Businesses

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Entry Category: Businesses

Star of India

Star of India, an award-winning restaurant in western Little Rock (Pulaski County), has become a renowned part of Arkansas’s cuisine scene since its establishment in 1993. It is said to have been the state’s first Indian restaurant and has become known not only for its food but also for its service under the charismatic personality of chef/owner Sami Lal. Born in the Indian state of Punjab in 1956, Lal has said that he took an interest in cooking at an early age by watching his mother prepare the family’s meals. In 1979, he left for Hamburg, Germany, to attend cooking school. While a student, he found work at a local restaurant, starting as a dishwasher and quickly working his way …

Stephens Inc.

Stephens Inc. of Little Rock (Pulaski County), a privately owned investment bank, is among Arkansas’s most prominent businesses. The company, one of the nation’s largest investment banks not based on Wall Street, was founded in 1933 by Prattsville (Grant County) native W. R. “Witt” Stephens as the W. R. Stephens Investment Co. Witt Stephens’s younger brother, Jackson T. (Jack) Stephens, joined the company in 1946 and went on to serve as chairman and chief executive officer from 1956 to 1986. Since 1986, Jack Stephens’s youngest son, Warren Stephens, has served as CEO. Witt Stephens was a regional manager based in Colorado for National Crafts Co. when his father, a farmer who served two terms in the Arkansas House of Representatives, …

Tall Pines Motor Inn Historic District

aka: Tall Pines Inn
The Tall Pines Motor Inn Historic District is a well-maintained example of the Rustic architectural style of roadside lodging that has been popular in rural areas since the earliest days of travel by car. Located at the intersection of Highway 62 and Pivot Rock Road one mile west of Eureka Springs (Carroll County), it has operated continuously since 1947 under various names, including the Tall Pines Court, Tall Pines Motel, Tall Pines Motor Lodge, Tall Pines Motor Inn, and Tall Pines Inn. Its seven original log structures were added to the National Register of Historic Places as the Tall Pines Motor Inn Historic District on January 15, 1999. In the early part of the twentieth century, nostalgia for a simpler time …

Taylor Rosamond Motel Historic District

The Taylor Rosamond Motel Historic District is made up of four buildings, including a motel constructed around 1950 and a home constructed between 1908 and 1915. Located at 316 Park Avenue in Hot Springs (Garland County), the property was added to the National Register of Historic Places on May 26, 2004. The first structure on the lot was an Italianate-style home constructed by W. S. Sorrell between 1908 and 1915. The building is two stories with a full basement and a tower located on the southwest corner. The wood-framed building is covered with concrete blocks. The house is square with a wing topped with a gable roof extending to the west. A porch is present on the west and south …

TCBY Enterprises, Inc.

During a nineteen-year period, TCBY Enterprises, Inc. grew from a single store in Little Rock (Pulaski County) to a 3,000-outlet franchise. Selling flavored frozen yogurt, TCBY was known around the world. First known as the Capitol Tower, the tallest building in Arkansas was known as the TCBY Tower from 1991 to 2004 and bore those four letters on its upper floors. Frank Hickingbotham, an Arkansas native, opened his first frozen yogurt store in 1981 in Little Rock. Prior to this, Hickingbotham had been a junior high school principal, an insurance salesman, and the owner of several other food businesses, which he sold before founding TCBY. Hickingbotham had become acquainted with frozen yogurt a few years earlier on a visit to …

That Bookstore in Blytheville

In the early 1970s, Mary Gay Shipley, then a schoolteacher, saw a void in her hometown and opened a paperback exchange store affiliated with a Memphis, Tennessee, group called The Book Rack. Ultimately, she found a space in a former jewelry store in downtown Blytheville (Mississippi County). The bookstore has remained at 316 W. Main Street since 1976. Though locals called it “that bookstore” for years, the store did not become officially known as That Bookstore in Blytheville until 1994. The store’s varied selections of fiction, non-fiction, and children’s literature occupy over 2,400 square feet. That Bookstore in Blytheville specialized in Southern writers and books on Southern culture, with emphasis on the work of Arkansas writers. A champion of literacy, …

Tinkle Pot

The Tinkle Pot is a novelty musical toilet created by Searcy (White County) drug store owner Frank Headlee, who also served as mayor of Searcy from 1951 to 1956. Essentially, it is a modified plastic commode for a child that plays music when the seat and lid are put down; when closed, the seat compresses a pin and lever that activate a music box inside the Tinkle Pot. In order to play, the music box must first be wound by hand. The Tinkle Pot itself weighs between one and two pounds, and it also features a handle on the back of the toilet for easy carrying. Headlee had the idea to manufacture the Tinkle Pot for sale in his drug …

Tourist Camps, Tourist Courts, and Early Motels

Tourist camps and courts were a common form of lodging for travelers in the United States from the 1930s to the 1960s. The terms “tourist camp” and “tourist court” were used to describe both an individual cabin or room rented for the night and the business as a whole. In their early days, they typically consisted of stand-alone structures that looked and functioned like small houses, with as few as four units to rent. Those built during and after World War II were increasingly likely to be under a single roof in the form recognizable today as motels. Unlike earlier hotels that served mostly railroad passengers, tourist camps and courts evolved along roadways to accommodate the needs of the newly …

Turney Wood Products, Inc.

In 1946, Claude H. Turney opened Turney Wood Products, Inc. (TWP) in Harrison (Boone County). It began operation in a garage, building furniture for the First Church of the Nazarene in Harrison. For more than twenty years, TWP used hardwood lumber—mainly red and white oak—from the surrounding Ozark Mountain forests to manufacture laminated church furniture, including pews, altars, pulpits, and lecterns. According to a 1965 company newsletter, “Operating in every timber activity from the forest to the finished product…this company has become the largest exclusive church furniture manufacturer in the western hemisphere.” The company closed in 1968. In the mid-1950s, TWP employed more than 100 workers. The company eventually grew to employ more than 300, with three plants for different phases …

Tyson Foods, Inc.

Founded in 1935 in Springdale (Washington and Benton counties), Tyson Foods has emerged as one of Arkansas’s most prominent companies, employing more than 100,000 workers. By the end of the twentieth century, it had become one of the largest meat-processing companies in the world, with millions of customers in the United States and in more than eighty countries worldwide. Forbes magazine currently lists it as one of America’s 100 largest companies, and it continues to play a pivotal role in the state’s economy. Following the collapse of the fruit industry in northwest Arkansas in the late 1920s, many farmers turned to raising poultry as a source of income. The connection of Highway 71 to Midwest markets such as Kansas City, …

Union Saw Mill Company

The Union Saw Mill company, based in Huttig (Union County), was the creation of experienced timbermen in St. Louis, Missouri, and Lufkin, Texas. The stockholders of the company first met in December 1902 in Little Rock (Pulaski County). Clarence Dean Johnson (1866–1940) of St. Louis was elected president and general manager, and Edwin Ambrose Frost (1869–1950) of Lufkin was elected vice president. The name of the company probably derived from the location of most of the timber: Union County, Arkansas, and Union Parish, Louisiana. Union Saw Mill’s first pine mill began operating in 1904. The year before, the company had also begun construction on a town next to the mill site. The town was named after C. H. Huttig, one …

University of Arkansas Press (UA Press)

Established in May 1980, the University of Arkansas Press (UA Press) serves as the publishing house of the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County) for scholars in history, sciences, and creative writing. Over the years, the press has garnered a reputation for publishing the poetry of former U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins, as well as several books by former president Jimmy Carter. In December 1980, in an effort to provide a venue for scholars to publish their work, the press formally opened its doors at the renovated McIlroy House on the edge of campus; a stylized depiction of this house became the press’s logo. Founded by renowned Arkansas poet Miller Williams, along with noted historian and former UA …

Vaden Records

Vaden Records, based in Trumann (Poinsett County), started as a mail-order company featuring gospel music. It soon grew into a regional studio that released music by such blues and early rock and roll artists as Bobby Brown, Teddy Riedel, Larry Donn, and many others who went on to regional and national fame. In the early 1950s, husband and wife Arlen and Jackie Vaden of Trumann were singing gospel music all over northeastern Arkansas in a group called the Southern Gospel Singers. They also started singing on local radio stations in Osceola (Mississippi County) and Blytheville (Mississippi County) and soon branched out to stations in other states, such as XREF in Del Rio, Texas, and XEG Radio in Fort Worth, Texas; XREF …

Van Winkle’s Mill

Van Winkle’s Mill was a series of gristmills and sawmills operated by Peter Van Winkle near Rogers (Benton County) before and after the Civil War. The Van Winkle Mill Site, which became part of Hobbs State Park-Conservation Area, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on November 15, 2007. Peter Van Winkle was born on February 25, 1814, in New York City. He purchased land in Washington County in 1835 and, by 1850, was in business as a farmer, blacksmith, and wagon maker. Within a year, he had established a mill in Benton County. His first mill was powered by oxen and then by horses, and in 1856 he moved his operation to Van Hollow and used a …

Velvatex College of Beauty Culture

In 1926, M. E. Patterson of Little Rock (Pulaski County) incorporated Velvatex College of Beauty Culture, then known as Velvatex Beauty College, which was the state’s only approved beauty school for people of color. (A history produced by the school, however, lists its beginning operation year as 1929.) The school was founded after Patterson, who had often done hairdressing in her home kitchen, chose to teach others the skills of the trade in a more formal educational setting—and to help men and women become entrepreneurs. Patterson dubbed the school “Velvatex” because she believed African-American hair emulated the feel of velvet. By the height of the Great Depression, many black-owned industries had taken a hit, but beauty salons were plentiful throughout …

Vertac

The Vertac site in Jacksonville (Pulaski County) is one of the nation’s worst hazardous waste sites and Arkansas’s most publicized Superfund site. Cleanup of the area after its abandonment by its corporate owner took more than a decade, and the name “Vertac” soon became synonymous in Arkansas with the fear of industrial pollution, similar to how New Yorkers view Love Canal. The Vertac site was originally part of the Arkansas Ordnance Plant (AOP), a World War II–era facility that manufactured various components of explosive devices, such as primers and detonators. In 1946, the federal government offered the AOP facilities for sale to private companies. The future Vertac site was purchased in 1948 by Reasor-Hill Company, which produced pesticides, as did …

Vestal Nursery

aka: J. W. Vestal & Son
The Vestal Nursery, based in the Baring Cross neighborhood of North Little Rock (Pulaski County), operated for more than 100 years, cultivating and shipping flowers across the United States. By the mid-twentieth century, it had one of the largest greenhouse spaces in the United States. Joseph Wysong Vestal, a Quaker horticulturist in Cambridge City, Indiana, grew and sold plants as early as 1855, following prior Vestal family advancements in horticultural technology. By 1860, J. W. Vestal was cultivating greenhouse flowers. As the Arkansas Democrat Magazine wrote, “From 300 square feet of glass, he made additions annually, thus being able to accumulate an astonishingly large variety of plants.” In 1861, Vestal began publishing an annual floral and vegetable catalogue first titled …

Vino’s

Vino’s, a pizza restaurant and music venue located at 921–923 West Seventh Street in Little Rock (Pulaski County), opened in 1990. It is Arkansas’s oldest brewpub. Investment bankers Henry Lee, Alan Vennes, and Bill Parodi purchased the 1909 Muswick Building at 923 West Seventh Street for $56,500 in 1990, intent on opening a business offering New York–style pizza and a variety of beers not commonly available in Little Rock. The building had previously housed the Urbi Et Orbi art gallery and later the DMZ punk rock club that catered to all-ages crowds. The new owners were schooled in pizza-making by the owners of Fellini’s in Atlanta, Georgia, and maintained the venue’s reputation as a location for fans of all ages …