Entries - Starting with C

Crittenden County Courthouse

The Crittenden County Courthouse is a two-story brick building erected on the courthouse square in Marion (Crittenden County). Construction of the building was completed in 1911 in the Classical Revival style of architecture. The courthouse was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on August 3, 1977. The first Crittenden County seat was established in the town of Greenock. The first court was held in the home of William Lloyd in June 1826. In 1836, the county seat moved from Greenock to Marion. The present-day courthouse is one of three structures that have been built in Marion to serve as the county’s seat of government. The original courthouse in Marion was a frame building, which was destroyed by a cyclone …

Crittenden County Expulsion of 1888

In July 1888, a group of influential white citizens in Crittenden County expelled a number of prominent African-American citizens and county officials. Apparently weary of the fusion governments that had prevailed there for years, as well as fearful of the outcome of the upcoming September and November elections, they hoped their actions would intimidate black voters and ensure a victory for white Democrats. Following the Civil War, land agents began to recruit black laborers from around the South to work in the cotton fields. By 1870, the black population in Crittenden County had reached sixty-seven percent, the majority for the first time. The emergence of a black middle class tied to the Republican Party threatened the hegemony of the white …

Crittenden County Lynching of 1840

In early December of 1840, two unidentified escaped slaves were hanged in Crittenden County for allegedly murdering their owner, Major Thomas E. Clark. At the time of the 1840 census, Clark was living in Jasper Township and owned three slaves. When Clark discovered that the two men were gone, he and Colonel James Martin pursued them. Clark and Martin were separated during the chase, and Clark was alone when he encountered the fugitives. Martin, who was nearby, heard Clark crying out, but by the time he arrived at the scene, Clark was dead. When area citizens learned of the crime, they caught the two escapees and hanged them from a nearby tree “as examples for other refractory slaves.” The Arkansas …

Crittenden, Robert

Robert Crittenden was the first secretary and acting governor of the Arkansas Territory; subsequently, he was the first person to serve in the role now known as the lieutenant governor of Arkansas. He was a prominent member of the Arkansas bar, candidate for territorial delegate to Congress in 1833, and political powerbroker in territorial Arkansas. Robert Crittenden was born on January 1, 1797, in Woodford County, Kentucky, near Versailles. He was the son of John Crittenden, a major in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War and a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses, and Judith Harris. His brother, John Jordan Crittenden, served as a United States senator from Kentucky and was attorney general under presidents William Henry Harrison …

Crockett, Davy

aka: David Crockett

The legendary frontiersman and congressman David (Davy) Crockett passed through Arkansas on his way from Tennessee to Texas in 1835. While at a Little Rock (Pulaski County) banquet given in his honor, he reportedly stated, “If I could rest anywhere it would be in Arkansas, where the men are of the real half-horse, half-alligator breed such as grow nowhere else on the face of the universal earth but just around the backbone of North America.” Davy Crockett was born in Greene County, Tennessee, on August 17, 1786. His parents were John and Rebecca Hawkins Crockett. He ran away from home at about age thirteen and did not return home for some thirty months. In 1806, Crockett married Mary “Polly” Finley, …

Crockett, Robert Paul (Bobby)

Bobby Crockett was a star wide receiver on the 1964 and 1965 University of Arkansas (UA) football teams, which rank among the school’s all-time great squads. As the team’s leading receiver, he earned All-American honors in 1965 before he embarked on a short-lived professional career with the Buffalo Bills. Robert Paul (Bobby) Crockett was born on April 3, 1943, in Briggsville (Yell County) to Robert Roy Crockett and Frances Annette Crockett. He attended Dermott High School, graduating in 1962. The 6’3″, 200-pound wide receiver then went on to UA in Fayetteville (Washington County), where he played a critical role in the best two-season run in the university’s history. At UA, Crockett was a three-year letter winner on the 1963, 1964, …

Crockett, Woodrow Wilson

Miller County native Woodrow W. Crockett served as a combat pilot in both World War II and the Korean War. Entering the service as an artilleryman, Crockett transferred to Alabama’s Tuskegee Institute as an aviation cadet and became one of the pilots of the famous Tuskegee Airmen. Crockett remained in the service of his country for twenty-eight years. He was inducted into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame in 1995. Woodrow Wilson Crockett was born on August 31, 1918, in Homan (Miller County). Nicknamed “Woody” as a child, he was the fifth of six children born to school teachers William Crockett and Lucindan Crockett. He grew up in Texarkana (Miller County) and then lived with his sister in Little Rock …

Cromwell Architects Engineers, Inc.

Cromwell Architects Engineers is one of the oldest architectural firms in the nation and is clearly the oldest in Arkansas. Begun in 1885 with one architect and his draftsman son, by the twenty-first century, the firm had more than 100 employees offering a variety of services and could show an enormous body of completed work around the world. Most notably, the firm employed Charles Louis Thompson (1868–1959) and his son-in-law, Edwin Boykin Cromwell (1909–2001), both of whom were well known in their profession. The firm’s history begins with the arrival in Little Rock (Pulaski County) of Benjamin J. Bartlett. It is likely that both he and his son came to the state because they had been selected in 1885 to …

Crooked Creek (Watershed)

Crooked Creek is a 129 km (80 mi.) Ozark highland White River tributary in Boone, Marion, and Newton counties of northern Arkansas. The stream’s headwaters (36°06′47″N, 93°02′19″W) begin at Sulphur Spring (Newton County) on the north side of Sulphur Mountain just south of Harrison (Boone County) and east of Marble Falls (Newton County), the location of Dogpatch USA, and flow north, passing under Arkansas Highway 206 just west of Elmwood (Boone County). The stream continues north, traveling parallel (eastward) to Arkansas Highway 7, passing through the southeastern part of Harrison and under U.S. Highway 65. The stream immediately turns eastward, beginning a long series of meanders by which it gained its name. Crooked Creek then turns southeast, passing the communities …

Crooked Creek, Skirmish at

Part of Union efforts in northwestern Arkansas to disrupt Confederate operations, this skirmish was one of several encounters over a four-week period in early 1864. In January 1864, the Second Arkansas Cavalry (US) was stationed in Cassville, Missouri. Colonel John E. Phelps received orders from Brigadier General John Sanborn to move into Arkansas in an effort to disrupt a planned raid by Confederate forces into Missouri. Phelps led his unit into the state to link up with other Federal units. At the same time, troops from the First Arkansas Cavalry (US) under the command of Captain Charles Galloway were scouting in the area. Leaving Fayetteville (Washington County) on January 10, Galloway moved eastward, receiving reinforcements. Galloway’s troops joined the Second …

Crop Circles

Crop circles are a relatively recent phenomenon in Arkansas, appearing in northeastern Arkansas wheat fields in 2003. Crop circles are geometric patterns, sometimes simple and other times astonishingly complex, that appear in fields of wheat, barley, rye, and other crops. The formations are created by a flattening of the stalks of grain; in the more refined crop circles, the grain is bent rather than broken. Crop circles have been reported as far back as the late seventeenth century in England, but it was an outbreak in England in the 1970s which brought the phenomenon worldwide attention. Thousands of formations were subsequently reported across the globe, leading to speculation that they were created by extraterrestrials or other paranormal entities, given the …

Cross and Nelson Hall Historic District

The Cross and Nelson Hall Historic District consists of two former dormitories located at 100 East University on the campus of Southern Arkansas University (SAU) in Magnolia (Columbia County). These were built in 1936 with assistance from the Public Works Administration (PWA), a Depression-era federal relief agency. The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on January 20, 2010. The Third District Agricultural School, which would evolve into Southern Arkansas University, was one of four such schools created through Act 100 of 1909 of the Arkansas General Assembly, with its first classes meeting in 1911. At the time, the school offered a four-year high school diploma program. By the mid-1920s, the school had received junior college status …

Cross County

Cross County is one of the state’s leading producers of soybeans and rice, the location of the only copper tube mill in Arkansas, and the home of two state parks: Village Creek State Park and Parkin Archeological State Park. Created during the Civil War, the county was largely shaped by railroad development during the Gilded Age, with small industry and tourism becoming more of a focus in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Geologically, the county is divided roughly into thirds. Crowley’s Ridge, a glacial age erosional remnant covered with a unique loessal topsoil, traverses the county north to south, rising seventy-five to 100 feet above ancient deltaic alluvial floodplains on either side. The eastern third is drained primarily …

Cross Hollow (Camp)

Cross Hollow (or Cross Hollows), located along the Telegraph Road eighteen miles south of the Missouri-Arkansas border near modern-day Rogers (Benton County), was the site of Confederate winter quarters during the winter of 1861–62. A Civil War skirmish was fought near Cross Hollow in 1864. Following the August 10, 1861, Confederate victory at Wilson’s Creek in Missouri, General Benjamin McCulloch’s army fell back into Arkansas. Feeling that the troops would be close enough to Missouri to march there readily if circumstances demanded, commanders chose Cross Hollow, a long, narrow valley at the intersection of an east-west road and the Telegraph Road, which was the major north-south road into Missouri. Abundant springs and forage and the presence of two mills nearby, …

Cross Hollow, Skirmish at

  Federal forces in northwestern Arkansas and southwestern Missouri used cavalry patrols to prevent Confederate regulars and guerrillas from organizing in the area. This skirmish was part of an effort by Union forces in Missouri to disrupt small bands of the enemy gathering near Cross Hollow. On June 20, 1864, Captain James Powell of the Second Arkansas Cavalry (US) received orders to embark on a scouting mission with an unspecified number of men. Moving southward from Cassville, Missouri, Powell and his men first encountered enemy forces near Sugar Creek but did not attack. The Federals continued to Cross Hollow where they turned southward to Fayetteville (Washington County) before moving to Bentonville (Benton County). On the third day of the scouting mission, …

Cross Roads (Hot Spring County)

Cross Roads is an unincorporated community located in far western Hot Spring County. It is also known as Crossroads. The community is located about one mile southwest of Bonnerdale (Hot Spring County) and nine miles northeast of Glenwood (Pike County). Cross Roads is located about three-quarters of a mile east of the Montgomery County line. The community of Bismarck (Hot Spring County) was also known as Cross Roads in the nineteenth century. The first settlers arrived in the area in the early nineteenth century, but the first federal land patents in the area were not issued until 1897. In that year, Jesse and Samuel Ballard each obtained about 160 acres in the Cross Roads area. Samuel Ballard was a North …

Cross-Roads, Skirmish at

During the 1864 Federal occupation of Batesville (Independence County), many detachments were sent out through the surrounding counties for information, forage, and seizure of bushwhackers. In an accidental encounter, one such detachment caught some brigands for the second time. Captain Albert B. Kauffman of the Eleventh Missouri Cavalry Volunteers left Batesville on March 24, 1864, with a detachment of 200 men and six officers to scout to the southwest and west. They traveled up the White River to the mouths of Wolf Bayou and Briar Creek, then turned southwest until they reached Coon Creek. They camped at McCarles’s farm, where they found a mule harness that had been taken by Captain George Rutherford during a previous skirmish at Waugh’s Farm. …

Cross, John Storrs

John Storrs Cross became a national and international expert in all types of electronic communication as a member of the U.S. Department of the Interior, the U.S. Navy during World War II, and the U.S. Department of State, as well as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). In Arkansas, he was the engineer for Hot Springs National Park in Hot Springs (Garland County) in the 1930s and ran a motel with his wife near Eureka Springs (Carroll County) in the later part of his life. John S. Cross was born in Birmingham, Alabama, on September 18, 1904, to Thomas C. Cross and Elise T. Cross. He had one younger sister, Elise. In his high school years, he attended the private McCallie …

Crossett (Ashley County)

In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the demand for wood fiber for a growing country led lumbermen, investors, and speculators into the vast forest that stretches from east Texas across the lower Mississippi River Valley to the Florida panhandle. Demand having outstripped the forest resources of the Great Lakes region, other sources for timber were sought. One result of the interest in the forestland of the South was the founding of Crossett (Ashley County). Crossett was founded in the late 1890s by three investors from Davenport, Iowa— Edward Savage Crossett, Austria native Dr. John Wenzel Watzek, and Charles Warner Gates. Today, Crossett is one of the state’s leading manufacturing centers, billing itself as the “Forestry Capital of the …

Crossett Experimental Forest (CEF)

Established in 1934, the Crossett Experimental Forest (CEF) of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service was one of the first experimental forests in the southern United States. It has provided decades of scientific research on topics ranging from forest ecology and silviculture to wildlife, hydrology, and soils in the loblolly and shortleaf pine-dominated forests of the Upper West Gulf Coastal Plain geographic province. The scores of studies conducted on the CEF have generated hundreds of scientific publications, making the station an internationally known example of high-quality long-term forestry research. Long-term research studies and demonstration projects also serve as in-the-woods educational opportunities regarding low-cost forestry practices, and tens of thousands of students, professionals, and others have visited the …

Crossett Light

Outside of Crossett (Ashley County), where the old railroad tracks once lay, an unexplained light has become a local legend. It has reportedly been seen consistently since the early 1900s by multitudes of people. The light is typically seen floating two to three feet above the ground but also is said to move into the treetops and sometimes side to side. The light reportedly disappears as one walks toward it and then reappears the same distance away, so that one can never get a close look at it. The Crossett Light’s color reportedly ranges from yellow or orange to blue or green. The Crossett Light is one of many similar phenomena commonly known as “spooklights” in the South. There are …

Crossett Lumber Company

The Crossett Lumber Company (CLC) was Arkansas’s largest and most influential lumber company from its founding in 1899 until its merger with the Georgia-Pacific Company in 1962. It is notable for its growth alongside the company town of Crossett (Ashley County) and its early use of sustained-yield forestry in collaboration with Yale University’s School of Forestry. On May 16, 1899, Charles W. Gates, Edward Savage Crossett, and Dr. John W. Watzek—all from Davenport, Iowa—founded the Crossett Lumber Company in Ashley County in southeast Arkansas and Morehouse Parish in northern Louisiana. Stockholders named them president, vice president, and treasurer of the board of directors, respectively. Their first action was the purchase of 47,000 acres of land from the Michigan investment firm …

Crossett Lynching of 1904

An unknown African-American man was lynched near Crossett (Ashley County) on September 4, 1904, for having allegedly “attempted to assault two white girls.” The names of none of the parties are mentioned in newspaper reports. The reported assault occurred on the night of Saturday, September 3, at a place called the Bonham plantation, some thirty-five miles from Crossett. The following day, according to the Arkansas Gazette, “a posse of farmers” captured the suspect, apparently within Crossett, and took him to “a place about three miles from Crossett and strung him to a tree, after which the mob vented its rage by riddling the body with bullets.” Fifteen minutes after the murder, the mob dispersed. In reference to the mob, the …

Crossett Strike of 1940

The Crossett Strike of 1940 was a fifty-eight-day work stoppage in the lumber and manufacturing town of Crossett (Ashley County). The strike followed a contract dispute between the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America (Local No. 2590) and the Crossett Lumber Company. (The Crossett Lumber Company owned all the land, mills, and residential real estate comprising the town of Crossett in the early 1900s.) Picketing and protests were initially peaceful before altercations became more tense and violent as community support for the union waned. The final settlement increased wages for workers but did not address the root causes of the strike—namely, management’s unwillingness to provide preferential treatment to union members or permit a union shop. On June 4, …

Crossett, Edward Savage

Edward Savage Crossett was a pioneer Arkansas lumberman during the late nineteenth century. As the great Southern forest was being developed to meet a growing nation’s need for lumber and wood fiber, Crossett and two associates—all from Davenport, Iowa—came to south Arkansas, acquired land, and began a sawmilling operation that was one of the largest of its kind. The city of Crossett (Ashley County) was named for him and came to be known as “The Forestry Capital of the South.” Edward Crossett was born on February 4, 1828, in West Plattsburgh, New York, one of three children of Mary Gregory and John Savage Crossett, a veteran of the War of 1812. Crossett received his early education in the public schools …

Crow, Charles Patrick (Pat)

Charles Patrick (Pat) Crow was an Arkansas-born writer and editor who had an exceptional career at esteemed publications such as the New York Times, the New York Herald Tribune, and the New Yorker. He was a meticulous editor who earned some acclaim for his rigorous attention to style, usage, and linguistics, particularly in a long career at the New Yorker. Before his career in New York, starting in late 1962, Crow had a brief sojourn as a writer and editor at the Arkansas Democrat and the Arkansas Gazette, forerunners of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Pat Crow was born on July 14, 1938, in Jonesboro (Craighead County) to Judson L. Crow and Lorene Gibson Crow. His father was a machinery salesman and …

Crowley, Benjamin

Benjamin Crowley and his family were among the early settlers of northeast Arkansas. In 1821, they settled near the present community of Walcott (Greene County) on a ridge that would bear his name. Crowley, one of eleven children of Benjamin and Sarah Strong Crowley, was born in 1758 in Halifax County, Virginia. He married Catherine Annie Wiley of Augusta County, Virginia, on December 15, 1795. They had eight children. Crowley was a surveyor by trade and also raised cattle and dabbled in horse breeding. By 1785, the Crowleys had relocated to Oglethorpe County, Georgia. They moved to Christian County, Kentucky, by 1810 and moved again to Henderson County, Kentucky, by 1821. Crowley had served in the military during the War …

Crowley’s Ridge

Crowley’s Ridge is a small yet distinctive natural region. It ranges in width from one to twelve miles and extends from southern Missouri across eastern Arkansas to Helena-West Helena (Phillips County). It is made up of a continuous series of rolling hills except for a slight break at Marianna (Lee County); this break or gap was created by the L’Anguille River as it flowed across the ridge. The ridge received its name from Benjamin Crowley, the first white settler to reach the area near present-day Paragould (Greene County), sometime around 1820. Also of note is that the Civil War Skirmish at Chalk Bluff was fought on Crowley’s Ridge on May 1–2, 1863. The Chalk Bluff Natural Area in Clay County …

Crowley’s Ridge College (CRC)

Crowley’s Ridge College (CRC) in Paragould (Greene County) is a co-educational liberal arts college providing a balanced course of study. Until it became a four-year institution in 2008, it was the only two-year college in the nation affiliated with the Churches of Christ. Crowley’s Ridge College opened its doors on July 6, 1964, as a Christian junior college. CRC’s founder, Dr. Emmett Floyd Smith Jr., had a strong desire to bring college-level Christian education to northeast Arkansas. Eleven years earlier, in 1953, Smith had established a Christian secondary school, Crowley’s Ridge Academy, and found that there was support for other Christian endeavors such as the Children’s Homes of Paragould and Crowley’s Ridge College. Governor Orval Faubus helped turn the first …

Crowley’s Ridge Parkway, National Scenic Byway

As Arkansas’s first National Scenic Byway, Crowley’s Ridge Parkway, merges six U.S. highways, nine Arkansas highways, and 11.5 miles of well-maintained gravel road through a national forest to track the crest of Crowley’s Ridge, the sole geographical phenomenon ridge formation in North America and one of only two similar geological ridge formations in the world (the other being in Siberia). The parkway stretches 198 miles over a half million acres in Arkansas, encompassing eight counties and eleven communities from St. Francis (Clay County) to Helena-West Helena (Phillips County). An additional 14.2 miles run through Missouri. As one of Arkansas’s three national byways—the other two being Talimena Scenic Byway and the Great River Road—Crowley’s Ridge Parkway is one of the 126 …

Crowley’s Ridge State Park

Crowley’s Ridge State Park in northeast Arkansas is a recreationally oriented park with a rich social and geological history. The park, situated on land that was homesteaded by nineteenth-century pioneer Benjamin F. Crowley, also preserves the structures built by young men in the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) during the 1930s. Arriving on the scene in 1820, Crowley was the first prominent white settler in the region. He selected the site for his plantation home because of the upland terrain and a spring, which continues to flow today. Crowley, a veteran of the War of 1812, became an acknowledged leader in northeast Arkansas and strongly supported the creation of Greene County on November 5, 1833. He died in 1842 at age …

Crowley’s Ridge Technical Institute

The Crowley’s Ridge Technical Institute (CRTI) was a technical college in Forrest City (St. Francis County) that provided skilled workers for local industries. It operated from 1967 to 2017, when it was merged with the nearby East Arkansas Community College (EACC). In 1966, the CRTI building on Newcastle Road was approved for construction by the State Board of Vocational Education; the building site was donated by the Forrest City Chamber of Commerce. Before it was completed, however, CRTI operated one welding class started by the Manpower Development and Training Act program with approval from the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, which provided $90,860 to finance the thirty-two-week program, covering both student costs and the salary for two instructors. This …

Crownover (Lynching of)

The July 27, 1897, issue of the Arkansas Gazette carried the news of the recent murder of a white man named Crownover by a “posse of citizens” for the alleged crime of horse theft. In mid-July 1897, farmers Will Jackson and Will Riley of Saline County lost “two fine horses,” and suspicion immediately fell upon Crownover and another man named only as Beach, whom the Gazette described thusly: “They were strangers and had been loitering about the neighborhood, out of employment, for ten days.” Three days following the theft and the subsequent disappearance of Crownover and Beach, a “posse of citizens” of unknown number “organized and started pursuit.” Near the Scott–Yell county line, they found the two men asleep, the …

Crows (Saline County)

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. …

Crumpler, Denver Dale

When singer Denver Dale Crumpler became a member of Hovie Lister and the Statesmen Quartet of Atlanta, Georgia, in 1953, his Irish tenor voice completed what many experts in the Southern gospel music field have termed “The Perfect Quartet.” By then, the Statesmen had formed a team with the famed Blackwood Brothers Quartet of Memphis, Tennessee, and were performing 250–300 concerts per year across the United States. Shortly after Crumpler’s arrival, the Statesmen signed a recording contract with RCA-Victor, as well as a contract with Nabisco as the sponsor of a syndicated television show eventually to be seen on about 150 television stations around the nation. Denver Dale Crumpler was born on August 17, 1912, in Village (Columbia County), near …

Crushed Stone Mining

Crushed stone is an angular form of construction aggregate, made by breaking quarried rock into fragments that may be sorted, sized, and recombined into a variety of products. Crushed stone is typically quarried—that is, mined using benching methods (carrying out work from a ledge in a mine or quarry) and explosives, as opposed to the mechanical digging used for extracting sand and gravel. Consolidated rock is cut into vertical ledges, so that drilling can be done from above to place explosives within the wall for proper breakage of rock during mining. Benches typically vary from twenty to sixty feet in height, depending on how competent the rock is. The quarry stone is normally run through a primary crusher and then …

Crustaceans

Crustaceans (subphylum Crustacea) are a very large and diverse group of arthropods (invertebrate animals having an exoskeleton, jointed appendages, and segmented bodies). Crustaceans are distinguished by having paired mandibular jaws and maxillae, along with two pairs of antennae. Recent classifications include six classes within crustaceans—Branchiopoda, Remipedia, Cephalocarida, Maxillopoda, Ostracoda, and Malacostraca. The Classes of Crustacea Class Branchiopoda includes several groups of primitive aquatic and marine animals, including clam shrimp, the small fairy shrimp (less than one centimeter in length and living in temporary pools), and the “living fossil” tadpole shrimp. The most noteworthy brachiopods are the cladocerans, or water fleas, that make up many of the zooplankton in Arkansas lakes and ponds. These small, free-swimming animals are a critical food …

Crystal Bathhouse

The Crystal Bathhouse in Hot Springs (Garland County) was the first purpose-built bathhouse to exclusively serve the needs of African Americans in Arkansas. It opened in 1904 and became a destination for those who were attracted to the nationally known thermal waters of the Spa City during the era of the Jim Crow segregated South. The Crystal Bathhouse was located at 415 Malvern Avenue on Block 66 in the black business district of town. Two local contractors, Michael H. Jodd and Albert P. Aldrich, built the bathhouse. They chose architect John McCaslin to design a two-story brick building with parlors, dressing rooms, cooling rooms, tubs, vapor cabinets, restrooms, and eleven rooms for lodging accommodations. Externally, the building had double-hung sash …

Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art

Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, located in Bentonville (Benton County), officially opened to the public on November 11, 2011. The 201,000-square-foot museum with its 120 acres of forest and garden was designed to portray the spirit of America. The museum was founded by Alice Walton, daughter of Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart Inc. The museum took its name from Crystal Spring, which is located nearby on the grounds, and the bridge-shaped design of the building, designed by Moshe Safdie. The museum collection includes art from colonial times to the present day. It also offers temporary exhibits from other museums and collections. Alice Walton was ranked as one of the richest people in the United States in 2010 and …

Crystal Hill (Pulaski County)

Crystal Hill is a geological formation on the north side of the Arkansas River near Murray Lock and Dam. It is also the name of a neighborhood in the city of North Little Rock (Pulaski County). Nearby Pyeatte-Mason Cemetery contains the graves of some of the early settlers of Crystal Hill. The formation, about seven miles upstream from downtown Little Rock (Pulaski County)—although many early travelers exaggerated the distance to fifteen miles—is a bluff consisting of sandstone and shale. It also contains significant amounts of iron pyrite, which sparkles in the sunlight. River travelers, seeing the sparkle, gave the hill its poetic name. East Arkansas settlers displaced by the New Madrid Earthquakes of 1811–1812 began to settle this part of …

Crystal River Tourist Camp Historic District

aka: Crystal River Tourist Court
aka: Crystal River Cave and Court

The Crystal River Tourist Camp Historic District is perhaps the most unusual tourist court in the state, and one of the most unusual in the country. The striking exteriors have remained largely unchanged since the structures were built by a local businessman and a stone mason in 1934. The court surrounds the entrance to the Crystal River Cave, a popular gathering place for which the town of Cave City (Sharp and Independence counties) was named. The Crystal River Cave and Courts, as it is now called, no longer functions as lodging, although the property’s owners offer tours of the cave by appointment. The Crystal River Tourist Camp Historic District was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on June …

Crystal Springs (Garland County)

Crystal Springs (Garland County) is an unincorporated community located south of Lake Ouachita in the Ouachita National Forest. The community is about five miles west of Royal (Garland County) and seventeen miles west of Hot Springs (Garland County). The community is less than two miles south of Crystal Springs Campground on the shore of the lake. The Crystal Springs area was part of Montgomery County during its earliest settlement. On February 23, 1917, the easternmost portion of Montgomery County, including Crystal Township where Crystal Springs is located, was transferred to Garland County. Settlement of the area did not begin until after the end of the Civil War. Early settlers in the area include Francis Springer, who obtained 160 acres from …

Crystal Springs Dam and Camp Shelter

The Crystal Recreation Area, located in the Ouachita National Forest, included two structures listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in 1935, the stone dam and log picnic structure were added to the National Register of Historic Places on January 21, 1993. The site is located on Forest Road 177 north of Norman (Montgomery County). The shelter was constructed by CCC Company 741. The company was formed on May 1, 1933, at Camp Pike. The company completed numerous projects in the Ouachita National Forest and was stationed at Crystal Springs at the time of the project. The dam is placed across Collier Creek and is constructed from fieldstone. The two-tier structure is …

CSS Arkansas

During the Civil War, the Confederate navy’s ironclad vessel bearing the state’s name was the ram CSS Arkansas. It was in use only twenty-three days, yet earned the rage of the Union and the respect of the Confederacy. The Confederate navy’s task to defend rivers from its better-equipped adversary’s attacks and blockades required the building of vessels capable of meeting the challenge. To this end, on August 24, 1861, the navy ordered two ironclads from Memphis, Tennessee, shipbuilder John T. Shirley; one was christened the CSS Arkansas. The CSS Arkansas’s keel was laid in October 1861, with work continuing through the winter. While the vessel was under construction, news arrived that Union naval forces were en route to capture Memphis. …

CSS General Earl Van Dorn

aka: CSS Van Dorn
aka: CSS Earl Van Dorn
aka: CSS General Van Dorn
aka: Junius Beebe

The CSS General Earl Van Dorn was a Confederate ram that saw combat on the Mississippi River before being set afire and blown up on the Yazoo River in 1862. The steamboat that would become the CSS General Earl Van Dorn was built as the Junius Beebe in Algiers, Louisiana, in 1853. The sidewheel towboat was 182 feet long, 28.3 feet wide, and 10.7 feet deep and was owned by the Good Intent Towboat Company. The Confederate army acquired the Junius Beebe in 1862 and fitted the vessel out as a ram with a new name honoring the general who commanded Confederate troops at the Battle of Pea Ridge. The Van Dorn was attached to the Mississippi River Defense Fleet. …

CSS General M. Jeff Thompson

The CSS General M. Jeff Thompson was a Confederate ram that saw combat on the Mississippi River before being set afire and blown up during the 1862 Battle of Memphis. The Confederate War Department purchased fourteen boats in 1862 with the intent of converting them into warships as the Mississippi River Defense Fleet under the command of Captain James E. Montgomery. One of them was named for M. Jeff Thompson, a brigadier general in the Missouri State Guard who would see extensive service in Arkansas. Conversion of the steamboat, the original name of which is unknown, into the ram General M. Jeff Thompson began in New Orleans, Louisiana, on January 25, 1862, with the addition of a sheathing of four-inch-thick …

CSS General Sterling Price

aka: CSS General Price
aka: CSS Price
aka: Laurent Millaudon
aka: L. Millandon
aka: Milledon

The CSS General Sterling Price was a Confederate ram that saw combat on the Mississippi River before being sunk during the 1862 Battle of Memphis, after which it served the rest of the Civil War as a Union warship. The Confederate War Department purchased fourteen boats in 1862 with the intent of converting them into warships in the Mississippi River Defense Fleet under the command of Captain James E. Montgomery. One of them was the Laurent Millaudon, a 483-ton sidewheel towboat built in 1856 in Cincinnati, Ohio, for the Good Intent Towboat Company and commanded by Capt. W. S. Whann. The Confederates renamed it the General Sterling Price after the Missouri State Guard general who led troops in extensive action …

CSS Maurepas

Like many vessels that saw active military service with the Confederate navy during the Civil War, the CSS Maurepas started out as a civilian vessel engaged in river commerce and transportation. In 1858, J. A. Cotton of New Orleans, Louisiana, contracted with the shipbuilding yards in New Albany, Indiana, for a wooden-hulled sidewheel steamer packet named the Grosse Tete. Upon completion, the vessel measured 180 feet with a thirty-four-foot beam. It weighed 399 tons, drafted seven feet, and carried a crew of seventy-nine. Between 1858 and 1860, the Grosse Tete worked the New Orleans–Bends commercial trade route, piloted by Captain Isaac Hopper. In 1860, the Bayou Sara Mail Company purchased the Grosse Tete and placed it under Captain J. McQuoid for …

CSS Pontchartrain

The CSS Pontchartrain was a Confederate warship that served on the Arkansas and White rivers. While it never saw combat in Arkansas, the Pontchartrain played a supporting role in several battles and affected Union strategy in 1862 and 1863. The CSS Pontchartrain began its career as the Lizzie Simmons, a 454-ton sidewheel paddleboat built at New Albany, Indiana, in 1859. The Lizzie Simmons ran between New Orleans, Louisiana, and the Ouachita River in 1860 under Captain George Hamilton Kirk; it then worked the river between New Orleans and Memphis, Tennessee, under Captain W. B. Richardson. The Confederate navy purchased the ship in October 12, 1861, and converted it into a gunboat in January and February 1862. It was renamed the …

Cuban Refugee Crisis

Arkansas played a part in the international drama of 1980, when 125,000 Cubans left their homeland for a new life in the United States. Roughly 25,000 of these Cuban refugees—called Marielitos because they had departed Cuba from the port of Mariel—were housed for a time at Fort Chaffee in Sebastian County. Their presence in Arkansas created social and political tension widely thought to have had an impact on the Arkansas governor’s race of 1980. Cuba and the Boatlift The crisis of 1980 began April 11 of that year, when Hector Sanyustiz, accompanied by five friends, drove a Havana city bus through a gate onto the grounds of the Peruvian Embassy to Cuba. The six intended to seek political asylum. By …