Businesses

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Entry Category: Businesses - Starting with C

Cotham’s Mercantile

Cotham’s is a Little Rock (Pulaski County) restaurant that began as a country store in Scott (Pulaski and Lonoke counties). That mercantile became a restaurant in the 1980s, and the owners eventually opened a second location in downtown Little Rock. Known for its large “hubcap” burgers, catfish, Mississippi Mud pie, and other southern comfort food, it has been visited by well-known politicians and celebrities. The original location in Scott, which had become a landmark, burned down in 2017, but the Little Rock Cotham’s continued operating. Cotham’s mercantile was built in either 1912 or 1917, depending upon the source. For decades, it was a place where farmers and plantation owners could buy supplies. It also served for a time as a …

Cottage Courts Historic District

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 …

Courier-Index (Marianna)

The Courier-Index, a newspaper based in Marianna (Lee County), is the oldest continuous business operation in Lee County. The newspaper was the result of the consolidation of two older newspapers, the Marianna Index and the Lee County Courier. L. M. Benham published the first issue of the Marianna Index, the older of the two papers, on a Saturday in August 1874, using hand-set type and a hand-fed press. The debut issue stated, “We intend to have a paper that the people of our county will not be ashamed of, and that all, someday, may feel proud of it.” J. M. Thomas was the first editor. After only a few months of publication, Benham sold the paper to Hutton, Anderson & …

Cove Tourist Court

The Cove Tourist Court is located on the corner of Park Avenue and Cove Street in Hot Springs (Garland County). Constructed in 1937, the court is designed in the International style with Craftsman-style details. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on February 11, 2004. The thermal waters found in Hot Springs have made the area an attractive destination for visitors for centuries. The widespread adoption of automobiles in the early twentieth-century, coupled with the improvements made to highways in Arkansas, made it easier than ever for tourists to reach Hot Springs in the 1930s. In response to the growing demand for lodging in the area, numerous tourist courts and other amenities were built along Park Avenue. …

Cowie Wine Cellars

On August 17, 1967, Cowie Wine Cellars was established as a federal and state bonded winery in Paris (Logan County), fulfilling the lifelong passion of founder Robert Cowie, who had begun making wine as a hobby at age fifteen. Cowie Wine Cellars remained, by choice of its founder, the smallest winery in the state, though it won a number of state and national awards, in particular for its Cynthiana and Robert’s Port. Robert Cowie built his winery, originally a small metal building, on the former property of St. Ann’s School, just west of Paris at Carbon City, in 1969. Three years later, his family was able to build a house on the property and move to the winery site, and …

Cromwell Architects Engineers, Inc.

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 …

Crossett Lumber Company

The Crossett Lumber Company (CLC) was Arkansas’s largest and most influential lumber company from its founding in 1899 until its merger with the Georgia-Pacific Company in 1962. It is notable for its growth alongside the company town of Crossett (Ashley County) and its early use of sustained-yield forestry in collaboration with Yale University’s School of Forestry. On May 16, 1899, Charles W. Gates, Edward Savage Crossett, and Dr. John W. Watzek—all from Davenport, Iowa—founded the Crossett Lumber Company in Ashley County in southeast Arkansas and Morehouse Parish in northern Louisiana. Stockholders named them president, vice president, and treasurer of the board of directors, respectively. Their first action was the purchase of 47,000 acres of land from the Michigan investment firm …

Crystal Bathhouse

The Crystal Bathhouse in Hot Springs (Garland County) was the first purpose-built bathhouse to exclusively serve the needs of African Americans in Arkansas. It opened in 1904 and became a destination for those who were attracted to the nationally known thermal waters of the Spa City during the era of the Jim Crow segregated South. The Crystal Bathhouse was located at 415 Malvern Avenue on Block 66 in the black business district of town. Two local contractors, Michael H. Jodd and Albert P. Aldrich, built the bathhouse. They chose architect John McCaslin to design a two-story brick building with parlors, dressing rooms, cooling rooms, tubs, vapor cabinets, restrooms, and eleven rooms for lodging accommodations. Externally, the building had double-hung sash …

Crystal River Tourist Camp Historic District

aka: Crystal River Tourist Court
aka: Crystal River Cave and Court
The Crystal River Tourist Camp Historic District is perhaps the most unusual tourist court in the state, and one of the most unusual in the country. The striking exteriors have remained largely unchanged since the structures were built by a local businessman and a stone mason in 1934. The court surrounds the entrance to the Crystal River Cave, a popular gathering place for which the town of Cave City (Sharp and Independence counties) was named. The Crystal River Cave and Courts, as it is now called, no longer functions as lodging, although the property’s owners offer tours of the cave by appointment. The Crystal River Tourist Camp Historic District was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on June …