Entries - Starting with R

Rocky Point (Independence County)

aka: Rock Point (Independence County)

Rocky Point, originally called Rock Point, is located on Highway 167 (Batesville Boulevard), about seven miles south of Batesville (Independence County), the county seat. Once a thriving community, twenty-first-century Rocky Point consists of a rock quarry called Rocky Point Materials. Rocky Point represents the dividing line between the Southside School District and the Midland School District of Pleasant Plains (Independence County). Rock Point is the rock formation at the southern point of where the Caney Creek bottoms end. In the early days of settlement, the bottomland provided suitable soil for small-scale farming, and the hill area was good for hunting small game, deer, and bears. Ample pasture land allowed for the running of cattle. Initially a part of the Round …

Rodeo of the Ozarks

The Rodeo of the Ozarks in Springdale (Washington and Benton counties) was, in 2008, ranked in the top five of large outdoor rodeos in the United States. It is estimated to have a $6 to $7 million impact on northwest Arkansas. The Rodeo of the Ozarks was founded in 1945. That year, a pair of construction workers from Oklahoma who also worked as rodeo promoters, Paul Bond and Bill Kelley, were working in Springdale and raised the idea of starting an event that summer. Eventually, this idea was passed along to Thurman “Shorty” Parsons and Dempsey Letsch, co-owners of a feed store. Under their leadership, the Rodeo of the Ozarks became a reality in 1945, with the dates July 1, 3, …

Rodger’s Crossing, Skirmish at

aka: Skirmish at White River (September 14, 1864)
aka: Skirmish at Huntsville

On September 12, 1864, Colonel Marcus LaRue Harrison of the First Arkansas Cavalry (US), stationed in Fayetteville (Washington County), heard rumors that a Confederate group under Captain James Cooper intended to attack Union general John B. Sanborn’s train. Harrison ordered that Captain John I. Worthington escort the train to Little Sugar Creek and then move up the White River in the direction of Richland Creek and Huntsville (Madison County). Capt. Worthington attacked Capt. Cooper’s approximately eighty Confederate troops close to Jennings’ Ferry on the White River. The skirmishes that ensued toward Richland Creek and Huntsville saw nine Confederate deaths, with five suffered at the Skirmish at Rodger’s Crossing. On the same day as Worthington’s attack, a Confederate lieutenant called Rogers …

Rodgers, James Ronald, Sr.

James Ronald Rodgers Sr. was the nation’s first African American to be appointed manager of a major commercial airport, the first Black head of a major independent city agency in Little Rock (Pulaski County), and the state’s first Black commercial loan officer. James Rodgers was born on March 15, 1947, in Little Rock to Homer and Ruth Rodgers. The fifth of six children, he spent his childhood in the Tuxedo Courts housing development south of Roosevelt Road. Rodgers grew up working with his mother, brothers, and sister for his father’s janitorial service. After graduating from Horace Mann High School in 1965, Rodgers attended Little Rock University—now the University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UA Little Rock)—for a year and a …

Rodriguez, Dionicio

Dionicio Rodriguez, recognized as one of America’s foremost faux bois sculptors, created works that resembled wood, though made of concrete, with its peeling bark, wormholes, and signs of decay. Arkansas was a major beneficiary of his work, which was an outgrowth of a Mexican folk tradition known as el trabajo rustico (rustic work). Under the designation “The Arkansas Sculptures of Dionicio Rodriguez,” his Arkansas work was collectively listed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 4, 1986. Dionicio Rodriguez was born in Toluca, Mexico, the son of Catarine Rodriguez; his birthdate is a matter of some dispute, usually stated as either April 11, 1891, or April 8, 1893. With little formal education, he began, at the age of …

Roe (Monroe County)

Roe is a town on U.S. Highway 79 in western Monroe County. Roe is the only incorporated community in Monroe County that is west of the White River. Roe is on the northern edge of the Grand Prairie, a part of Arkansas that was slow to be claimed and settled. Around 1880, the St. Louis Southwestern Railway (also called the Cotton Belt) was constructed through Arkansas. Roe, then located in Prairie County, was one of the depots established by the railroad. It was likely named for a railroad executive or employee. Roe received a post office in 1880; at the time, Roe was in Prairie County, but the county line was adjusted in 1883. Being the first railroad depot south …

Roe, “Preacher”

aka: Elwin Charles Roe

Elwin Charles “Preacher” Roe played professional baseball with the St. Louis Cardinals, Pittsburgh Pirates, and Brooklyn Dodgers. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Roe was one of the top pitchers in the game. Preacher Roe was born on February 26, 1916, to Charles Edward Roe and Elizabeth (Ducker) Roe in Ash Flat (Sharp County). The Roe family, which included six boys and one girl, moved from Wild Cherry (Fulton County), where they had moved in 1918, to Viola (Fulton County) when Roe was six. Roe’s father played for a semi-professional team in Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) but gave up baseball as a career and became a country doctor. Roe got his nickname at about three years of age when …

Roebuck, Johnnie Patricia Jones

Johnnie Roebuck was a state representative from Arkadelphia (Clark County) in the Eighty-sixth, Eighty-seventh, and Eighty-eighth Arkansas General Assemblies, serving from 2007 to 2013.   Johnnie Patricia Jones was born on December 7, 1942, in Clarksdale, Mississippi, and was raised on a Mississippi Delta cotton farm. Her mother, Marjorie Ethridge, was a bookkeeper, and her father, John Paul Jones, was a farmer. She attended Bobo High School in Clarksdale and graduated in 1960. As a first-generation college graduate, she was honored as an Outstanding Young Woman of America.   Jones moved to Texas and attended Belhaven College and then transferred to Texas Woman’s University, where she received a BS in social work in 1964. Jones worked as a probation officer for the Memphis Juvenile Court from 1964 to 1966 and from 1967 to 1969 was a social worker in a mental health center in Coahoma County, Mississippi. She focused on special education and became a public school teacher in …

Roescher, Gustavus

aka: Gus Rusher

Gustavus Roescher, who later went by the Anglicized version of his name, Gus Rusher, was a leading figure in the town of Brinkley (Monroe County), serving as an alderman, restauranteur, hotelier, and banker. Little is known about the early life of Gustavus Roescher. Born in 1860, he immigrated to the United States with his father, Charles Roescher (1833–1890), from the German town of Baden-Baden in the mid-1800s. They settled on a farm outside of Brinkley. Gustavus Roescher owned the Arlington Hotel, which was struck by a cyclone in 1909. Roescher also purchased the Brinkley House, which burned down in 1914. This event prompted Roescher to begin construction on a new hotel with three stories and sixty rooms, which was christened …

Rogers (Benton County)

Rogers was founded as a stop on the St. Louis–San Francisco Railway (Frisco) and developed as a shipping point for apples and a trade center for the surrounding rural area. After World War II, agriculture remained important, but business leaders also embarked on a successful effort to recruit light industry. Rogers has several major industrial plants and retail centers and is one of the fastest-growing cities in Arkansas. Louisiana Purchase through Reconstruction Settlers began to arrive in the vicinity of what is today Rogers around 1830. Most came from the Upper South states, especially Tennessee. The foundation of the local economy in the mid-1800s was subsistence farming, with tobacco as the main cash crop. The many streams in the region …

Rogers Academy

The Rogers Academy was organized in 1883 by the American Home Missionary Society (AHMS) of the Congregational Church. During its three decades, the academy trained many of the early educators who taught in the Rogers (Benton County) public schools. A number of local business and civic leaders received their secondary educations there, and musical and dramatic performances by the students and faculty made the academy a cultural center for the community. Rogers, founded in 1881, was named for C. W. Rogers, general manager of the St. Louis and San Francisco Railroad. Rogers and his wife took a keen interest in the town and are credited with establishing the Congregational Church in Rogers. The only public school serving the new town …

Rogers Historical Museum

The Rogers Historical Museum is the largest and most comprehensive history museum in Benton County. The museum is a department of the City of Rogers, governed by a city commission. Founded in 1974, the museum’s mission is to serve the community through educating the public, preserving the local heritage, and providing enriching and enjoyable experiences for all. In 1974, the Rogers City Council, at the urging of Councilwoman Opal Beck and in response to citizen concerns about the loss of local heritage, formed a museum commission to oversee the creation and operation of a city history museum. The commission leased space in a 1905 bank building in downtown Rogers and began collecting historic artifacts. The first chairperson of the commission …

Rogers, Anthony Astley Cooper

Anthony Astley Cooper Rogers was a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives. He represented the Second District of Arkansas in the Forty-First Congress, serving from 1869 to 1871. Anthony Rogers was born on February 14, 1821, in Clarksville, Tennessee. He received only minimal formal education and worked as a clerk in a dry-goods store from age fifteen to twenty-two. Looking for new opportunities, Rogers relocated to Arkansas in 1854, apparently settling in the Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) area, where he bought land and slaves and joined the ranks of planters. With the possibility of civil war on the horizon, and supported by pro-Union forces, Rogers sought election as a delegate to the state secession convention in 1861. Although …

Rogers, Betty Blake

Betty Blake Rogers was the wife of Will Rogers, one of the most beloved entertainers of the twentieth century. In addition to her roles as wife and mother, she managed the family’s finances, a job made difficult by Will’s enormous success and generous nature. She was a partner in his career, encouraging him to start on the lecture circuit and helping him choose film scripts. Betty Blake was born on September 9, 1879, at Silver Springs, later called Monte Ne (Benton County), to James Wyeth Blake, a miller, and Amelia Crowder Blake. Her father died when she was young, and the family moved a few miles north to Rogers (Benton County). Betty was seventh in a family of nine, and …

Rogers, John Henry

John Henry Rogers was a Civil War Confederate hero, a lawyer in Fort Smith (Sebastian County), a four-term Congressman, and a United States District Court judge for the Western District of Arkansas. John Rogers was born on October 9, 1845, in Bertie County, North Carolina. His father, Absolom Rogers was a successful planter and slaveholder. In 1861, when Rogers was fifteen years old, he became the drillmaster for a company of home guards, and in March 1862, he was mustered into Company H, Ninth Regiment, Mississippi Volunteers, as a private soldier. Rogers served in the same regiment until it was surrendered at Greensboro, North Carolina, on May 1, 1865. He saw a considerable amount of action and was twice wounded, …

Rogers, Lurlyne Greer

Lurlyne Greer Rogers was known as a gifted basketball player and all-around athlete in high school at Des Arc (Prairie County). She went on to play women’s pre-professional basketball in Little Rock (Pulaski County); Nashville, Tennessee; and Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Earning many accolades throughout her career, Rogers contributed to winning championships, set records, and was inducted into three athletic halls of fame. Lurlyne Ann Greer was born in Des Arc on December 15, 1928, the youngest of two daughters born to Dada L. Greer and Ralph M. Greer. At seventeen, she graduated from Des Arc High School as valedictorian, after which she played for player-coach Hazel Walker for Little Rock’s Dr. Pepper Girls team. Following her brief stint with the …

Rogers, Robert L.

Robert Lee (Bob) Rogers served two years in the Arkansas General Assembly, eight years as a prosecuting attorney, and two years as Arkansas’s attorney general, initiating important antitrust suits against monopolistic corporations. He ran unsuccessfully for governor and then became one of the state’s outstanding criminal defense lawyers. He was also a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and the recently revived Ku Klux Klan. Bob Rogers was born on January 28, 1868, on a farm at West Point (White County), the oldest child of David E. Rogers and Maria Taylor Rogers. After his father died when he was about eleven, he dropped out of school to become the family’s principal breadwinner. He worked on nearby farms, and, after …

Rohwer (Desha County)

Rohwer of Desha County is a historic community ten miles northeast of McGehee (Desha County). It is perhaps best known as the site of the Rohwer Relocation Center, one of two internment camps for Japanese Americans during World War II located in the area. In September 1904, the St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern Railroad (later acquired by the Missouri Pacific) completed a rail line over the Arkansas River from Helena (Phillips County). The railroad allowed local timber to be harvested, processed, and shipped out. Several stores opened in Rohwer to support the sawmills and the numerous families farming nearby. Prior to the railroad construction, the community was mostly non-existent. The post office, which was first called the Harding Post …

Rohwer Relocation Center

The Rohwer Relocation Center in Desha County was one of two World War II–era incarceration camps built in the state to house Japanese Americans from the West Coast, the other being the Jerome Relocation Center (in Chicot and Drew counties). The Rohwer relocation camp cemetery, the only part of the camp that remains, is now a National Historic Landmark. The camp housed, along with the Jerome camp, some 16,000 Japanese Americans from September 18, 1942, to November 30, 1945, and was one of the last of ten such camps nationwide to close. The Japanese American population, of which sixty-four percent were American citizens, had been forcibly removed from the west coast of America under the doctrine of “military necessity” and …

Roland (Pulaski County)

Roland is an unincorporated community north of Pinnacle Mountain State Park in western Pulaski County, not far from the Arkansas River. It is crossed by State Highway 300, part of which is a component of the Arkansas River Trail, a pedestrian and bicycle trail that goes through Little Rock (Pulaski County) and North Little Rock (Pulaski County). Once a stop on the Rock Island rail line, Roland is home to nearly 750 residents; its post office also serves nearby Natural Steps (Pulaski County), as well as many rural residents and businesses in the area. The Roland post office was established in 1884, several years before the arrival of the railroad. Although the origin of the name is unknown, the post …

Rolla (Hot Spring County)

Rolla is an unincorporated community in Hot Spring County located one mile west of Lono (Hot Spring County) and about fourteen miles south of Malvern (Hot Spring County). Founded as a stop on the Malvern and Camden Railroad, linking the county seat with Camden (Ouachita County), Rolla quickly grew into a bustling community. Due to the proximity of Rolla to the older community of Lono, it is difficult to determine the earliest settlers in the community. The first settlers in the area arrived in the 1840s and began small-scale farming. Richard Jennett obtained eighty acres of land in the area on July 10, 1848. Later that year, Arthur Yates and John Gray both obtained land. Yates appears in the 1850 …

Rolla, Missouri, to Batesville, Expedition from

Several squadrons of the Eleventh Missouri Cavalry Regiment (US) gathered at Rolla, Missouri, and rode more than 200 miles between February 29 and March 13, 1864, to join the Union garrison at Batesville (Independence County). Colonel William D. Wood of the Eleventh Missouri Cavalry ordered Squadrons A and M of the regiment to leave their post in St. Louis on February 10 and take the train to Rolla, where he and the headquarters staff joined them on February 15. Squadrons B, C, E, and G under Major Lymon W. Brown left their station in southwestern Missouri and joined them the next day. After gathering supplies and drilling the troopers for several days, the Federal expedition left for Batesville on the …

Roller Derby

Roller derby, a national sport that has experienced several cycles of growth and decline, began increasing in popularity in Arkansas in the mid-2000s. Although a co-ed sport when it originated, roller derby’s current status is that of a women’s sport. Roller derby’s roots date back to the 1930s when dance marathons and bike races were popular. Leo Seltzer conceived the sport in 1933. For what was initially a no-contact sport, twenty-five teams made up of one male and one female skated for twelve to fourteen hours a day, with the men competing with the men and the women competing with the women. The goal was to cover the distance between New York City and Los Angeles, or about 3,000 miles. …

Rolling Prairie, Skirmish at

In early 1864, the northern tier of Arkansas counties of Carroll, Searcy, Newton, and Izard had been decimated by the war. This area had become a haven for jayhawkers and bushwhackers from both armies. Union general John B. Sanborn wrote to General W. S. Rosecrans in early February 1864 that 1,200 to 2,000 Confederate soldiers and bushwhackers had gathered in the aforementioned counties and were contemplating a raid into Missouri, with a view of capturing Federal trains and supplies. Sanborn then ordered 200 men of the First Arkansas Cavalry, 200 men of the Second Arkansas Cavalry, and 200 men of the Eighth Missouri State Militia Cavalry into Newton County, then to march so that they would arrive at Rolling Prairie …

Rolling Stones, Arrest of the

The July 5, 1975, lunch stop and subsequent arrest of Rolling Stones guitarists Ron Wood and Keith Richards in Fordyce (Dallas County) is fabled in the town, and the incident became a footnote in the police record of the English rock and roll band. The quintet had cultivated an outlaw image since its early 1960s inception. According to Arkansas native Bill Carter, the Rolling Stones’ attorney from 1973 to 1990, everywhere the Stones went in 1975, it was a challenge for authorities. Riot squads and narcotics units were common during the group’s twenty-eight-city, $13 million-grossing tour. On July 4, the Stones played Memphis, Tennessee. Richards and new member Wood decided to sightsee and drive with two others to their July …

Roman Catholics

aka: Catholics

Roman Catholicism is the oldest form of Christianity in the state, yet it has remained the faith of a minority of the population. Catholicism first arrived in Arkansas via Spanish explorers and a French Jesuit missionary, and there were a few Catholics living at Arkansas Post during the French and Spanish colonial era of the eighteenth century. Once Arkansas became attached to the American Union by the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the area underwent a demographic and religious metamorphosis. A wave of Anglo-American Protestants migrated to the region so that, by 1850, Catholics made up approximately one percent of the total population of the state. The great European migration to the United States between 1840 and 1920, which contained millions …

Romani

aka: Gypsy

The Romani, commonly referred to as Gypsies (although this term is, in the twenty-first century, regarded as an ethnic slur), have a longstanding tradition of immigration and migration, in which the economic draw of the United States and the Southeast has always been very strong. Romanies trace their heritage to ninth-century India. Western migration from this point of origin has helped to develop a culture that is truly unique. While many Romani still speak a language that is closely related to Sanskrit, each different ethnic group of Romani has incorporated loan words from other languages. Romani culture has been subdivided through this continued migration to the West. For example, two major Romani ethnic groups are present in the United States: …

Rome (Clark County)

The small community of Rome was once located six miles south of Okolona (Clark County) in western Clark County along the Old Military Road and the Little Missouri River. Today, the only remaining evidence of the once vibrant community is two cemeteries. The community was located in Section 19, Township 9 South, Range 21 West, along present-day state Highway 51. Rome was founded in the 1850s by a man known as Mr. Dickey, who originated from Corinth, Mississippi. Several families followed Dickey to Rome, drawn by the fertile soil in the area. Among those early settlers were Dickey, Joshua Stewart, and Newt Noland. The first store was established by Noland and was supplied by goods shipped by wagon from Camden …

Rondo (Lee County)

The town of Rondo in Lee County—not to be confused with a settlement of the same name across the state in Miller County—was laid out at the intersection of the tracks of the Missouri and North Arkansas Railroad and those of the Missouri Pacific Railroad. The town, founded early in the twentieth century, dwindled as a result of the mid-century improvement of roads, which caused many businesses to relocate to larger cities such as Marianna (Lee County). Rondo was established on land that had been part of Phillips County until Lee County was established in 1873. At that time, most of the land was devoted to cotton farming, although some parts were still heavily forested. Construction of the railroads facilitated the …

Ronoake Baptist Church

The Ronoake Baptist Church is a Craftsman-style, historically African-American house of worship located near Gurdon (Clark County). Constructed in 1945, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places on September 23, 2011. The church, also known as Ronoke and New Ronok Baptist Church, is still active in the twenty-first century. The church is located at the north end of Ronoake Baptist Church Road, north of the Gurdon city limits. The church was founded near Smithton (Clark County) in 1893. After meeting for several years on privately owned land, the church members began raising money by 1918 to purchase land on which they could build a permanent church. By the next year, land had been purchased near a cemetery …

Rooker, Oley Eldon

Oley Eldon Rooker was a Little Rock (Pulaski County) businessman whose neighborhood engagement and support of library funding led to a branch of the Central Arkansas Library System (CALS) that opened in 2010 being named in his honor. Oley Eldon Rooker was born on November 2, 1931, in Des Arc (Prairie County) to Darrell Rooker and Tura Louise Guess Rooker. Young Oley and his mother moved to Little Rock at some point—the 1940 census shows him as a resident of the Working Women’s Home in the capital city. His mother married D. Wylie Hall, who would later stand as Rooker’s best man at his wedding. He was an active student, and newspaper accounts of the period show him involved in …

Roots, Logan Holt

Logan Holt Roots settled in Arkansas after serving the Union in the Civil War. He was a congressman, banker, and promoter of the state. Born at Locust Hill, near Tamaroa, Illinois, on March 26, 1841, Roots was the third of four children of Benajah Guernsey Roots, an educator, and Martha Sibley Holt. His early academic interest focused on mathematics, although he worked with an engineering corps engaged in railroad construction at fifteen, acquiring a lifetime interest in railroad development. He enrolled in Illinois State Normal University in 1857, taught for a year then returned and graduated valedictorian in 1862. After graduation, Roots enlisted in the Eighty-first Illinois Infantry, a volunteer regiment, and served in the Union Army until the Civil …

Rosalie Goes Shopping

Rosalie Goes Shopping (1989) is an eccentric, comical critique of American consumerism. In its quirky fashion, the film reflects the growing multinational, digitized nature of debtor economics and underscores the reality that consumerism is not limited to those living in large cities. Filmed almost entirely in Arkansas, this German-produced film is centered in Stuttgart (Arkansas County)—a town founded, not coincidentally, by German settlers. The film was directed by German director Percy Adlon, who with wife Eleonore Adlon wrote and produced it. Marianne Sägebrecht plays the title character, Rosalie Greenspace, a plump Bavarian with a serious addiction to buying things. Her goofily demented Arkansan husband, Ray “Liebling” Greenspace, is played by Brad Davis (in his final film role). Rosalie had met …

Rosboro (Pike County)

Rosboro is an unincorporated community located in the northeastern corner of Pike County. It is five miles west of Amity (Clark County) and six miles east of Glenwood (Pike County). During its heyday, the company town of Rosboro was a major operational center for the Caddo River Lumber Company in the Ouachita Mountains, placed in an area that was a vast virgin forest of short-leaf pine trees. Thomas Whitaker “Whit” Rosborough, a sawmill owner who lived near Kansas City, Missouri, became interested in this Arkansas forest and decided to move there, bringing some of his employees with him. After arriving and investigating the area, he decided that an area near Amity would be an ideal place to build his sawmill. …

Rose Bud (White County)

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

Rose Hill Cemetery

Rose Hill Cemetery is a historic cemetery located in Arkadelphia (Clark County). It was officially opened in 1876, although some graves in the cemetery date to the 1850s. The cemetery was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on February 1, 1999. The first public cemetery in Arkadelphia was established shortly after the town was settled. It was named the Blakely Graveyard for an early name of the settlement. The graveyard was closed by the city board to future interments in 1869. In 1876, the Maddox family donated land for a new cemetery. In 1880, the Maddox Cemetery was renamed Rose Hill, although it is unclear why this change occurred. Several graves from the Blakely Graveyard were moved to …

Rose Law Firm

Rose Law Firm of Little Rock (Pulaski County) is the oldest law firm west of the Mississippi River. The firm traces its origins to November 1, 1820, before Arkansas was a state, when Robert Crittenden, first secretary and acting governor of Arkansas Territory, and Chester Ashley, a land speculator, entered into a “Partnership in the Practice of Law.” This hand-inked agreement remains on display at the firm. Crittenden and Ashley ultimately ended their partnership over political issues, but the firm continued its existence when Ashley partnered with George C. Watkins in 1837. Ashley and Watkins practiced law together until Ashley was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1844. In 1852, Watkins became the chief justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court, …

Rose Publishing Company

Walter H. Nunn, who spent a long career teaching and researching Arkansas history, culture, and public affairs, started a company in 1973 to publish books on those subjects. Over the next forty-five years, until Nunn’s death in 2017, Rose Publishing Company in Little Rock (Pulaski County) published scores of books on the state and the subjects that consumed his interest. The most significant was Arkansas Odyssey: The Saga of Arkansas from Prehistoric Times to the Present, a massive history of the state printed in 1994. Rose Publishing Company, Inc., became Arkansas’s most prolific publisher of books, film strips, and other materials—both written and visual—on the state’s history, governance, geography, culture, folklore, media, and literature. Nunn thought Arkansas lagged behind nearly …

Rose, Henry (Execution of)

Henry Rose was an African American man hanged at Osceola (Mississippi County) on April 4, 1884, for the shotgun slaying of Dempsey Taylor, a wealthy farmer. The 1880 census shows fifty-year-old Dempsey Taylor, who was listed as “mulatto,” living in Mississippi County’s Monroe Township with his wife Melinda and five children. Henry Rose, a seventeen-year-old Black laborer, lived in the same township with his grandparents, as did John Morrow, age twenty-five, a white farmer who lived with his wife and brother. A Tennessee newspaper described Taylor as “popular with his race, but…regarded as [an] impudent and overbearing person by his white neighbors.” On December 4, 1883, the Arkansas Gazette reported, Rose and Morrow argued with Taylor and “had trouble with …

Rose, Robert (Execution of)

Robert Rose died in the electric chair at Tucker Prison Farm on February 23, 1935, a mere fifty-one days following the murder of an Independence County sheriff’s deputy. Robert Rose, age twenty-seven, was born in the Arkansas Ozarks and had attended grammar school at Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) but later moved to Louisiana, where he stole a car in 1930 and was sentenced to five to eight years in prison. Despite two escapes from prison, he was paroled in 1934 and was back at his mother’s Pine Bluff home by Christmas. He soon embarked on a series of burglaries and robberies. On January 2, 1935, Rose and Woodrow Crump went to a gas station in Rosie (Independence County) and ordered …

Rose, Uriah Milton

Uriah Milton Rose was a nationally prominent attorney who practiced in Little Rock (Pulaski County) for more than forty years at what is now known as the Rose Law Firm. He was a founder and president of both the Arkansas Bar Association and the American Bar Association, and he was appointed by President Theodore Roosevelt as an ambassador for the United States to the Second Hague Peace Conference in 1907. U. M. Rose was born on March 5, 1834, in Bradfordsville, Kentucky, to Nancy and Joseph Rose. His father was a physician. He was his parents’ third son and had two half-siblings from his father’s first marriage to a Miss Armstrong from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Rose’s mother died in 1848, and …

Rosedale Plantation Barn

The Rosedale Plantation Barn is a hand-hewn log barn located near Arkadelphia (Clark County). Constructed around 1860, it is the largest known log barn in Clark County and possibly the state. It was moved from its original location southeast of Arkadelphia in 2002 and reassembled in its current location north of the city. The barn was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on January 21, 2004. Rosedale Plantation was built by Joseph Allen Whitaker, who arrived in Clark County around 1855. Purchasing land in Manchester Township, which belonged to both Dallas and Clark counties during its history, Whitaker hired a number of carpenters to follow the plans by architect Madison Griffin. Along with a plantation house, a brick …

Rosenwald School (Delight)

The Rosenwald School, located on Arkansas Highway 26, is a one-story, wood-frame building erected between Delight (Pike County) and Antoine (Pike County) in 1938 by the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a Depression-era public relief program. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on September 17, 1990. Three schools were built in Pike County between 1923 and 1927 with assistance from the Julius Rosenwald Fund to serve the county’s African-American children. The Rosenwald Fund had been created by a Sears, Roebuck and Company executive to help construct educational facilities for minority children in the South; a total of 389 school buildings would be constructed in thirty-five Arkansas counties with assistance from the Rosenwald Fund. One of those buildings, …

Rosenwald Schools

Julius Rosenwald was one of the most significant figures in Southern black education. Although Rosenwald was a successful businessman, his philanthropic work has always overshadowed his financial success. His involvement in providing grants to build schools for African Americans across the South, including Arkansas, contributed greatly to the creation of better educational opportunities for Arkansas’s African-American population. Rosenwald was born on August 12, 1862, in Springfield, Illinois, to Jewish immigrant parents. He never finished high school or attended college but went into the clothing business instead. His philanthropy began with the support of Jewish immigrants, which surely came from his family’s heritage, and then expanded to include African Americans after he was influenced by Booker T. Washington’s autobiography, Up From …

Rosenzweig, Irene

Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) native Irene Rosenzweig earned a doctoral degree from Bryn Mawr College in classics, received the Prix de Rome from the American Academy in Rome, and tutored members of the family of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. After a teaching career near Washington DC, Rosenzweig returned to Pine Bluff, where she was a benefactor of Trinity Village Medical Center. A biennial art exhibition named in her honor supports the permanent collection of the Arts & Science Center for Southeast Arkansas through an endowment left by Rosenzweig. Irene Rosenzweig was born in Pine Bluff on July 26, 1903, to Pauline Sarason-Rosenzweig and William M. Rosenzweig. She had one sister. Her father had emigrated from Lithuania, from an area near …

Roseville, Skirmishes at

In late March 1864, Companies D and E of the Second Kansas Cavalry, led by Captain John Gardner of Company E, were dispatched from their post at Jenny Lind (Sebastian County) to protect Union supplies and a cache of cotton at Roseville (Logan County). Roseville, which was at that time in Franklin County, was an important port on the Arkansas River, forty-five miles southeast of Fort Smith (Sebastian County). The companies either joined or were joined by Company D of the Sixth Kansas Cavalry, making a force of about 200 men. At about the same time, Confederate brigadier general Samuel Bell Maxey ordered Colonel Nicholas Battle to take a detachment of 400 to 500 men of his Thirtieth Texas Cavalry …

Rosewater, Benjamin J. (B. J.)

Modern Eureka Springs (Carroll County), including the historic Carnegie Library and Basin Spring Park, owes much of its development to early resident of the city Benjamin J. Rosewater. An energetic advocate of civic improvement and a business leader serving for several years as postmaster, the Jewish immigrant from Eastern Europe left a lasting mark on the Ozarks mountain town where he lived for more than sixty years. Born in Hungary in 1857, B. J. Rosewater first came to the United States to visit family in Chicago, Illinois. After moving briefly to Cairo, Illinois, Rosewater visited Eureka Springs in August 1882 in an effort to improve his health. Rosewater quickly recovered from his illness, and he liked the chaotic frontier town …

Rosie (Independence County)

The community of Rosie is located in Independence County on Highway 14 (Newport Road), almost halfway between Batesville (Independence County) and Newport (Jackson County). Because of the typography and family ties, the Rosie community is more closely associated with Newport than with Batesville. The “bottoms” of Oil Trough (Independence County) are only six miles away. Rosie lies in the transitional area from flat lands to Ozark hills. The White River is only a mile and half to the east, so Rosie has traditionally been part of the White River valley culture with its riverboats and adventurers. The Rosie community was initially called White Run, with the first post office located at the confluence of Salado Creek and the White River …

Ross, Jane

Jane Ross was a prominent businesswoman and philanthropist in Clark County. She served in the Women’s Army Corps of the Army Air Force during World War II. Ross owned a photography studio in Arkadelphia (Clark County) and operated her family’s timber enterprise. She also received several awards and honors during her lifetime. Jane Ross was born in Arkadelphia on December 23, 1920, to Hugh Thomas Ross and Esther Clark Ross. She had one sister. She grew up in Arkadelphia and graduated from Arkadelphia High School in May 1938. Ross graduated from Henderson State Teachers College (now Henderson State University,) with a BA in May of 1942. Ross worked as a Navy photographer in Washington DC for six months in 1943. …

Ross, Jimmy Douglas

Jimmy Ross was an officer in the U.S. Army who rose to the rank of general. Ross was named as a Distinguished Alumnus of Henderson State University in 1986 and to the university’s Sports Hall of Fame in 2004. Jimmy Douglas Ross was born in Hosston, Louisiana, on May 23, 1936, to Horace and Lucile Ross. The Ross family was originally from Arkadelphia (Clark County), and Horace was a worker in the oil industry. The family had an older son, Bob. The Ross family moved to Curtis (Clark County) in 1942 before living in Mississippi, Tennessee, Texas, and California. Returning to Curtis in 1945, Jimmy Ross attended school in Arkadelphia. Playing football, basketball, and baseball, as well as running track, …