Entries - Entry Category: Arts - Starting with C

The Coolidge House, built in Helena-West Helena (Phillips County) in 1880, is an example of a Queen Anne–style cottage. Decorative details typical of the period were applied to the irregular floorplan and elevations, resulting in a decorative yet restrained dwelling of modest proportions. At the time of the house’s construction, two railroads ran through the town, and packet boats served the adjacent Mississippi River. The house was built for S. C. Moore as a gift for his daughter, Anna Leslie Moore, on the occasion of her marriage to Charles Coolidge Jr. Located at 820 Perry Street, at the corner of Perry and Poplar streets, it was built in the section of Helena referred to on the city plat map as …

In 1917, Little Rock (Pulaski County) architect Theo Sanders designed the Cornish House at 1800 Arch Street in Little Rock for Edward and Hilda Cornish. The Cornish House exemplifies traditional Craftsman style with the usage of many natural materials in its construction, such as brick, granite, stucco, wood, and clay tile. Edward Cornish was one of Little Rock’s most prominent and affluent bankers of the early twentieth century until his death in 1928, while his wife was instrumental in founding the organization that became the Planned Parenthood Association of Arkansas. The Cornish House was built on land covering four different lots in Little Rock’s historic Quapaw Quarter, formerly known as the Arkansas School for the Blind Neighborhood. The home was reportedly built …

Cottage Courts Historic District is a motel located at 603 Park Avenue in Hot Springs (Garland County). Constructed in 1950, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places on February 11, 2004. Park Avenue was an important transportation route in the early twentieth century, as travelers from Little Rock (Pulaski County) and other cities to the north of Hot Springs used the road to reach the growing tourist town. Service stations, lodging, and other amenities were constructed along the road to serve these visitors. Cottage Courts (or Court) was constructed late in this period and was designed as a motel rather than a traditional tourist court as many others had been in Hot Springs. The units are joined …

Located in Fordyce (Dallas County), the Cotton Belt Depot is a historic railroad building constructed in 1925. Added to the National Register of Historic Places on June 11, 1992, it is located south of the Fordyce Commercial Historic District. The Fordyce Rock Island Depot is located to the northeast of the Cotton Belt Depot, while the Tennessee, Alabama & Georgia Railway Steam Locomotive No. 101 is located just to the west of the building. Both are also listed on the National Register. The Cotton Belt, officially known as the St. Louis Southwestern Railway, constructed a line in Dallas County in the early 1880s. The town of Fordyce—named for Samuel Wesley Fordyce, who was vice president of the railroad—was established as …

Helen Hagstrom is best known for her country and western swing music and yodeling, as well as her appearances in numerous television specials, radio programs, and films under the name of Carolina Cotton. Nicknamed “The Yodeling Blonde Bombshell,” Hagstrom was an entertainer and teacher throughout her life. Helen Hagstrom was born on October 20, 1925, in Cash (Craighead County), where her parents, Fred and Helen Hagstrom, and maternal grandparents had a farm, growing many crops, including cotton and peanuts. During the Great Depression, Hagstrom’s father moved his wife and two daughters to San Francisco, California. Hagstrom began performing in traveling stage shows with the O’Neille Sisters Kiddie Revue. Then, after regularly visiting KYA Radio to watch Dude Martin’s Roundup Gang …

Sheila Holland Cotton is an artist noted for her richly painted oils embracing the visual experience of Arkansas. Her scenes of agricultural and rural landscapes give a sense of isolation and mournfulness yet remain celebratory. The mysticism in Cotton’s art links her to the modern school of Magic Realism and the legacy of artists Carroll Cloar and Al Allen Jr. of twentieth-century Arkansas.  Sheila Holland was born on May 13, 1947, in Morrilton (Conway County). She was the only child of Edward William Holland and Madeline Oliver Holland. Both her parents came from families that settled in southern Arkansas in the 1840s. In 1950, her parents moved to North Little Rock (Pulaski County), where she grew up and attended school. Her father left his job as manager of a chain of movie theaters to pursue a career in aviation. He was appointed director of aeronautics for the …

Located in Magnolia (Columbia County), the Couch-Marshall House is an example of what has become known as the Plain Traditional style of architecture, which in this instance took on characteristics of the Queen Anne Revival style. The “high style” of the Queen Anne Revival type of residence had become the preferred style of design and construction in Arkansas by 1880 and was to remain so until the beginning of the twentieth century. The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places on July 24, 1992. The house takes part of its name from Thomas G. Couch, who was born in Columbia County on February 28, 1852, not long after his parents had relocated from their ancestral home in …

Rhonda Lee Oglesby Coullet was the only Miss Arkansas ever to resign her title. After briefly fulfilling her role as Miss Arkansas 1965, she abruptly gave up her crown and went on to achieve notable successes in show business, including starring on Broadway in The Robber Bridegroom. Rhonda Oglesby was born on September 23, 1945, in Magnolia (Columbia County) to Horace and Cecil Oglesby, both employees of International Paper Company in Spring Hill, Louisiana, but she was raised in Stamps (Lafayette County). She has one brother, Scott. In 1955, the family moved to Pine Bluff (Jefferson County). She attended Sam Taylor Elementary School and Pine Bluff High School, where she was a cheerleader. She was recognized for her beauty and …

While the precise origins of country and western music are not entirely clear, it is thought to have its roots in traditional folk music of the British Isles. Once this particular sound was brought by British immigrants to the United States, country music began to change as it was blended with the music of immigrants from other places, as well as with traditional religious hymns and the music of African slaves predominantly residing in the southern United States. Arkansas has had a firm place in the history of country music from its very beginnings in the United States, and the state has been the birthplace of many well-known country artists, as well as particular style variations of country music. While …

The Cove Lake Bathhouse, part of the Cove Lake Recreation Area on Arkansas Highway 309 near Corley (Logan County), is a stone-masonry structure exhibiting an unusual interpretation of the Rustic style of architecture. It was built in 1938 under the auspices of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a Depression-era federal relief agency, as part of a project to develop Mount Magazine. In 1935, the U.S. Resettlement Administration (USRA) acquired 110,000 acres on Mount Magazine in an effort to relocate farmers from the poor land available on the mountain and to develop the mountain for other uses. By 1935, the project was designated as the “Magazine Mountain Forestry, grazing, game and recreational project” in WPA records, and an effort began to …

V. L. Cox is a painter and mixed media artist whose work has achieved national acclaim for confronting institutional racism and homophobia. Vicki Lynette Cox was born on August 14, 1962, in Shreveport, Louisiana, to Lynn Cox and Mary Hardman Cox; she has one sister. Her father, an illustrator and engineer, was stationed at Barksdale Air Force Base in Bossier City, and following the end of his service, the family moved to Arkadelphia (Clark County), where both he and his wife had been born and raised. When Cox was ten years old, her grandmother, Virginia Louise Pilkington Hardman, enrolled her in a children’s summer art program at Henderson State University. Cox’s great-grandmother, Virginia Louise Betts Pilkington of Washington (Hempstead County), …

The Craighead County Courthouse is a Depression-era, Art Deco–style building situated on the courthouse square in Jonesboro (Craighead County). It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on September 11, 1998. During the first year after the establishment of Craighead County and the city of Jonesboro in 1859, there was no courthouse for carrying out the official business of the western part of the county. (Along with Jonesboro, Lake City also acts as a county seat, serving the eastern part of the county.) The Arkansas General Assembly designated the home of William Puryear in Jonesboro as a temporary county seat. The first permanent courthouse was a two-story frame building erected on the town square in Jonesboro in 1862. The building …

Pianist Floyd Cramer was one of the creators of what became known as the “Nashville sound,” a style often seen as a forerunner of the slick, upscale pop/rock that emerged in Nashville, Tennessee, in the 1990s. Cramer released fifty solo albums, had a classic hit in the song “Last Date” in 1960, and accompanied Elvis Presley on such rock and roll hits as “Heartbreak Hotel.” He was a longtime friend of producer and guitar virtuoso Chet Atkins and performed with other music luminaries, including Patsy Cline, Eddy Arnold, the Everly Brothers, Perry Como, and Roy Orbison. In the 1980s, he recorded a hit version of the theme from the Dallas TV series. Born on October 27, 1933, in Campti, Louisiana, …

Lorraine Albert Cranford was the founder of Ballet Arkansas—a company that traces its roots to the Little Rock Civic Ballet of the 1960s—as well as a dance teacher in the Little Rock (Pulaski County) area. Lorraine Albert was born on September 4, 1918, in Steubenville, Ohio, to Henri Albert and Arthurine Van Klempette Albert. Her mother was a ballroom dancer who started her daughter in dance classes. By the time she was three, her family lived in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Albert studied ballet under Karl Heinrich in Pittsburgh and went to New York at age fifteen to continue her dance training. Her training was not limited to classical ballet, and she studied and danced in the same shows as famous performers such as …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

Curran Hall, sometimes known as the Walters-Curran-Bell House, stands at 615 East Capitol Avenue in the MacArthur Park Historic District and is one of the few remaining antebellum landmark properties in Little Rock (Pulaski County). Dating back to 1842, the house was constructed during the city’s first building boom, which reached its peak around 1842 and faded out with the depression of 1843. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on January 1, 1976. According to widely accepted tradition, Curran Hall was constructed in the Greek Revival style by noted Greek Revival architect Gideon Shryock, who designed the Kentucky State Capitol as well as the Old State House, making this house of particular significance. The original one-story …

Dorris Lafferty Curtis was a nationally recognized folk art painter, author, and songwriter. Compared to folk art painter Grandma Moses (who started painting at age seventy-five) by herself and others, Curtis began painting at age sixty-five just before she retired from teaching. She produced hundreds of paintings, many of which are on display at the Torreyson Library at the University of Central Arkansas (UCA) in Conway (Faulkner County). Dorris Lafferty was born on March 4, 1908, in Rogers County, Oklahoma, near Foyil, to Roy Lafferty, a farmer, and Nan Lafferty. She was the third of four children. She grew up on the family farm, and much of her folk art is based on memories of her early years. Her mother …