Entries - Entry Category: Business and Economics - Starting with E

E. Ritter & Company is one of the most successful and long-lasting family-owned businesses in the state. Headquartered in Marked Tree (Poinsett County), the privately held corporation is the parent company of Ritter Communications and Ritter Agribusiness. Though incorporated in 1906, the business was actually founded in 1889 by Ernest Herman Ritter Jr. The original business entity was a general merchandise store located in what was then a semi-permanent sawmill community. As opportunity arose, Ritter moved into other ventures, such as road and bridge building; timber cutting and milling; fish and game shipping; and the ice business. Interested in technology, Ritter installed a small electrical plant to run his ice business. He then hooked the rest of the company businesses, …

Ed Walker’s Drive-in and Restaurant at 1500 Towson Avenue in Fort Smith (Sebastian County) is a thriving icon of the local pop culture/dining scene with its classic drive-in vibe and coin-operated mechanical razorback. Known as the “Home of the French Dip” and famous for its five-pound burgers, Ed Walker’s continues a long history dating back to at least the early 1930s. Ed Walker’s is thought to be the oldest continuously operating restaurant in Fort Smith and the only restaurant in the state with curbside beer service. It is sometimes difficult to separate fact from fiction regarding Ed Walker’s. Some sources claimed that Ed Walker’s opened in 1943, but this year appears to be the date of the liquor license (number …

Conrad Elsken was a prominent figure in Logan County for forty years. In 1883, he moved to Paris (Logan County) after he became land agent for the Little Rock and Fort Smith Railroad. He started the Citizens Telephone Company in 1900 and served as its general manager until it was sold to Western Electric in 1928. Elsken also helped to establish the Bank of Paris, which became the First National Bank of Paris, and served as Logan County treasurer. He established a series of general stores in several Logan County towns. During World War I, he was the head of the Council of Defense for Logan County. He was on the Arkansas State Charity Board under Governor Jeff Davis and …

John Calhoun England was a prominent lawyer, businessman, and real estate developer in central Arkansas during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Due to his involvement in the development of southwestern Lonoke County, the town of England (Lonoke County) was named in his honor. On January 18, 1850, John C. England was born in Brownsville (Lonoke County) to John William Harrison England and Laurena Boyett England. He received a basic education in the local schools, but the approaching Civil War interrupted his formal education. The death of his father in April 1860 was hard on the family, resulting in the loss of most of their wealth during the next few years. Sometime during the war, England moved to Huntersville, …

Sam Epstein, a Russian-Jewish immigrant, was a merchant, planter, and civic leader in Lake Village (Chicot County) and Chicot County in the early twentieth century. Sam Epstein was born to Menasha Epstein and Malke Epstein on July 25, 1875, on a farm near Riga, Latvia, in the former Russian Empire. He was likely the second of five children. Many Eastern European Jews fled violence and legal restrictions in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While Epstein’s parents likely did not immigrate, at least five of their children, including Sam, arrived in the United States between 1891 and 1900. Epstein likely arrived in New York City in May 1896. He traveled to Memphis, Tennessee, and joined an older brother, Nathan, …

Experimental forests are timbered lands that have been established primarily for scientific research and demonstration projects in which forest conditions are manipulated. In effect, experimental forests are long-term “laboratories” for testing environmental responses to silvicultural treatments, including thinning, tree regeneration, final harvesting, site preparation, herbicide and fertilizer applications, and other actions. In addition to controlled and replicated research trials, most experimental forests have areas dedicated to the “demonstration” of forestry techniques on an operational scale. As of 2021, four experimental forests in Arkansas are operated by the Southern Research Station of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service (USFS): the 4,281-acre Alum Creek Experimental Forest near Jessieville (Garland County), the 1,675-acre Crossett Experimental Forest south of Crossett (Ashley County), the …