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Riceland Foods

Riceland Foods, Inc., headquartered in Stuttgart (Arkansas County), is the world’s largest rice miller and rice marketer. It also operates one of the world’s largest rice mills, which is located in Jonesboro (Craighead County). Founded in 1921 as a farmers’ cooperative to market crops, Riceland is one of the top companies in Arkansas. It is the largest supplier of rice for the food industry in the United States, a major rice exporter to foreign countries, one of the nation’s largest grain storage companies, and is also one of the Mid-South’s largest soybean processors. In the late nineteenth century, most of America’s rice was grown in Louisiana. Around 1900, William H. Fuller from Carlisle (Lonoke County) went to Louisiana on a …

Rimrock Records

Rimrock Records was founded by country music artist Wayne Raney and his son, Zyndall, in Concord (Cleburne County) in 1961. It is said to be Arkansas’s first and only record-manufacturing company. It was located on Rimrock Road off Heber Springs Road just west of the point at which Highway 87 from Banner (Cleburne County) intersects with Highway 25 at Concord. Such luminaries as the Stanley Brothers and Red Smiley made records, both 45 RPM and LPs, for Rimrock, and Elvis Presley and Ike and Tina Turner did dubbing and studio work there in the early 1970s. Big-name celebrities were often flown in to the Batesville Regional Airport at Southside (Independence County), slipping into Concord at night unbeknownst to the media. …

Rock Town Distillery

Founded in 2010, Rock Town Distillery is “the first legal distillery of any kind in Arkansas since prohibition.” Its spirits are sold in at least sixteen states and in the United Kingdom. Its current lineup includes more than thirteen different spirits with names referencing the Natural State; all the grains needed to make their vodka, whiskey, and gin—such as corn, wheat, rye, and barley—are acquired from Arkansas farms. Rock Town Distillery has won numerous international awards, including the prestigious double-gold award at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition in March 2011. In 2015, Rock Town Distillery’s world-class Arkansas whiskey won the U.S. Micro Whiskey of the Year Award from Jim Murray’s Whiskey Bible. In 2009, Little Rock–based Alltel Communications, LLC, …

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 …

Roundtop Filling Station

The Roundtop Filling Station in Sherwood (Pulaski County), which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, was built in 1936 by the Pierce Oil Company. Pierce Oil was one of the “baby Standards” formed after the U.S. government ordered the breakup of John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company in 1911. Pierce operated gasoline stations in Arkansas, southern Missouri, western Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas, and Mexico. In 1936, Pierce Oil contracted with the Justin Matthews Company to construct a uniquely shaped gasoline station along U.S. Highway 67. With its mushroom-shaped roof and arched windows and doors, the Roundtop is anexample of the Mimetic/Programmatic architecture style common in smaller oil company station designs from the 1920s through the 1960s.It is believed …

Saline Courier

aka: Benton Courier
The Saline Courier (formerly known as the Benton Courier) is the largest and oldest newspaper in Saline County. The paper began its life as the Saline County Digest, established by Vermont native W. A. Webber in 1876, as the official mouthpiece of Saline County Democrats, although it later lost that affiliation. The Digest was published weekly in a seven-column folio with an average circulation of 1,000. In November 1882, the Digest changed hands for the first time. It was purchased by B. B. Beavers, who renamed it the Saline County Review; in November 1883, Colonel Samuel Houston Whitthorne bought Beavers’s interest in the paper and renamed it the Saline Courier. Whitthorne was the father-in-law of prominent Benton doctor Dr. Dewell …

Sentinel-Record

Hot Springs (Garland County) has had a number of newspapers come and go throughout its history. Local residents but also visitors to the Spa City from around the country have made up the readership of Hot Springs’ papers over the years. Between 1873 and 1883 alone, fifteen Hot Springs newspapers began and ended operation. This fact led Robert W. Leigh, historian of the Arkansas Press Association, to state in 1883, “Hot Springs has been the birthplace and burial ground of many a newspaper.” The Sentinel-Record (often abbreviated as S-R), the only local newspaper circulated daily throughout the area, remains as the last survivor of a series of newspaper mergers in Hot Springs. The first record of a local newspaper in …

Simmons First National Bank

Simmons First National Corporation is the largest publicly traded financial holding headquartered in Arkansas. By 2007, it had paid dividends for ninety-nine consecutive years and employed more than 1,000 people. It has total assets of nearly $8 billion. Founded by Dr. John Franklin Simmons, Simmons National Bank opened its doors for business at the corner of Main and Barraque streets in Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) on March 23, 1903, with four employees. First day deposits totaled $3,338.22. Simmons opened its trust department on June 5, 1922, and was one of the first Arkansas banks to reopen, without restrictions, after the federally imposed “bank holiday” in 1933, during the Great Depression. In 1937, the bank opened its personal loan department. The …

Skyline Cafe

The Skyline Cafe, located at 618 Mena Street in Mena (Polk County), is one of Arkansas’s oldest restaurants. It is one of Mena’s oldest businesses still in operation and lays claim to being the oldest eatery in town. Since opening its doors in 1922—though some sources indicate 1921—the Skyline Cafe has operated under various names, including Picchi’s, the Harvey Cafe, and the Skyline Cafe. However, its location has not changed in over a century. Originally opened by John Picchi, the restaurant was first named Picchi’s. It changed to the Skyline Cafe after the U.S. Forest Service began construction of Skyline Drive (which extends from Mena to the Queen Wilhelmina State Park at the top of Rich Mountain and serves as …

St. Louis Southwestern Railway

aka: Cotton Belt
The St. Louis Southwestern Railway began in Tyler, Texas, in 1875. Construction began in Arkansas in 1881. When completed in 1883, the railroad ran diagonally across the state from Texarkana (Miller County) to St. Francis (Clay County). In 1930, the company operated 712 miles of track in Arkansas. The Cotton Belt, as it was better known, would reach its peak mileage in the state in the early 1930s. By the middle to late 1930s, the Great Depression and declining passenger revenue led the railroad to begin abandonment of many of its subsidiary companies and branch lines. Southern Pacific Railroad gained control of the Cotton Belt in 1932 in an effort to gain connections to eastern markets at St. Louis, Missouri, …

St. Louis–San Francisco Railway

aka: Frisco
The St. Louis–San Francisco Railway Co. (SLSF), better known as the Frisco, was organized in 1876 in Missouri. By 1881, the company consisted of a handful of lines concentrated in central and southern Missouri but reaching to Wichita, Kansas; Vinita, Oklahoma; and Fayetteville (Washington County), Arkansas. Although the Frisco never built into the heart of Arkansas, its feeder lines across northwestern and northeastern Arkansas connected communities with other lines across the state as well as the markets throughout the nation, allowing development of agricultural resources, industrial hubs, and resort communities on the periphery of the state. The Frisco was built on remnants of the older Atlantic and Pacific Railroad, acquiring right of way and trackage in Missouri and Indian Territory (present-day …

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 …

Walmart Inc.

aka: Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
Founded in 1962 by Sam Walton, Walmart Inc., the world’s most profitable retail outlet for many years, also became the largest employer in the United States, with more than one million employees (called “associates”) and thousands of stores worldwide. For most of its history, it has been closely identified with its founder, whose homespun image often belied the aggressive, innovative business model he developed. Born near Kingfisher, Oklahoma, on March 29, 1918, Walton grew up during the Depression, working on his family’s farm and at a number of other jobs. After graduating from the University of Missouri at Columbia, he took a job in Des Moines, Iowa, as a management trainee for clothing retailer J. C. Penney, earning seventy-five dollars …

WEHCO Media, Inc.

WEHCO Media, Inc., of Little Rock (Pulaski County) is a privately owned communications company with interests in newspaper publishing, cable television, and digital services. Established in 1909, it operates daily and weekly newspapers, magazines, and cable television companies in six states. WEHCO (pronounced WAY-CO) is an acronym for Walter E. Hussman Company. The company chairman is Walter E. Hussman Jr., who also serves as publisher of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, the company’s largest newspaper. Hussman is the grandson of Clyde E. Palmer, whose media holdings formed the basis of WEHCO, and the son of newspaper publisher Walter Hussman Sr. The company has almost 2,000 employees. In a history of his family for the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association, Hussman wrote: “In 1909, …

Weldon Gin Company Historic District

The Weldon Gin Company Historic District is listed on the National Register of Historic Places for its association with the farming economy of the town of Weldon (Jackson County), as well as for being the only example of cotton gin architecture and technology in Weldon. By the late antebellum period, Alvin McDonald was farming more than 900 acres just south of the current town of Weldon. Survey maps and federal land records of the period show that McDonald paid $1.25 an acre for just over 930 acres. As was the case with many of his peers in Jackson County, McDonald’s farm income was supplemented rather than supported by cotton. Smaller farmers who could not afford to build their own gin depended …

White Bluff Generating Plant

The White Bluff Generating Plant is a coal-fired electrical energy generating plant located near Redfield (Jefferson County) and operated by Entergy Arkansas. It was the first coal-fired plant constructed in Arkansas and one of four in operation. Until the early 1970s, electricity, gasoline, and natural gas had been cheap and apparently in plentiful supply in the United States, but the first Arab oil embargo quickly drove energy prices up sharply, causing immediate gas and oil shortages. Energy suppliers, including electric utilities, had already begun to plan for the use of alternative fuel sources. For example, Arkansas Power and Light (AP&L—now Entergy Arkansas) had begun construction of two large nuclear fuel generators near Russellville (Pope County). At this point, however, there …

White County Record

The White County Record was one of the longest-running newspapers in White County. Published in Judsonia (White County), it operated for almost one hundred years. Surprisingly for a paper with such a long history, it had few ownership changes. When the paper closed in 2014, it had a long record of solid news reporting. Ralph C. Mann Sr. purchased the Judsonia Weekly Advance newspaper in 1915 and ran it as a Democratic paper until 1920. After purchasing the paper, Mann installed new printing machinery, including a cylinder press and linotype machine, and was able to increase his subscribers by the hundreds. In 1921, Mann changed the Weekly Advance to an independent affiliation and, in 1922, began publishing on Thursdays instead …

White Water Tavern

The White Water Tavern is a two-story bar and music venue located at 2500 West 7th Street in the Capitol View/Stifft Station area of Little Rock (Pulaski County). White Water, as it is usually called, has become one of the most beloved and respected music venues in Arkansas. Run in the spirit of classic southern juke joints and honky-tonks, it has hosted many of the best musicians working today, especially those in the country and alt-country or outlaw genre. Over the years, White Water expanded its roster to include hip-hop and heavy metal acts. The history of White Water dates back to the late 1970s, when it replaced the Pitcher, a bar that had been at the site for decades. …

Wiederkehr Wine Cellars, Inc.

Wiederkehr Wine Cellars is the oldest operational winery in the state, having been continually in business from 1880 to present. During Prohibition, when wine was outlawed, Wiederkehr was allowed by the state to produce sacramental wine for use in religious services. This winery was founded in the late nineteenth century by Johann Adreas Wiederkehr, an immigrant from Switzerland who settled in Altus (Franklin County), which he found similar to his own homeland and ideal for growing grapes; it is now one of the largest wineries in the region and is well regarded throughout the nation for the quality of its wines. One of the first things that Johann Wiederkehr did after he arrived in Altus was to start construction on …

Winrock Farms

As the brainchild of Winthrop Rockefeller, who was governor of Arkansas from 1967 to 1971, Winrock Farms holds a unique place in the history and culture of Arkansas, serving as a model facility to demonstrate agricultural practices as well as becoming a tourist destination. Since its founding in 1953, Winrock Farms, located on Petit Jean Mountain near Morrilton (Conway County), has been known for producing purebred Santa Gertrudis and Red Angus cattle. In addition, Winrock Grass Farm was created in 1955 to introduce a new type of turfgrass that was said to be ideal for cultivation in the Mid-America region.   Born in New York City to the wealthy Rockefeller family, Winthrop Rockefeller was the fifth of six children. He was …

Wittenberg, Delony & Davidson Architects

Wittenberg, Delony and Davidson Architects (WD&D) is the firm responsible for some of Arkansas’s most noteworthy buildings, including Little Rock (Pulaski County) landmarks such as Little Rock Central High School, Robinson Auditorium, and the Regions Bank Building. George H. Wittenberg and Lawson L. Delony formed a partnership in Little Rock in 1919 under the name Wittenberg and Delony, Architects. The firm is still active in the twenty-first century and is the oldest continuing architecture firm in Arkansas that has kept essentially the same name. (The only name change was when Julian Davidson became a partner in 1946.) Either alone or in association with other firms, it has designed many award-winning projects throughout Arkansas and the nation. Wittenberg and Delony were …

Yarnell’s Ice Cream Company

Yarnell’s Ice Cream Company, headquartered in Searcy (White County), maintained operations through four generations of the Yarnell family from 1932 to 2011. The only ice cream-producing company in Arkansas, it had branches in Fort Smith (Sebastian County), Hot Springs (Garland County), Paragould (Greene County), Texarkana (Miller County), and West Memphis (Crittenden County). The company closed amid bankruptcy in 2011, but was purchased in 2012 by Schulze and Burch Biscuit Co. and relaunched in April 2012. The predecessor of Yarnell’s, the Grisham Ice Cream Company, produced Grisham’s Angel Food Ice Cream. Grisham was headquartered at Searcy in 1923, though it had plants in McGehee (Desha County) and Morrilton (Conway County). The company merged in 1927 with the Terry Dairy Co., which had locations …

Zero Mountain

Zero Mountain, Inc., founded in Johnson (Washington County) in 1955, is a company specializing in cold storage. It provides 30 million cubic feet of controlled-temperature storage to companies like Cargill, Simmons, Walmart Inc., Tyson, and ConAgra. It is the only company of its type in Arkansas. The idea for a sub-zero processing and storage vault in northwest Arkansas took hold when George Bazore Sr., a local businessman, visited a Kansas City cold storage facility in 1951. Bazore, C. A. Stump, Joseph Rumsey, and Price Dickson worked for four years to create the facility. Bazore had attended the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County) and was familiar with the area’s hills and valleys. When he saw an abandoned limestone …