Entries - Starting with L

Lead and Zinc Mining

The history of lead and zinc mining in Arkansas is linked because ores of these two metals often occur together. Lead and zinc in Arkansas occur principally along the upper White River and its tributaries in Baxter, Boone, Independence, Lawrence, Marion, Newton, Searcy, Sharp, and Stone counties. Other locations include the Kellogg Mine in Pulaski County and the Ouachita Mountain mineral belt. Lead (Pb) is a soft, highly dense metal recognized for its low melting point and superb resistance to corrosion. Galena (PbS), containing about eighty-six percent lead, is the only lead mineral of commercial importance in Arkansas. Silver is sometimes found as an impurity that, in larger concentrations, can be extracted as a byproduct. Lead was once used to …

Lead Hill (Boone County)

As its name indicates, Lead Hill began as a mining town on the upper White River shortly after the end of the Civil War. In the middle of the twentieth century, the community had to be relocated due to the creation of Bull Shoals Lake. Since that time, the town has relied largely on the tourist industry. At the time of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the area that would become northern Arkansas was hunting ground for the Osage, who lived farther north at the time. The land was ceded to the United States by a series of treaties, but the Ozark Plateau did not draw as many settlers as the river valleys or the rich farmland of southern Arkansas. …

League of Women Voters of Arkansas

aka: Arkansas League of Women Voters

The League of Women Voters (LWV), a nonpartisan political organization, encourages informed, active participation in government for all citizens. Although it never supports or opposes any party or candidate, it seeks to influence public policy through education and advocacy. The national League of Women Voters Education Fund is a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit organization that coordinates elections and educational outreach. The League of Women Voters of Arkansas first formed in 1920. However, it folded and reemerged two times, with the last incarnation forming in 1953, organized by Esther Clark. By 2012, in addition to the state league, there were also five local leagues, in Benton County, Fairfield Bay (Van Buren and Cleburne counties), Fort Smith (Sebastian County), Pulaski County, and Washington …

LEARNS Act

aka: Act 237 of 2023

The LEARNS Act (Act 237 of 2023) was the signature piece of legislation promoted by Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders during the 2023 session of the Arkansas General Assembly, her first session as governor of the state. After her election, Sanders indicated that her top priority would be a bill to change the public elementary and secondary education system in the state. On February 8, 2023, she held a press conference at the Arkansas State Capitol together with various Republican Party officials to announce some of the basics of her plan, which was still being drafted in secret. These included: a starting teacher pay set at $50,000, the creation of a voucher program (called “education freedom accounts”) that could be used …

Leavy, Calvin James “Slim”

Calvin James “Slim” Leavy, vocalist and guitarist, recorded “Cummins Prison Farm,” a blues song that debuted on Billboard’s rhythm and blues chart on May 2, 1970, and stayed for five weeks, reaching No. 40. It was also the No. 1 song on the Memphis, Tennessee, station WDIA. Leavy was the first person charged under a 1989 Arkansas “drug kingpin law” targeting crime rings. Calvin Leavy was born on April 20, 1940, in Scott (Pulaski and Lonoke counties), the youngest son of fifteen children born to the musical family of Johnny Leavy and Cora James Leavy. Both parents sang in the church choir at Mount Lake Baptist Church in Scott, and several family members played musical instruments. Leavy started out singing …

Lebow (Lynching of)

A group of men lynched a white man named Lebow (also spelled as Lebo), described as a “villain, murderer and horse-thief,” in Polk County in August 1877, apparently ending a series of crimes by which he had terrorized the area. The Fort Smith Independent reported on August 8, 1877, that “an old man named Lebow was hung by a party of men last week in Polk County, for foully murdering two men who were travelling in the direction of Hot Springs. Lebow has been a terror to the citizens of Polk County for many years.” He apparently operated from his home on one of the major roads through the county to kill and steal. “Many travelers have lost their horses, …

Ledbetter, Calvin Reville (Cal), Jr.

Calvin Reville (Cal) Ledbetter Jr. was a professor, author, politician, and philanthropist. He taught political science at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UALR) from 1960 to 1997, after which he was named Professor Emeritus of Political Science. He also served five consecutive terms in the Arkansas House of Representatives, from 1967 to 1977. Ledbetter is widely remembered for his dedication to higher education as well as his efforts to foster constitutional reform in Arkansas in the 1960s and 1970s. Cal Ledbetter was born on April 29, 1929, in Little Rock (Pulaski County) to Virginia Ledbetter and Cal Ledbetter Sr. (II); his father served as president of the Boyle Realty Company. Ledbetter received his undergraduate degree from the Woodrow Wilson School …

Ledbetter, Mary Brown “Brownie” Williams

Mary Brown “Brownie” Williams Ledbetter was a lifelong political activist who worked in many controversial and crucial campaigns in Arkansas, as well as nationally and internationally. A catalyst in many local grassroots organizations, she exhibited a dedication to fair education and equality across racial, religious, and cultural lines. Born on April 28, 1932, in Little Rock (Pulaski County), Mary Brown Williams was the first of four children born to William H. Williams, a businessman and dairy farmer, and Helon Brown Williams. Born with brown eyes, she was nicknamed “Brownie” by her family. After her mother’s death in 1947 and her father’s death in 1950, Williams and her siblings were raised by relatives Grainger and Frances Williams, who moved into the …

Lee County

Located in the Delta, Lee County is bounded on its east by the Mississippi River. Two navigable rivers, the St. Francis and the L’Anguille, flow through the county. Marianna, the county seat and largest town, sits on the L’Anguille. Though the county’s fertile land and timber resources built its rural agricultural landscape, its emphasis on agriculture translated in a severe population decline as agricultural modernization progressed in the middle of the twentieth century. European Exploration and Settlement Hernando de Soto and his men were probably the first Europeans to enter what is now Lee County in August 1541. The expedition likely descended the St. Francis River and entered the chiefdom of Quiguate, which the Spaniards described as the largest of …

Lee County Courthouse

The Lee County Courthouse is located on 15 East Chestnut Street, overlooking downtown Marianna (Lee County). The Arkansas Historic Preservation Program recognizes the two-story building as architecturally and historically significant, as it stands as a visible result of the New Deal policies of the 1930s and the best example of the Classical Revival style in the county. The National Park Service added it to the National Register of Historic Places on September 7, 1995. Marianna grew in both size and wealth after the establishment of Lee County in 1873, largely due to the rich agricultural land in the Arkansas Delta and commercial access to the Mississippi River. By the mid-1930s, Lee County needed a larger courthouse than the two-story brick …

Lee County Executions of 1881

Two African American men convicted of murder, Isaac Green and John Harden, were hanged in Marianna (Lee County) on July 15, 1881, in what were the first judicial executions in Lee County. John Harden (or Hardin), age twenty, a native of Lewisburg, Tennessee, reportedly killed William Brown on August 21, 1879, at Barton (Phillips County). Harden suspected Brown was having an affair with his wife and struck him with a briar hook, “almost severing his head from his body,” with one newspaper stating that “one blow with the weapon was sufficient to take the life of the man he hated.” Harden’s trial was delayed for some time, but he was convicted in May 1881 and sentenced to hang on July …

Lee Grocery Store

Located on the corner of Main Street and Quarles Road (Arkansas Highway 44 and 85) in downtown Elaine (Phillips County), the Lee Grocery Store building was likely constructed circa 1915, as it appears in the background of photographs taken during the 1919 Elaine Massacre. Operated by the Lee family from the 1950s until 2010, the store is significant for its association with the Chinese community in Elaine and eastern Arkansas, a community that was known in the early twentieth century for operating grocery stores in the Arkansas Delta region. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places on February 13, 2020. The early history of the building is not known, but it was purchased by W. J. …

Lee Wilson & Company

Lee Wilson & Company, a diversified agribusiness headquartered in Wilson (Mississippi County), was founded by Robert E. Lee Wilson in 1885 and remained family owned and operated for approximately 125 years. Robert E. Lee Wilson was born in 1865 in Mississippi County but moved with his mother to Memphis, Tennessee, at the age of seven after the sudden death of his father. He was orphaned at the age of thirteen when his mother died in a yellow fever epidemic; he was sent to live with an uncle. While attending school in Covington, Tennessee, he was introduced to land surveying and, through this, developed an eye for land. Wilson returned to Arkansas at the age of fifteen and worked as a …

Lee, Burwell

Burwell Lee came to Arkansas Territory from Tennessee in 1830 as a preacher in the Methodist Episcopal Church and a missionary to  Native Americans. Because he organized the Methodist Society at Batesville (Independence County) in 1835, which hosted the first session of the new Arkansas Conference of the church the following year, he is referred to as one of the fathers of the Methodist Church in Arkansas. Burwell Lee was born on October 20, 1809, in Davidson County, Tennessee. His father was Braxton Lee, who had come to Davidson County from Virginia around 1796. In Davidson County records, there is a marriage for Braxton Lee to Polly Hunter on May 20, 1808, although it is uncertain if these are Lee’s …

Lee, Clifton Phifer (Cliff)

Arkansas native Cliff Lee is a major league baseball pitcher. He has pitched in both the National and American Leagues, winning All-Star recognition in both circuits. Clifton Phifer Lee was born on August 30, 1978, in Benton (Saline County) to Steve Lee, who was a firefighter and one-time member of the Benton City Council, and his wife, Sharon Lee. Lee grew up in Benton and graduated from Benton High School in 1997. Following graduation, he was drafted by the Florida Marlins but decided to attend Meridian Community College in Meridian, Mississippi. Drafted in 1998 by the Baltimore Orioles, he again deferred, instead attending the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County). The left-handed Lee had one solid season pitching …

Lee, Daniel Lewis (Execution of)

Convicted along with an accomplice of a triple murder and robbery that took place in Arkansas, Daniel Lewis Lee was executed by the U.S. government on July 14, 2020. Lee was born on January 31, 1973, in Yukon, Oklahoma. His mother said that he suffered from seizures and a neurological impairment. He spent time in mental health facilities but was removed at least once due to violence toward staff members. At the age of seventeen, Lee participated in the murder of twenty-two-year-old Joseph Wavra III in Oklahoma City. He pleaded guilty to a robbery charge, the murder charge was dropped, and he received a five-year suspended sentence. At some point before April 1996, Lee lost his left eye, reportedly in …

Lee, Haeng Ung

Haeng Ung Lee was the founder of the American Taekwondo Association (which later became ATA Martial Arts), headquartered in Little Rock (Pulaski County). ATA has over 300,000 members worldwide, making it the largest organization in North America dedicated to the discipline of taekwondo. Haeng Ung Lee was born on July 20, 1936, in Manchuria in northeastern China. Little is known about his early life, but shortly after World War II, he and his family moved to Korea. He began training in the martial arts in 1953. Lee progressed rapidly, earning his first-degree black belt only a year later. Upon graduating from high school in 1956, Lee joined the Republic of Korea Army, serving as a martial arts instructor for military …

Lee, Hubert L.

Hubert L. Lee, who lived in North Little Rock (Pulaski County) as a child, was a soldier in the U.S. Army who received a Medal of Honor for his heroic actions in battle during the Korean War. Hubert L. Lee was born in Arburg, Missouri, on February 2, 1915, the son of railroad fireman Charles Lee and Beulah Lee. Five years later, they were living in North Little Rock’s Ward 4. The family later moved to Leland, Mississippi, and it was there that Lee was inducted into the U.S. Army during World War II. He served with distinction, winning a Bronze Star and Silver Star for heroism in fighting in North Africa and Italy. Lee remained in the army and …

Lee, Lisa

aka: Alicia Faye Young Lee

Arkansas native Lisa Lee was a respected journalist in both print media and television, as well as a television producer and author. During the last few years of her life, she was senior vice president of creative content for the Academy of Country Music and produced the annual Academy of Country Music Honors. Alicia Faye Young, better known as Lisa, was born on December 24, 1968, in Cabot (Lonoke County) to Charlie and Faye Young; she had two brothers. She grew up in Cabot and graduated from Cabot High School in 1987, having served as the school yearbook editor. She graduated from the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County) with a BA in journalism and English in 1991, …

Lee, Lorelei

The fictional character of Lorelei Lee, who calls herself the “little girl from Little Rock,” was created by writer Anita Loos (1889–1981). Lorelei first appeared as a character in short stories, followed by the bestselling novel Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, several successful Broadway shows, and a hit movie. The Lorelei Lee character is closely identified with her fictitious home of Little Rock (Pulaski County) in the state of Arkansas. After emerging in a series of short sketches published in Harper’s Bazaar during the early 1920s, what became known as the “Lorelei” stories were so popular that they tripled the magazine’s circulation. After Loos was encouraged by friends in the publishing business to adapt the stories into a book, her bestselling comedic …

Leeches

Leeches are segmented worms belonging to the Phylum Annelida, Class Clitellata, Subclass Hirudinida. Leech classification is primarily based on the presence or absence of setae (bristles) and the morphology of the mouth, proboscis (feeding organ), jaws, and suckers. Leeches are thought to have evolved from certain oligochaete worms; however, the systematics and taxonomy of leeches are in need of review. Twenty-two species within five families (Erpobdellidae, Glossiphoniidae, Haemopidae, Hirudinidae, Piscicolidae) have been reported from northern Arkansas, but, as of 2018, there are no summaries of leeches from the southern part of the state. Leeches are bilaterally symmetrical, with thick muscular bodies. Usually, they are dorsoventrally flattened and segmented. Some leeches are long and worm-like (ranging in size from about seven …

Leflar, Robert Allen

Robert Allen Leflar was one of Arkansas’s most renowned legal scholars, a champion of racial equality, longtime dean of the University of Arkansas School of Law in Fayetteville (Washington County), and president of two state constitutional conventions. Robert Leflar was born on March 22, 1901, in Siloam Springs (Benton County), the son of Lewis D. Leflar—who was a drayman, former deputy U.S. marshal in “Hanging Judge” Isaac Parker’s court, and former Alma (Crawford County) town marshal—and Viva Mae Pilkenton of Siloam Springs. The oldest of eight children, Leflar later said that his mother, a high school graduate, was the chief influence on him and his siblings getting an education. Leflar worked his way through the University of Arkansas (UA), beginning …

Legend of Boggy Creek, The

The Legend of Boggy Creek (1972) was the first in a series of three Boggy Creek films loosely based on a legendary monster of southwest Arkansas. It was directed by Charles Pierce of Texarkana (Miller County) and written by Earl E. Smith. The film, shot as a faux documentary-style drama, centers on the real town of Fouke (Miller County). Since the 1940s, many sightings of a creature known as the “Fouke Monster” have been reported. The film presents an interesting portrait of Southern swamp culture in the 1970s by juxtaposing interviews with local citizens, ranging from a police officer to hunters, talking about their experiences with the creature with dramatic recreations of some of these purported encounters. According to witnesses, …

LeMaster, Carolyn Gray

Carolyn Gray LeMaster was the leading chronicler of Jewish life in Arkansas, through books, articles, and lectures, especially her book A Corner of the Tapestry: A History of the Jewish Experience in Arkansas, 1820s–1990s. Carolyn Gray was born in Little Rock (Pulaski County) on December 17, 1927, to Elisha Columbus Gray, who was a railroad engineer and brakeman, and Erma White Gray, a homemaker. She left high school after the tenth grade to help support her family and care for her widowed mother. She married Robert W. LeMaster, a hospital executive in Little Rock. They had four children. After the children were grown, LeMaster enrolled in 1975 at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UALR), where she graduated magna …

Lemke, Walter John

Walter John Lemke established the department of journalism at the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County) in 1928 and served as the head of the department until his retirement in 1959. The university named the department the Walter J. Lemke Department of Journalism in his honor in 1988. In addition, he founded several historical and journalistic organizations. Walter Lemke was born on January 6, 1891, in Wausau, Wisconsin, to Carl Lemke and Ulrika Block Lemke. Lemke attended the University of Wisconsin and the University of Indiana. He received his AB degree from Baldwin-Wallace College in Berea, Ohio, which is near Cleveland, in 1911. The college later awarded him an honorary doctor of letters degree in 1962. He earned …

Lemley, Harry Jacob Jr.

Harry Jacob Lemley Jr. was a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point who served during World War II, the Korean War, and the Cold War before retiring as a lieutenant general in 1971. Harry Jacob Lemley Jr. was born on February 1, 1914, in Hope (Hempstead County), the son of future U.S. District Court judge Harry J. Lemley Sr. and Caroline McRae Lemley. After graduating from Hope High School, Lemley attended the Marion Military in Marion, Alabama, in preparation for his appointment to West Point. Remembering his time at West Point, Lemley wrote years later: “West Point devastated me mentally and physically, as I was grossly immature in every respect. I nevertheless toughed it out, as I …

Lenox (Clark County)

Lenox (sometimes spelled Lennox) was a small community in Clark County, located about four miles northeast of Fendley (Clark County), near DeGray Lake. The origin of the community’s name is unknown—while a Lenox family did reside in Clark County at the beginning of the twentieth century, they did not reside near the community. The earliest settlers in the area arrived in 1860 when Benjamin Easley obtained 280 acres of land from the Federal Land Patent Office. Boley Matlock obtained eighty acres in the area the same year. After the Civil War, more families slowly moved into the area. Asa Holcomb and his family arrived in 1871. In 1913, his grandson obtained forty acres of land in the Lenox area. John …

Lenski, Lois

Lois Lenski wrote and illustrated children’s books throughout her career of more than fifty years. She visited parts of Mississippi County while researching her three books about Arkansas children: Cotton in My Sack, Houseboat Girl, and We Live by the River. Lois Lenski was born the fourth of five children in Springfield, Ohio, on October 14, 1893. Her father, Richard, was a Prussian immigrant and a Lutheran clergyman; her mother, Marietta, was a schoolteacher. Lenski attended grade school in Anna, Ohio, and rode a train each day to Sidney, Ohio, to attend high school. After graduating from Ohio State University in 1915 with a BS in education and a teaching certificate, Lenski studied at the Arts Students League in New …

Leola (Grant County)

Formerly known as Sandy Springs, the town of Leola in Grant County was formed early in the twentieth century as a timber town served by the Rock Island Railroad. Although it struggled during the years of the Depression, Leola was revitalized in the middle of the twentieth century and remains a producer of timber in the twenty-first century. Among the earliest white settlers in the area were John Guest, Thomas Toler, William Dyer, and Mary Dyer, who established land claims between 1843 and 1857. Most of the residents were farmers, benefiting from the rich land along the Saline River, which flooded in some years, providing a short-term inconvenience but also enriching the farmland with fresh deposits of rich soil. The settlement …

Lepanto (Poinsett County)

A product of the timber industry and the railroads, the city of Lepanto grew through the twentieth century from a western-style logging community into an agricultural center for Poinsett County. Today, the city is most famous for its annual Terrapin Derby and for its appearance in the movie A Painted House. Civil War through the Gilded Age Lepanto is located within the sunken lands of northeast Arkansas. Prior to the construction of levees and drainage ditches, it was merely a high spot in the cane-break swamp, though the area was also heavily forested. The first known settler in the area was George Nichols, who moved to Arkansas from Dunklin County, Missouri, around 1858. More settlers came into the area in …

Lepanto Terrapin Derby

The Lepanto Terrapin Derby is a festival that has been held in Lepanto (Poinsett County) every year since 1930. It occurs on the first Saturday in October on Main Street. The Terrapin Derby was the creation of the Willie Lamb Post 26 of the American Legion, which designed it as a fundraiser for its various community projects. It was originally called the Annual American Legion Turtle Derby. Turtle racers were charged an entry fee, and the top three finishers shared in a cash prize. The turtles raced down a sixty-foot course toward a finish line that was lined with slices of watermelon. Delta residents, desperate for a diversion of any kind during the Great Depression, gathered their entrants and flocked …

LeSane, Henry (Execution of)

Henry LeSane was an African American sharecropper hanged at Marianna (Lee County) on May 16, 1902, for the ambush murder of a local farmer. John Greenwood, who was thirty-five at the time of the 1900 census, was a Black farmer who owned his home and lived in Lee County’s Union Township with his wife Hattie and their six children. Henry LeSane (sometimes spelled Lessing) was a twenty-two-year-old sharecropper who lived next door to Greenwood with his wife and daughter, likely renting from Greenwood. In late January 1901, Greenwood was driving a wagonload of cotton to the cotton gin at Oliver Owens’s farm when LeSane allegedly shot him in the back five times with a .44-caliber Colt pistol. “Greenwood was killed …

Leslie (Searcy County)

Leslie is situated in southeastern Searcy County amid the rugged Boston Mountains region of the Ozark Plateau. It was once a booming railroad and lumber city and one of the centers of industry in the Ozark region of Arkansas. Louisiana Purchase through Early Statehood The city was originally named Wiley’s Cove. According to some sources, this was in honor of Chief Wiley, said to be a Cherokee resident of Searcy County; however, it likely derived its name from one of the numerous whites named Wiley, Wilie, or Wily who were squatting in northern and central Arkansas in the early nineteenth century. The first post office in the county was established in 1842. In the 1850s, settlers Henry Begley and his …

Lester (Ouachita County)

Lester (Ouachita County) is an unincorporated community located about six miles northwest of Camden (Ouachita County) and about seven miles southeast of Chidester (Ouachita County). It is also about four miles west of the Ouachita River. The community is also known as Lester Junction. The Gee family owned land throughout Ouachita County before the Civil War, including two plots of at least eighty acres east of Lester, although they resided in Camden. They were the largest landowners in the area. Early settlers in the area included Calvin Warren, who obtained 120 acres as part of a federal land patent in 1882. Robert Lester obtained eighty acres in 1888. A post office opened in the community in 1881 and operated until …

Lester, Julius

Julius Lester, who spent considerable time in Arkansas as a child, was an author, musician, photographer, and civil-rights activist. A longtime educator, he was recognized by numerous organizations and institutions for his artistic and literary efforts. Julius Lester was born on January 27, 1939, in St. Louis, Missouri, to Woodie Daniel Lester, who was a Methodist minister, and Julia Smith Lester. Lester spent his earliest years in Kansas City, Kansas, living there from 1941 to 1954. He moved to Nashville, Tennessee, in 1954 but spent most summers on the Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) farm of his grandmother, who was the daughter of a former slave and a German Jew. Her father had immigrated to the United States and settled in …

Lester, Ketty

Ketty Lester is a singer and actress best known for her chart-topping single “Love Letters,” as well as her appearance in the cult classic film Blacula (1972). Lester was a regular on the daytime drama Days of Our Lives and was especially known for her long-running role on the TV series Little House on the Prairie. Ketty Lester was born Revoyda Frierson in Hope (Hempstead County) on August 16, 1934. She was one of fifteen children born to a farm family. Her interest and talent for music led to her singing at church and in school choirs. She won a scholarship to San Francisco City College in California, where she studied music. In San Francisco, she began singing professionally at …

Letona (White County)

Letona is a town in White County, nearly ten miles north of Searcy (White County) on Highway 310. First rising to prosperity as a stop on the Missouri and North Arkansas (M&NA) Railroad, Letona became a center of the timber industry and of agriculture, primarily fruit. The first white settlers in White County, John and Nancy Magness, arrived in the area of what would become Letona in 1815. The area remained sparsely settled, with some farms separated by large wooded areas, throughout the nineteenth century. A Civil War skirmish, known as the Skirmish at Big Indian Creek, was fought in the area on May 27, 1862. Company A of the Thirty-second Arkansas Infantry (CS) attacked a forage train that was part …

Letzig, Margaret Heller Himstedt

Margaret Heller Himstedt Letzig was the first Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) officer from Arkansas during World War II. She served from 1942 to 1943, achieving the rank of first lieutenant. Margaret Himstedt was born on November 4, 1898, in Little Rock (Pulaski County) to Henry Himstedt and Margaret Hickey Himstedt. Her father was the co-owner of Pfeifer-Himstedt Plumbing and Heating Company. Himstedt was educated in Little Rock’s public schools and graduated from Little Rock High School in 1915. She attended Trinity College in Washington DC, where she received BA degrees in English and chemistry. She later received a master’s degree in social work from Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana. Himstedt worked as a medical social worker at St. …

Levees and Drainage Districts

Reclaiming the swamp and overflow lands in the Mississippi River Delta required draining those lands and building levees to mitigate the inevitable floods that periodically occurred. Without drainage, the land was useless for farming. Early residents realized that once the land was cleared of the timber and drained, the rich alluvial soil would be productive for a variety of crops, especially cotton. Initially, early settlers had attempted to build makeshift barriers to halt the powerful flood waters, but these attempts were ultimately useless. Although the line of levees along the Mississippi River expanded during the nineteenth century, the water always found a weak spot and inundated the region. In 1879, Congress created the Mississippi River Commission to establish a unified flood …

Levels, Jacob (Execution of)

Jacob Levels was an African American man hanged in Little Rock (Pulaski County) on June 21, 1878, for murdering another Black man the previous year. Jacob Levels was a single man, and Robert Swan’s wife cooked for him. On June 8, 1877, Swan “quarreled with his wife concerning her intimacy with Levels.” When Levels spoke up for the wife, Swan cut his cheek with a pocketknife. Levels went for a shotgun, but Swan fled. Two days later, Swan went to Levels’s house with another man and attempted to apologize, without success. On June 12, Swan went into Little Rock (he presumably lived outside the city) and told an acquaintance that he and Levels had reconciled, but that evening Levels went …

Levi Hospital

aka: Leo N. Levi Hospital

Levi Hospital in Hot Springs (Garland County) is a nonprofit hospital that offers mental and physical therapy. Its mission is to provide specialty care for the residents of Hot Springs and surrounding communities, serving patients without regard to race, religion, creed, national origin, gender, age, disability, or economic means. It has a history of providing services to people regardless of their ability to pay. Levi Hospital is the only healthcare provider in Garland County that provides inpatient adult psychiatric services as well as rehabilitation therapy in the thermal waters of Hot Springs National Park. It also offers a certified athletic trainers program for area schools in which trained healthcare professionals are present at athletic practices and games to help prevent …

Levi Wilcoxon Demonstration Forest

The Levi Wilcoxon Demonstration Forest (LWDF) is located about three miles south of Hamburg (Ashley County) along U.S. Highway 425. Privately owned, the LWDF is a remnant of the old-growth pine forest that once covered much of southern Arkansas. The LWDF is notable for the dimensions of the loblolly and shortleaf pines still found within its boundaries—most of the pines in this roughly ninety-acre stand are between 100 and 200 years old and over 100 feet tall. For example, the “Morris Pine” is a loblolly fifty-six inches in diameter, 117 feet tall, and estimated to be at least 300 years old. The national champion shortleaf is also found in the LWDF and measures thirty-six inches in diameter and 136 feet …

Levine, Sam M.

Sam M. Levine was a lawyer and politician in Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) who served two stints in the Arkansas General Assembly, first in the 1930s and again in the 1950s, each time in the House of Representatives and then the Senate. A leader in the second-largest Jewish community in the state, Levine made history by delivering a filibuster in the Senate in the final minutes of the biennial legislative session in March 1959 that undermined the last efforts of Governor Orval E. Faubus and white supremacists to keep Little Rock (Pulaski County) schools closed to avoid integrating. Levine’s famous thirty-three-minute speech, which began as the clock in the Senate ticked toward noon and adjournment sine die on March 12, …

Levon Helm Boyhood Home

The Levon Helm Boyhood Home in Marvell (Phillips County) is the preserved home in which musician Mark Lavon “Levon” Helm spent several years of his childhood. It was listed on the Arkansas Register of Historic Places on August 1, 2018. Levon Helm was born on May 26, 1940, in Elaine (Phillips County). He grew up in and around the town of Marvell, living and working on his family’s cotton farm in the small community of Turkey Scratch (Phillips County). Helm developed a lasting love for music during his childhood and achieved fame with the Band, serving as drummer, songwriter, and vocalist. He could also play the guitar and mandolin. He won two Grammy Awards and was inducted into the Rock …

Levy (Pulaski County)

Levy, which is now a part of North Little Rock (Pulaski County), was named for a prominent Jewish merchant. The community originated as a campground for farmers and drovers traveling the Fort Smith (Sebastian County) road to markets in Little Rock (Pulaski County). In 1892, Levy founder Ernest Stanley opened a general store near the campground north of Argenta. A settlement of industrious working-class people emerged with the opening of Camp Pike in 1917. War preparations at Camp Joseph T. Robinson in 1940 further fueled Levy’s growth, and the Levy Day political rally put it on the map in the 1950s. A municipality from 1917 to 1946, Levy has retained its identity into the twenty-first century. Today, a growing Latino population, plus …

Lewis, Charles (Lynching of)

Charles Lewis, an African American man, was hunted by an armed posse and killed in Hope (Hempstead County) on October 17, 1911, for allegedly making threats to the wife of a prominent local planter. The incident was poorly reported in state newspapers, perhaps due to the coverage afforded the more dramatic lynching of Nathan Lacey near Forrest City (St. Francis County) the previous day. According to the Arkansas Democrat, “Charley” Lewis, as he was called, went on October 17 to the home of one Mrs. Lewellan, “the wife of a prominent planter a few miles south of Hope,” where, “in the absence of the family he used very abusive language to Mrs. Lewellan and finally threatened her and used the …

Lewis, David Levering

David Levering Lewis is a Pulitzer Prize–winning American historian best known for his works on the African-American experience in the twentieth century. He has written biographies of two of the most important figures in the civil rights movement, Martin Luther King Jr. and W. E. B. Du Bois, as well as a reader on the Harlem Renaissance. In 1999, Lewis was awarded a MacArthur Foundation “genius grant.” David Lewis was born on May 25, 1936, in Little Rock (Pulaski County), the son of John H. Lewis, an educator and principal of Paul Laurence Dunbar High School, and Urnestine (Bell) Lewis, who taught high school math. Lewis attended parochial school in Little Rock and then continued his education in Ohio and …

Lewis, David S. (Execution of)

David S. Lewis was hanged at Batesville (Independence County) on April 29, 1859, for murdering his father-in-law in White County about a year earlier. David S. Lewis, twenty-four, was the son of Abner and Mary Lewis of Pickens County, South Carolina, and was married to a daughter of Will C. Bewler. Lewis, described as “a drinking, worthless scamp,” was immigrating to Texas with Bewler and his wife, the family’s three daughters, and Lewis’s child when he and Bewler had an argument over some property. Lewis then left the party, riding ahead to Searcy (White County). Lewis proceeded to get drunk “and had his passions highly inflamed by the suggestions of some rowdys [sic]…concerning the aggravating character of his father-in-law’s treatment …

Lewis, Henry Jackson

Henry Jackson Lewis, who was born into slavery, has been called the first black political cartoonist. His drawings appeared in publications across the nation. H. J. Lewis was born in Water Valley, Mississippi, in 1837 or 1838. As a child, he fell into a fire, maiming his left hand and blinding his left eye. Nothing further is known about his youth, but by 1872, he was living in Pine Bluff (Jefferson County), where he worked as a laborer in the mid- to late 1870s. By 1879, he was selling drawings of city and Arkansas River scenes to the national publication Harper’s Weekly, and he later sold similar drawings to Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper. On October 25, 1882, a Pine Bluff …

Lewis, Kristin Allison

Opera singer Kristin Lewis of Little Rock (Pulaski County) is recognized for her richly hued voice capable of subtle emotional inflection. Based in Vienna, Austria, since 2005, Lewis has established herself in the opera houses of Europe as a lirico-spinto soprano specializing in Verdi’s heroines. She was inducted into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame in 2019. Kristin Lewis was born in Little Rock in 1975 to the Reverend Bettye Lewis and Dr. Raphael Lewis. Lewis credits her mother as one of her earliest musical influences, as Rev. Lewis played organ for church and encouraged Kristin in her musical pursuits. After graduating from high school, Lewis followed her older sister, Tamara Lewis, to the University of Central Arkansas (UCA) in Conway (Faulkner …