferson County), Plum Bayou was one of several similar communities built in the Arkansas Delta. During the Great Depression, the federal Resettlement Administration—later the Farm Security Administration (FSA)—experimented with programs designed to give assistance to rural farm families. Rexford G. Tugwell, head of the Resettlement Administration, believed that sending farmers into the cities with no job prospects was an untenable situation and certainly no answer to the farmers’ desperate plight. Instead, he focused on developing resettlement projects designed to move farmers barely surviving on …

Plum Point Bend, Engagement at

The Engagement at Plum Point Bend was fought on May 10, 1862, as the rams of the Confederate River Defense Service attacked the U.S. Mississippi Flotilla, whose vessels were shelling the Confederate fortifications at Fort Pillow, Tennessee. Two U.S. gunboats were sunk during the spirited engagement. Following the capture of Island No. 10 on the Mississippi River on April 8, 1862, the U.S. Mississippi Flotilla continued downstream to Cape Girardeau, Missouri, and then to an area between Plum Point on the Tennessee side of the river and Craighead Point near Osceola (Mississippi River) on the Arkansas side, from which the fleet’s mortar boats could pound the extensive Confederate works at Fort Pillow. The USS Cincinnati towed Mortar Boat No. 16 …

Plum Point Energy Station

The Plum Point Energy Station (PPES) is a 665-megawatt (MW) energy facility located approximately five miles east of Osceola (Mississippi County). Owned by NRG Energy of Houston, Texas, the station began commercial production of electricity on September 1, 2010, serving members of the Missouri Joint Municipal Electric Utility Commission (MJMEUC) in the Arkansas communities of North Little Rock (Pulaski County), Osceola, and Piggott (Clay County), along with the Missouri communities of Carthage, Kennett, Malden, and Poplar Bluff, plus all thirty-five members of the Missouri Public Energy Pool No. 1 (MoPEP). The Empire District Electric Company, East Texas Electric Cooperative, and Municipal Energy Agency of Mississippi own smaller shares of the company. Development and Construction Spurred by recent economic setbacks in …

Plum Thicket, The

The Plum Thicket was Janice Holt Giles’s seventh book (her sixth novel) and the first to be set in her home state of Arkansas. It was first published in 1954 by Houghton Mifflin. The Plum Thicket was a deviation from the anticipated continuation of a series of historical novels about the settlement of Kentucky, which had begun with the publication of The Kentuckians in 1953 and would resume with publication of Hannah Fowler (1956) and The Believers (1957). Giles felt compelled to write the book following a pilgrimage to her paternal grandparents’ home place in Arkansas near Charleston (Franklin County), a place she had visited often as a child. The story told in the book is fictional but has some …

Plumerville (Conway County)

Plumerville was formed as a stagecoach stop in 1858, but the origins of the community are found along the Arkansas River in the early days of the Arkansas Territory. The community moved from the Harrisburg-Portland bottomland area to follow stagecoach and railroad developments. Samuel Plummer came to the area in 1833 and purchased 160 acres of the “first high ground” north of the Arkansas River. Over the next several years, the development of the Military Road from Little Rock (Pulaski County) to Fort Smith (Sebastian County) led to a stop on the Butterfield Overland Mail Company and the construction of the telegraph line across this important choice of land. The later railroad also needed to avoid the overflow areas and …

Plumerville Conflict of 1886–1892

During the late 1880s, electoral politics in Conway County turned violent, resulting in serious injuries and several deaths. In the Plumerville (Conway County) community, actions such as voter intimidation and the theft of ballot boxes were flagrant and seemingly condoned by public officials. The violence became widely known and was the subject of a federal investigation after the assassination of a congressional candidate, John Clayton. A pattern of local political affiliations and latent hostilities toward other factions developed and remained well into the twentieth century. While the political conflict renewed itself after the 1884 election, the underlying causes date back to the pre–Civil War days. Conway County was a small version of Arkansas in terms of geographic culture and economics. …

Plumerville School Building

The Plumerville School Building at Plumerville (Conway County), located at 105 Arnold Street, is a circa 1925 wood-frame structure that was remodeled with assistance from the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a Depression-era federal relief program, while serving as a school in 1939. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on September 10, 1992. Plumerville was a leading agricultural center in Conway County and had a well-established school system at the time of the Great Depression. When President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal offered opportunities to improve facilities, Plumerville School District No. 39 took advantage of the funding possibilities and, around 1938, received money to build a new high school building and a gymnasium. The district decided to pursue …

Plummer, Samuel

By the time he was twenty-five, Samuel Plummer had finished an apprenticeship in leatherworking and subsequently traveled to Conway County in Arkansas Territory, where he bought a home and established a business location. The town of Plumerville (Conway County) grew up around his home. (His name was spelled as Plummer in most sources but was Plumer in some, and is Plumer on his gravestone; the spelling of the town’s name is based on the variant spelling.) Samuel Plummer was born on October 3, 1800, in Alexandria, Virginia, in what is now the Washington DC area. Patrick Rodgers, a leather merchant, became Plummer’s guardian when he was seven and started him as an apprentice to learn the trade and business of …

Pocahontas (Randolph County)

Begun as a river port significant to commerce, Pocahontas joins alluvial Delta bottom with the Ozark foothills. The town has served as Randolph County’s only county seat and continues as a strategic educational and agricultural center in the state. European Exploration and Settlement The first residents of the area arrived roughly 12,000 years ago. During the time of European exploration, what would become Randolph County was part of the hunting territory of the Osage, who lived in southern Missouri. French hunters probably crossed the area in the eighteenth century and established temporary camps, but no permanent settlements were developed until after the Osage surrendered their rights to the land in 1808. The earliest documented settler was Ransom S. Bettis, who …

Pocahontas [Steamboat]

The Pocahontas was a steamboat that ran between New Orleans, Louisiana, and cities along the Arkansas River. In 1852, the vessel suffered two fatal accidents, the second of which resulted in its destruction. The Pocahontas was a 397-ton sidewheel paddleboat that was constructed in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1849. By early 1852, the vessel was one of only three steamboats “running in the Arkansas river and New Orleans trade,” with Captain H. J. (or H. S.) Moore offering service to Little Rock (Pulaski County), Van Buren (Crawford County), Fort Smith (Sebastian County), and Fort Gibson, Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma). The Pocahontas’s first accident occurred on March 14, 1852, as the steamboat left the woodyard at Hog Thief Bend on the Arkansas …

Pocahontas Commercial Historic District

The Pocahontas Commercial Historic District is the historic downtown area of Pocahontas (Randolph County). This area has been the seat of local and county government, as well its commercial center, since the formation of the county in 1836. The commercial district is roughly bounded by Thomasville, Jordan, Broadway, and Vance streets. The downtown area comprises numerous historic buildings, including two courthouses, a service garage, a theater, a Works Progress Administration (WPA) post office, and the former city hall and city-function buildings, as well as other buildings currently utilized for modern business purposes. Both of the courthouses and the WPA post office are individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The center of the commercial district is dominated by …

Pocahontas Expedition

The Pocahontas Expedition was an attempt to gather intelligence regarding the location of Confederates in northeastern Arkansas. During the expedition, Union soldiers conducted a raid in Pocahontas (Randolph County) on August 24, 1863, that resulted in the capture of Brigadier General Meriwether “Jeff” Thompson of the Missouri State Guard, thus temporarily hampering Confederate actions in the region. While the Union army struggled to win control of the northern half of Arkansas during the Arkansas Expedition (Little Rock Campaign) from mid-July to August 1863, Confederate regulars and guerrillas continually struck targets and occupied cities in northeastern Arkansas and southeastern Missouri. Consequently, Union forces in Missouri raided Arkansas to disrupt guerrilla activities and challenge invading Confederate commands. In August 1863, Union Brigadier …

Pocahontas Post Office (Historic)

The historic Pocahontas Post Office is a one-story, brick-masonry building built between 1936 and 1937. Located a few blocks away from the historic downtown square of Pocahontas (Randolph County), this building served as the post office for the area until 1986, when post office operations moved to new facilities. The old post office was built in the Art Deco style, which was a common form of architecture for Works Progress Administration (WPA) post offices at that time. This style of architecture is represented by vertical pilasters and brick segments with stylized ornamental decorations within the pilasters. Pocahontas got its first post office after the town was voted the Randolph County seat in 1835. By 1936, that original post office building …

Poe, Harry (Trial and Execution of)

Harry Poe was the first person legally executed in Garland County, Arkansas. On January 18, 1910, Harry Poe, an African American teenager, allegedly raped Lena Adams, a younger white girl. A Garland County court convicted Poe of rape on March 1, 1910, and sentenced him to death. Several residents of the county believed that Poe was innocent and attempted to save his life. On September 2, 1910, Harry Poe was executed. The details of Poe’s life before the alleged rape are unclear. Available newspapers variously listed his age as seventeen, eighteen, or nineteen, and provided no details about his life before the incident. Census records do not provide any likely matches for Harry Poe. A writer for the Arkansas Democrat described him in overtly racist language as “a thick-lipped, low-browed, bestial type of negro.” On January …

Poe’s Battalion, Arkansas Cavalry (CS)

Poe’s Arkansas Cavalry Battalion was a Confederate cavalry unit that served in the Trans-Mississippi Department, entirely in Arkansas, during the American Civil War. It participated in military engagements at Mount Elba, Easling’s Farm, Poison Spring, Marks’ Mills, and Hurricane Creek, as well as undertaking scouting and picketing duties in southern Arkansas. During Price’s Missouri Raid in 1864, it was one of the few cavalry units left behind to keep watch over Federal troops in Arkansas. The unit was organized in November 1863 by a former Saline County judge, Major James T. Poe of the Eleventh Arkansas Infantry. Poe had journeyed home from Louisiana to remove his family farther south from Saline County after the fall of Little Rock (Pulaski County) …

Poesia

Poesia was a literary quarterly of poetry, commentary, and poetry reviews with an emphasis on previously unpublished poets—principally from northwest Arkansas, though submissions were accepted statewide and nationally as well. The commentary frequently focused on current issues concerning literary arts in Arkansas and the nation, such as the developing commercial trends in publishing and the politics of poetry and art. The journal also featured foreign poets, with their poetry published in English as well in the poet’s native language. Poets from Russia, Romania, Brazil, Italy, Canada, Slovenia, Jordan, and Israel were published in Poesia. Poesia was established in 2003 by Delta House Publishing Company, Indian Bay Press of Fayetteville (Washington County), founded by William R. Mayo, its publisher and editor. …

Poets Laureate of Arkansas

The position of Poet Laureate of Arkansas was established on October 10, 1923, by concurrent resolutions of both houses of the General Assembly. In Arkansas, as elsewhere, the title of poet laureate has sometimes been awarded on grounds not restricted to fame or literary eminence. The term “laureate” refers to the ancient custom of crowning a person with a wreath made from leaves of the laurel tree. In antiquity, military heroes, athletic champions, and winners in singing, music, and poetry contests typically received this honor. In modern times, monarchs, governing bodies, or other organizations have named poets laureate, often in recognition of a significant talent but sometimes for political or other reasons. John Dryden was the first poet laureate of …

Poets’ Roundtable of Arkansas (PRA)

Poets’ Roundtable of Arkansas (PRA), the state’s poetry society, was founded on February 5, 1931, by seven women “determined to learn the fundamental, technical rules of regular good, readable poetry.” Josie Frazee Cappleman, Laura Lewellyn, Bertha Meredith, Mae Lorraine Bass, Stella Payne Crow, Marguerite Lanier Kaufman, and Ruth Arnold Leveck met in members’ homes around a dining table, calling themselves Round Table Poets. The society’s current name was adopted on July 25, 1939. PRA is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the study of poetry and the encouragement of poets. The purpose of the organization is to foster and encourage poets in the art, to promote an appreciation of poetry in the community, and to secure a fuller recognition of the works …

Poinsett County

Poinsett County is located in Arkansas’s northeast corner. The St. Francis River travels north to south in the eastern portion of the county, and the L’Anguille River begins at the north boundary and runs south through the center of the county. Crowley’s Ridge, a highland anomaly that begins in southeast Missouri and terminates near Helena (Phillips County), runs through the center of the county. On the eastern side of the ridge is the rich, alluvial land of the Delta, which primarily hosts cotton farming, while on the western side is prairie land used mostly for the cultivation of rice. European Exploration and Settlement When the first permanent settlers arrived in what was to become Poinsett County, a few communities of …

Poinsett County Courthouse

The Poinsett County Courthouse—built in 1918—is located on Courthouse Square, a section of Harrisburg (Poinsett County) that features the city’s historic commercial district and a green space with a wooden gazebo. The Arkansas Historic Preservation Program recognizes the two-story building as architecturally and historically significant for its Classical Revival style and for its standing as the most impressive building in Poinsett County. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on November 3, 1989. The county’s first courthouse was located at Bolivar in 1839, the first county seat. A historical marker on the grounds tells how Benjamin Harris Sr., for whom Harrisburg was named, donated the land to the county to build a new courthouse when the seat …

Point Cedar (Hot Spring County)

Point Cedar is an unincorporated community located in western Hot Spring County. Located at the intersection of Arkansas Highways 84 and 347, it is about ten miles northeast of Amity (Clark County) and eight miles northwest of Bismarck (Hot Spring County). The name of the community comes from early settlers who found a point covered with cedar trees located at the mouth of a creek emptying into the Caddo River. At the time the first settlers arrived in the area, it was part of Clark County. The establishment of a post office led to the adoption of Cedar Point as the name of the community, but it was discovered that another Cedar Point existed, leading to the shift of the …