Historians and Historic Organizations

Subcategories:
  • No categories
Clear

Entry Category: Historians and Historic Organizations

Dickinson, Samuel Dorris

Samuel Dorris Dickinson was an archaeologist, historian, journalist, linguist, and college instructor. He was one of the early academically trained archaeologists to work and teach in Arkansas. He was a participant in the development of the field of archaeology in the United States, when few who worked as archaeologists had college degrees. He was an editor at the Arkansas Gazette, Arkansas Democrat, and Shreveport Journal for nearly thirty years. Dickinson was a well-known collector of antiques from the early territorial period of Arkansas. He also acquired folk art, religious art, books, paintings, and fossils. Dickinson published widely on his archaeological and historical research in a number of regional professional journals. Sam Dickinson was born on February 26, 1912, in Prescott …

Division of Arkansas Heritage

DAH was created in 1975 to preserve and promote Arkansas’s natural and cultural heritage as a source of pride and enjoyment for all. The original legislation named the agency the Department of Arkansas Natural and Cultural Heritage and grouped together culturally oriented agencies in one department. The agency’s name was changed to the Department of Arkansas Heritage in 1985, and then to the Division of Arkansas Heritage in 2019. DAH consists of a number of agencies, each with its own special contributions, and a director’s office, which manages general administrative and marketing operations. The agencies are the Arkansas Arts Council (AAC), which seeks to advance the arts in Arkansas; the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program (AHPP), which manages the state’s historic …

Drew County Historical Society

The Drew County Historical Society owns and operates the Drew County Museum, the Drew County Archives, and the Drew County Historical Journal. It also hosts periodic meetings offering presentations about Drew County history. The Drew County Historical Society was founded on June 15, 1959, by a group of people interested in preserving the heritage of Drew County. Eric and Lurene Hardy are credited with providing early leadership for the organization and putting forth significant effort toward developing a museum for the purposes of housing and displaying artifacts that tell the story of Drew County history. The Drew County Historical Society was incorporated as a non-profit organization on March 4, 1969. In 1970, the society purchased the historic Cavaness House from …

Eno, Clara Bertha

Clara Bertha Eno has been called Arkansas’s first lady of history. She devoted her life to researching and recording Arkansas history and collecting Arkansas archival material. Her three published works are History of the Arkansas Federation of Women’s Clubs 1897–1934 (1935), with Frances Marion (Mrs. Frederick) Hanger, Historic Places in Arkansas (1940), and History of Crawford County, Arkansas (1950). During the 1920s and 1930s, she authored numerous historical newspaper articles. In 1940, she compiled Information of Fifty-Five Revolutionary [War] Soldiers buried in Arkansas. Although never published, it has long been a mainstay for early Arkansas research. Eno was born on February 14, 1854, in Van Buren (Crawford County), the daughter of Ellen Ward Eno and Jonathan Adams Eno. Her father …

Farrar, Clayton Ponder (Clay), Jr.

Clayton Ponder (Clay) Farrar Jr. was a longtime civic leader in Hot Springs (Garland County) as well as a respected historian and writer. He served as president of the Greater Hot Springs Chamber of Commerce, along with the nonprofit Hot Springs Fifty for the Future program, a public service organization he co-founded. Farrar championed efforts to revitalize Hot Springs National Park and led the drive to save it from being reclassified to a lower rank in the National Park Service, a designation that would have had a negative impact on the Hot Springs community. Farrar also helped secure federal funds to develop the National Park Visitor Center on historic Bathhouse Row in Hot Springs. Farrar’s most recent campaign was to …

Faulkner County Historical Society (FCHS)

The Faulkner County Historical Society (FCHS), sponsored by the Conway Chamber of Commerce, was organized on April 16, 1959, with forty-two charter members. The society’s purposes are “to discover, collect and preserve any material to establish or illustrate the history of our area and to make it available.” The original officers for this group were George Hartje Jr. (president), Victor Hill (vice president), and Guy Murphy (secretary-treasurer). The first directors were Myrtle Charles, Joyce Herndon, and James Clayton. After the society’s founding, a contest was conducted to name the society’s journal. Combined suggestions by James Clayton and Guy W. Murphy, both long-time local historians, resulted in the title Faulkner Facts and Fiddlings. As of 2010, the FCHS has published two …

Ferguson, Jim, Sr.

aka: James Garland Ferguson Sr.
The Marshall (Searcy County) library owes its existence to James Garland Ferguson Sr., a man with roots in the Ozark Plateau. This son of homesteaders who valued education above all else, having worked hard to secure an excellent education and great wealth for himself, made generous contributions to several local schools and churches, Arkansas Baptist Hospital and St. Vincent Infirmary in Little Rock (Pulaski County), and several colleges, including scholarships to the University of Arkansas School of Law in Fayetteville (Washington County) and Hendrix College in Conway (Faulkner County). But to the people of his home county, he gave a library and, with it, an educational opportunity in a rural environment. Jim Ferguson was born on February 26, 1885, in …

Ferguson, John Lewis

John Lewis Ferguson—historian, minister, author, archival administer, and historic preservationist—served as Arkansas state historian and the director of the Arkansas State Archives (previous called the Arkansas History Commission) from 1960 to 2005, only the third person to hold that position since 1905. His forty-five-year tenure was the longest in the agency’s history. John Ferguson was born on March 1, 1926, on a farm near Nashville (Howard County) to farmer and World War I veteran Clarence Walter Ferguson and his wife, Nannye N. McCrary Ferguson. As a child attending the rural York’s Chapel School, he read every history book he could find. Early on, he decided to pursue a career in history. He graduated from Nashville High School in 1944. In 1951, he was …

Fernandez, Josie

Josie Fernandez was superintendent of Hot Springs National Park from 2004 to 2018—the first woman to lead the park. Fernandez served a total of twenty-five years in the National Park Service, with fourteen being spent in Hot Springs (Garland County). Under Fernandez’s leadership, Hot Springs National Park rehabilitated its historic bathhouses and founded community engagement programs such as the Artist in Residence Program. Josie Fernandez was born in Cuba in September 1956; she has one younger brother. Her family eventually fled Cuba for political reasons and immigrated to the United States when she was twelve, settling in Hialeah, Florida, in 1969. She became an American citizen on July 4, 1976. She spent one year at Miami Dade Junior College and …

Fordyce, John Rison

The son of Hot Springs (Garland County) entrepreneur and Cotton Belt Railroad president Samuel Wesley Fordyce, John Rison Fordyce forged his own way into Arkansas history. He was educated as a mining engineer but was also an inventor, manufacturer, leader in commerce, public servant, and amateur archaeologist. John R. Fordyce was born in Huntsville, Alabama, on November 7, 1869. He moved to the health resort of Hot Springs at age five with his father and mother, Susan Chadick, after his father, suffering from malaria contracted during the Civil War, found renewed health in the local thermal springs. The third of five children, Fordyce—along with his three surviving siblings—was educated in Hot Springs schools. His father was instrumental in Hot Springs’ …

Fort Smith Historical Society

The express purpose of the Fort Smith Historical Society (FSHS) is to locate, identify, collect, and preserve historical data; to record oral history; and to publish source materials and historical articles relating to Fort Smith (Sebastian County) and the surrounding area. The society is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, staffed by volunteers and funded entirely by memberships and contributions. A small group of people concerned with preserving the written and oral history of Fort Smith held the organizational meeting of the Fort Smith Historical Society on April 15, 1977. The first issue of The Journal of the Fort Smith Historical Society, Inc., was published in September 1977, with Amelia Martin and state Representative Carolyn Pollan serving as co-editors. The FSHS publishes …

Garland County Historical Society

The Garland County Historical Society (GCHS) was organized on April 19, 1960, to preserve and encourage interest in the history of Garland County. The first officers were John Connelly, president; Mary D. Hudgins, vice president; Capitola Glazner, secretary; Dr. Francis J. Scully, treasurer; and Sam Sargo, Nathan Schoenfeld, and Katherine Creason, who formed the board of governors. The same year it was founded, the society published the first volume of its journal, The Record. Originally a quarterly, The Record is now a yearly publication that has won numerous awards from the Arkansas Historical Association. Inez Cline served as the editor of The Record from 1963 to 1986 and as associate editor from 1987 to 1988. The historical material she gathered …

Gatewood, Willard Badgett, Jr.

Willard Badgett Gatewood Jr. was a nationally recognized scholar and longtime professor of history at the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County). He also served briefly as chancellor of the university. Gatewood was the author of numerous books, most dealing with African-American and southern history. Willard B. Gatewood was born on February 23, 1931, on a farm on the Park Springs Road in Caswell County, North Carolina. His parents were Willard B. Gatewood, who was a tobacco farmer, and Bessie Pryor Gatewood. He received his BA, MA, and PhD in history at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. He began his college teaching career at East Tennessee State University in 1957, and it was there that he met …

Glade Community Historical Society

The Glade Community Historical Society (GCHS) was incorporated on November 14, 2011, to preserve the history of the rural northwestern Arkansas area of Glade (Benton County). The nonprofit GCHS is a 501(c)(3) charity. The purpose of the Glade Community Historical Society is to promote the recounting, recording, publishing, preserving, and disseminating of historical matter of the Glade community and surrounding communities. The mission is to collect histories and artifacts that represent the lives of earlier generations who lived in the area. Dr. Anita Frevert was its first president. Along with board members, Frevert established phases and goals for the organization. Board members meet at least eight times a year, with four educational meetings for the public each year. A minimum …

Glenn, Harold Virgil

Dr. Harold Virgil Glenn was an osteopathic physician in Stuttgart (Arkansas County) whose decades-long efforts in historic preservation and civic leadership made a lasting impact on the region and the state. Harold V. Glenn was born on June 1, 1900, near Allendale, Missouri, the son of Frank Howard Glenn and Naomi Showalter Glenn. His family relocated in 1904 to Stuttgart, where his father had responded to a call for more doctors in the area by setting up an osteopathic practice. Glenn served in the U.S. Army at the end of World War I. Glenn’s father graduated in 1904 from the American School of Osteopathy (ASO)—later renamed A. T. Still University—in Kirksville, Missouri, having studied under the founder of osteopathy, A. …

Grand Prairie Historical Society

The Grand Prairie Historical Society (GPHS) was founded in 1953 to preserve the Grand Prairie area’s rich abundant history and make others aware of this heritage. Among the founders were Reverend Lawrence Maus, J. E. Howard, John M. Henderson, Lillian C. Young, Ballard Deane, Dr. Harold V. Glenn, Garner Allen, Grover C. Carnes, and Arthur Macom. The group adopted a constitution stating the society’s purpose as promoting the history and historical records of the Grand Prairie, marking historical sites, encouraging tours, and informing the public of the society’s work. Publication of the Grand Prairie Historical Bulletin has played a major role in achieving the society’s objective of collecting and preserving data on the early history of Arkansas County and the …

Gulley, Louis Corneil

Louis Corneil Gulley was a civil servant and avid collector whose efforts helped the Arkansas History Commission (now the Arkansas State Archives) amass significant collections of territorial and early state documents, as well as artifacts of World War I. Born in Jacksonport (Jackson County) on April 1, 1871, Louis C. Gulley was the eldest of eleven children of Ransom and Louanna Gulley. Gulley’s father was a prominent public figure in late nineteenth-century Arkansas. In 1898, he graduated with a law degree from Arkansas Industrial University in Fayetteville (Washington County), now the University of Arkansas (UA). He served briefly as boys’ supervisor at the Arkansas School for the Blind in 1899. That same year, Gulley opened a bookstore with a partner …

Hallum, John

John Hallum was a prominent nineteenth-century Arkansas lawyer and historian. His efforts to record and illuminate the territory and state’s early history provided a highly readable introduction to the state’s heritage, while laying a solid foundation for future historians. John Hallum was born on January 16, 1833, in Sumner County, Tennessee, the oldest of eleven children of Bluford Hallum and Minerva Davis Hallum. Shortly after he was born, the family moved, and Hallum spent his early years on a farm near Memphis, Tennessee. He reportedly learned how to read from the local newspaper, the Memphis Appeal, and was a voracious reader from an early age. When the family moved back to Sumner County, he received sporadic schooling in a log …

Herndon, Dallas Tabor

Dallas Tabor Herndon, father of the archival movement in Arkansas, was the first director of the Arkansas State Archives (previously called the Arkansas History Commission). From 1911 until his death in 1953, he labored tirelessly to preserve manuscripts and other material relating to Arkansas history and culture. Dallas Herndon was born on August 28, 1878, the son of John Alpheus and Mary Mildred Brown Herndon, farmers who lived in Elberton, Georgia. He received his BS and MS degrees in history and political science from Alabama Polytechnic Institute (now Auburn University) in 1902 and 1903, respectively. After four years of teaching at Mobile and Auburn, Alabama, he entered the University of Chicago, where he worked toward a PhD in history and English …

Holley, Donald

Donald Holley was a historian, author, and longtime professor at the University of Arkansas at Monticello (UAM). His scholarship generally focused on agricultural history in Arkansas in the twentieth century. He was given a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Arkansas Historical Association in 2007. James Donald Holley was born on February 24, 1940, in Vernon, Alabama, to the Reverend William Albert Holley and Wilma Harris Holley. His parents were from Alabama, but the family lived in Texas for a time when Holley was young. He eventually moved to Louisiana, where he finished his education. On August 14, 1962, Holley married Bankie Rae Hollis at a Church of Christ in Ruston, Louisiana. The couple had two children together. Holley received his …

Hot Spring County Historical Society

Since the late 1960s, the Hot Spring County Historical Society has worked to preserve the county’s history and culture through writing, publishing, and teaching. It also publishes an annual journal and hosts activities. The organization incorporated in 1968 with seventy-six charter members and two corporate members. As of 2012, the organization has a membership roster of more than 400. When the organization established its articles of incorporation in January 1968, it did not have a physical home. Its main office was listed in care of the first president, William C. Gilliam, at his office on West 2nd Street in Malvern (Hot Spring County). Since its inception, the organization has stored some items in a portable storage building and has held its …

Hudgins, Mary Dengler

Mary Dengler Hudgins was a prolific writer of regional history in Arkansas. Her research and writing led her to amass an exceptional collection of publications and historical materials that document the history of Garland County, its county seat of Hot Springs, and the state of Arkansas. Mary Hudgins was born in Hot Springs on November 24, 1901. She was the only child of Jackson Wharton and Ida Dengler Hudgins. Her father worked in the real estate business, and her mother was a teacher. She attended public schools in Hot Springs and then attended the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington Couny), where she majored in English and served as a reporter for the Arkansas Traveler, UA’s student newspaper. After graduating with …

Independence County Historical Society

The Independence County Historical Society was founded in June 1959 by a small group of people interested in researching, preserving, and telling the history of Independence County, its seat Batesville, and the other small communities in the area. There had been an earlier attempt at organizing, led by John Quincy Wolf Jr., but the society got its real start after A. C. McGinnis, John P. Morrow Jr., and Paul Wayland, all of Batesville, attended the Arkansas Historical Association annual meeting in Monticello (Drew County) in 1959. There, James Harris Atkinson, then chairman of the Arkansas History Commission (now called the Arkansas State Archives), told them the way to start a county society was for three interested citizens to get together, declare …

Izard County Historical and Genealogical Society

Discussions concerning the formation of a historical society for Izard County began in the summer of 1969 after interested individuals Margaret Ghelfi, Audrey Brooks, and Helen Lindley began to promote such a group to preserve the history of the local area. An organizational meeting was held at the Trimble Campground Church in Dolph (Izard County) on the last Sunday in November, with about thirty-three people in attendance. A second organizational meeting was held in Melbourne (Izard County), where the Izard County Historical Society was formed. Its major goal was publishing a quarterly magazine, and the first issue of the Izard County Historian was published in January 1970 with Helen Lindley as editor. Eighty-three charter members elected Tom Simpson president. Quarterly …

Jackson County Historical Society

The Jackson County Historical Society (JCHS) was created primarily in response to the planned destruction of the county’s old courthouse at Jacksonport (Jackson County). In late 1961, an organizational meeting for a historical society was called. At this meeting, it was announced that the former courthouse at Jacksonport would be razed for the bricks. Lady Elizabeth Luker, whose ancestors were among the founders of that old river town, became the face of the fledgling historical society and led the way for the restoration of the old courthouse for use as a museum. The Jackson County Historical Society was formally chartered in April 1962 at Newport (Jackson County), with Luker as the first president. While the JCHS was interested in preserving …

Jefferson County Historical Society

The Jefferson County Historical Society officially began on August 20, 1961, when a group of twenty-five people attended an organizational meeting at the Simmons Bank Community Center in downtown Pine Bluff (Jefferson County). At the meeting, David W. Wallis was elected temporary chairman and Hilda Metz was elected temporary secretary. A committee consisting of David Perdue, Bess Jenkins, and Jerry Fuess was appointed to nominate officers of the society. On September 10, the society met again and elected its first group of officers: Sam M. Levine, president; David Wallis, first vice president; Bess Jenkins, second vice president; and Edwin Boles, secretary-treasurer. A constitution and bylaws were also established at this meeting. The first issue of the Jefferson County Historical Quarterly …

Johnson County Historical Society

The Johnson County Historical Society is an organization with a mission “to promote individual and general interest in the history of Johnson County by locating, collecting, and preserving pertinent information, either by written records, photography, or other permanent media.” The society operates the Heritage Center and Museum at 131 West Main Street in Clarksville (Johnson County). Nine people gathered in 1974 to form the Johnson County Historical Society, and Dr. Robert Basham served as the first president (1974–1975). Membership has since grown to approximately 200 members—from Johnson County and around the United States. As of 2011, the president is Mark Hodge, who has served in that role since 2009. Other officers include a vice president, a recording secretary, a corresponding …

Lampkin, Sheilla Joyce Ezelle

Sheilla Lampkin was a state representative from Monticello (Drew County) who served in the Eighty-eighth, Eighty-ninth, and Ninetieth Arkansas General Assemblies from 2011 to 2016.  Sheilla Joyce Ezelle was born on August 23, 1945, in Rohwer, an unincorporated community in Desha County, to Lettie Lucille McIntyre Ezelle and James Edward Ezelle. She received her early education in the Desha Central Schools and graduated as salutatorian from Dumas High School. In 1966, Ezelle graduated magna cum laude from the Arkansas Agricultural and Mechanical College (now the University of Arkansas at Monticello) with a BS in education degree in social studies, and in 1981, she earned a master’s degree in special education from the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County).   Ezelle, who had wanted to be a teacher since she was six years old, began her classroom career immediately after graduation. While teaching at McGehee Elementary School in McGehee (Desha County) in 1967, she married Damon Ray Lampkin, who ran …

Lankford, George E.

George Emerson Lankford III was a noted multi-field scholar and longtime professor at Lyon College in Batesville (Independence County). He published a number of books and articles on everything from Native American folklore to the history of slavery in Arkansas and was an important leader in the Independence County Historical Society. George Lankford was born in Birmingham, Alabama, on August 18, 1938, to Elaine Jordan Lankford and George Emerson Lankford Jr. His father was a white-collar worker for an oil company, and his mother was a homemaker. Lankford graduated from high school at El Dorado (Union County) in 1956 and received a Bachelor of Arts in journalism in 1960 from Louisiana State University and a Bachelor of Divinity in 1963 …

LeMaster, Carolyn Gray

Carolyn Gray LeMaster was the leading chronicler of Jewish life in Arkansas, through books, articles, and lectures, especially her book A Corner of the Tapestry: A History of the Jewish Experience in Arkansas, 1820s–1990s. Carolyn Gray was born in Little Rock (Pulaski County) on December 17, 1927, to Elisha Columbus Gray, who was a railroad engineer and brakeman, and Erma White Gray, a homemaker. She left high school after the tenth grade to help support her family and care for her widowed mother. She married Robert W. LeMaster, a hospital executive in Little Rock. They had four children. After the children were grown, LeMaster enrolled in 1975 at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UALR), where she graduated magna …