Entry Category: Foodways - Starting with O

The Dutch oven was adopted as the state historic cooking vessel to indicate the significance of the vessel in the Arkansas’s history. Dutch ovens were brought into the state by the explorers and early settlers and were in wide use by the early 1800s. By the time of statehood, most homes probably had Dutch ovens in use on their fireplaces. The Dutch oven is neither a pot nor a kettle. It is a cast iron vessel that has three legs to provide stable support and to provide space under the oven for coals to heat the oven from the bottom. The oven has a flat bottom and a tight-fitting lid to contain the heated pressure in the oven; the lid …

The Ohio Club at 336 Central Avenue in Hot Springs (Garland County) is considered Arkansas’s oldest continually operating bar. It was founded by John “Coffee” Williams and his nephew, Sam Watt, in 1905. It became a popular watering hole and meeting place for notorious figures such as Al Capone, Charles “Lucky” Luciano, and Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, as well as local legends like Owen “Owney” Madden and Arkansas gambling czar William Stokley Jacobs. The Ohio Club has never closed its doors despite bans on both gambling and alcohol. The Ohio Club was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as part of the Hot Springs Central Avenue Historic District on June 25, 1985. In 1905, Coffee Williams and Sam Watt …

The Old South Restaurant, located at 1330 East Main Street in Russellville (Pope County), was built in 1947 from a modular diner system and reflects the Art Moderne style of architecture. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on September 3, 1999. The building was destroyed by fire early in the morning of June 6, 2023. William Stell—a native of Hugo, Oklahoma—moved to Fort Smith (Sebastian County) in 1929 and founded the National Glass and Manufacturing Company, a firm that produced metalwork, fixtures, and furniture for department stores and restaurants. In the 1940s, Stell and company architect Glenn Pendergrass developed a modular diner system that the firm could mass produce. The prototype was constructed in Fort Smith …