Entries - Entry Category: Local

Pike, Annie Zachary

Annie Zachary Pike is a farmer and community activist from Phillips County who became the first African-American appointee to a state board and was later appointed to a variety of federal organizations by President Richard M. Nixon. Annie Ruth Davidson was born on May 12, 1931, in Big Creek in Phillips County to Mississippi-born farmer Cedel Davidson and native Arkansan Carrie Washington Davidson. She was first educated at Trenton Elementary School in Trenton (Phillips County). Later, she attended the Consolidated White River Academy (CWRA), a co-educational boarding school founded in Monroe County by black Baptists in 1893. While at CWRA in the mid-to-late 1940s, Davidson was class secretary and president. She also played baseball and basketball and was a member …

Pittman, Jennie Carr

Jennie Carr Pittman was one of Arkansas’s most prominent and influential figures in the campaign to secure the prohibition of alcohol in the United States. A major force in the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), the nation’s largest temperance organization, she played a substantive role—at both the state and national level—in the group’s ultimately successful effort to help enact the Eighteenth Amendment. Jennie Carr was born on December 26, 1858 (some sources have it as 1856), in Fredonia—later called Biscoe (Prairie County)—to Charles Turner Carr and his second wife, Susan Wesley Capehart Carr. Not much is known about her youth. While she was christened Mildred Jane, she later went by the name Jennie Mildred Carr until her marriage. On her …

Pocahontas Post Office (Historic)

The historic Pocahontas Post Office is a one-story, brick-masonry building built between 1936 and 1937. Located a few blocks away from the historic downtown square of Pocahontas (Randolph County), this building served as the post office for the area until 1986, when post office operations moved to new facilities. The old post office was built in the Art Deco style, which was a common form of architecture for Works Progress Administration (WPA) post offices at that time. This style of architecture is represented by vertical pilasters and brick segments with stylized ornamental decorations within the pilasters. Pocahontas got its first post office after the town was voted the Randolph County seat in 1835. By 1936, that original post office building …

Pollan, Carolyn

Carolyn Pollan, a longtime Republican officeholder, served twelve two-year terms and twenty-four years in the Arkansas House of Representatives, making her both the longest-serving Republican and longest-serving woman in Arkansas House history. Carolyn Joan Clark was born on July 12, 1937, in Houston, Texas, to Rex Clark and Faith Basye Clark. After years working in the oil fields in Texas, Rex Clark moved his family to Springdale (Washington and Benton counties), where he worked in the poultry business. Carolyn Clark graduated from Springdale High School (where one of her teachers was former legislator Helen Buchanan) in 1955 and then went on to what later became John Brown University, a private Christian college in Siloam Springs (Benton County). She graduated in …

Purtle, John Ingram

John Ingram Purtle was a populist lawyer and politician who spent eleven tempestuous years as a justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court late in the twentieth century. Purtle—who was called “the Great Dissenter” in a law review article after his death—resigned from the court in 1989 because of enduring conflicts with his fellow justices, most of whom he said had judicial philosophies that were “not in harmony” with his own. Four years before his resignation, Purtle had been charged in an arson-for-profit scheme with his legal secretary and another person, but he was acquitted in a jury trial. John Purtle was born on September 7, 1923, the middle child of nine children of John Wesley Purtle and Edna Gertrude Ingram …

Quorum Courts

Each of the seventy-five counties of Arkansas is governed by a quorum court. Members of the quorum court are called justices of the peace. They are chosen by the voters of their county in the general election in November of every even-numbered year. Quorum courts are described in Article 7 of the Arkansas constitution. They “sit with and assist the County Judge in levying the county taxes, and in making appropriations for the expenses of the county.” Because the counties are divisions of the state, set by the Arkansas General Assembly for convenience in governing the state, the quorum courts are subject to the General Assembly and cannot exceed the authority given to them by the Arkansas General Assembly. Quorum courts …

Remmel, Harmon Liveright

Harmon Liveright Remmel succeeded Powell Clayton as leader of Arkansas’s Republican Party in 1913. His tenure was plagued by an ongoing dispute between Lily White and African-American Republicans. His role in the movement remains a topic of debate among historians. Harmon Remmel was born on January 15, 1852, in Stratford, New York, to German immigrants Gottlieb Remmel and Henrietta Bever. Gottlieb Remmel was a tanner and a staunch Republican. Harmon Remmel, who had four brothers and two sisters, attended Fairfield Seminary in Fairfield, New York. He taught school for a year, and in 1871, he and his brother Augustus Caleb (A. C.) Remmel entered the lumber business in Fort Wayne, Indiana. In 1874, he returned to New York, and in …

Remmel, Pratt

Pratt Cates Remmel was a longtime Republican activist who served as mayor of Little Rock (Pulaski County) for two terms in the 1950s. The first Republican to serve in that office since Reconstruction, he was also the Republican Party’s nominee for governor in 1954. Pratt C. Remmel was born on October 26, 1915, in Little Rock, one of five children of Augustus Caleb and Ellen Lucy Remmel. His father died when he was five, and his mother raised the children by herself. Remmel graduated from Little Rock High School in 1933 and then attended the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, where he received a bachelor’s degree in economics in 1937. Returning to Little Rock, Remmel became involved in local politics. …

Rice, Wilfred R. “Bud”

W. R. “Bud” Rice was a member of the Arkansas General Assembly for almost twenty years from the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s. A Waldron (Scott County) native, Rice was a successful businessman whose work in the legislature was just one element of a life spent in public service. Wilfred R. Rice was born in Waldron on October 8, 1924, to the farming family of Worth Rice and Med Jones Rice. Growing up in Waldron, Rice helped his father on the farm. He was educated in the local schools, and wanting to fly, he joined the U.S. Army Air Forces in 1942. He served until the end of World War II, although he appeared to have shared little about his experiences. …

Ricks, Earl Thornton

Major General Earl Thornton Ricks served as chief of the Air Force Division, National Guard Bureau, in Washington DC and as mayor of Hot Springs (Garland County), helping end Leo McLaughlin’s political domination there. The Ricks National Guard Armory in Little Rock (Pulaski County) was named for him to commemorate his career, which spanned the most significant years of early aviation history. Earl Ricks was born on July 9, 1908, in West Point, Mississippi, the only child of Nancy Jordan Ricks and Earl Paul Ricks, an ice plant owner/manager. The family moved to Stamps (Lafayette County) in about 1916. After high school graduation at Stamps, Ricks followed his lifelong interest in flying at Parks Air College in St. Louis, Missouri. …

Riddick, James E.

James E. Riddick, the son of a Tennessee farmer, obtained a law degree from the University of Michigan, moved to a town in northeastern Arkansas, and followed the traditional electoral path to the highest judicial office in Arkansas: first state legislator, then prosecuting attorney, trial judge, and finally associate justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court. Coming after the tumultuous years of the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the bitter aftermath, Riddick’s career in public office was unusually free of rancor and controversy. The Supreme Court had struggled for twenty years with a growing backlog of appeals, which even an expansion of the court from three to five justices had not rectified. A few years after he went on the court, the …

Robinson, Hester Buck

Hester Buck Robinson was one of the largest landowners in Prairie County when she died. Her husband once remarked to a friend that she had a “financial brain” and had made more money since they married than he ever made. Hester Buck was born in January of 1896, probably in Wattensas Township, near DeValls Bluff (Prairie County), to William Buck, a farmer, and his wife, Celia. Her father’s older brother, Thomas, had a grocery store at DeValls Bluff. She taught school for a time before her marriage to Elias Brooks (E. B.) Robinson on June 22, 1921. Her grandfather, Silas Buck, owned land a few miles above DeValls Bluff at a point on the west bank of White River that …

Rogers, Robert L.

Robert Lee (Bob) Rogers served two years in the Arkansas General Assembly, eight years as a prosecuting attorney, and two years as Arkansas’s attorney general, initiating important antitrust suits against monopolistic corporations. He ran unsuccessfully for governor and then became one of the state’s outstanding criminal defense lawyers. He was also a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and the recently revived Ku Klux Klan. Bob Rogers was born on January 28, 1868, on a farm at West Point (White County), the oldest child of David E. Rogers and Maria Taylor Rogers. After his father died when he was about eleven, he dropped out of school to become the family’s principal breadwinner. He worked on nearby farms, and, after …

Ross, Jane

Jane Ross was a prominent businesswoman and philanthropist in Clark County. She served in the Women’s Army Corps of the Army Air Force during World War II. Ross owned a photography studio in Arkadelphia (Clark County) and operated her family’s timber enterprise. She also received several awards and honors during her lifetime. Jane Ross was born in Arkadelphia on December 23, 1920, to Hugh Thomas Ross and Esther Clark Ross. She had one sister. She grew up in Arkadelphia and graduated from Arkadelphia High School in May 1938. Ross graduated from Henderson State Teachers College (now Henderson State University,) with a BA in May of 1942. Ross worked as a Navy photographer in Washington DC for six months in 1943. …

Rottaken, Herbert H.

Herbert H. Rottaken was a larger-than-life presence in post–Civil War Little Rock (Pulaski County). A Union army officer during the Civil War, he moved to Little Rock in 1868 and, six years later, was a colonel in Governor Elisha Baxter’s militia during the Brooks-Baxter War. Afterward, he served as Pulaski County sheriff, chief of the city’s volunteer fire department, county assessor, and two-term city alderman. An ardent sportsman and renowned marksman, he was, the Arkansas Gazette declared, “as great a Nimrod as ever was.” In his eclectic business career, Rottaken was a successful planter, developer, inventor, and investor, often dealing in highly speculative ventures as well as conventional ones. Herbert Rottaken was born in Elberfeld, in what is now Germany, …

Rule, Herb

Herb Rule practiced law in Little Rock (Pulaski County) for forty-six years and engaged in political reform on several fronts—education, racial equality, criminal justice, and sexual and gender equality—and twice pursued those causes from public office: the Arkansas House of Representatives and the Little Rock School Board. He was the victor in one of the most famous legislative races in Arkansas history, defeating state Representative Paul Van Dalsem, the powerful boss of the state House of Representatives, in the Democratic primary of 1966. A Democrat, Rule made a surprising and unsuccessful race for Congress in 2012 when he was in his seventies, after the Republican Party had won dominance in the state. Herbert Charles Rule III was born on November …

Russ, Otis Stanley

Otis Stanley Russ was an Arkansas state senator from 1975 through 2000. He began serving before term limits were imposed and became the third-ranking senator in seniority. During his legislative career, he served as chairman of the Joint Budget Committee, vice chairman of the Insurance and Commerce Committee, vice chairman of the Education Commission of the States, member of the Efficiency Committee, member of the Joint Committee on Energy, member of the Joint Legislative Facilities, and member of the Education Committee. Stanley Russ was born on August 31, 1930, in Conway (Faulkner County) to O. S. Russ and Gene Browne Russ. He was the youngest of three children. Russ attended the Training School on the campus of Arkansas State Teachers …

Rutherford, James

James Rutherford fought at the Battle of Shiloh during the Civil War. He later became a political leader in Independence County, serving in the Arkansas General Assembly. James Rutherford was born on July 7, 1825, in Rutherfordton, Rutherford County, North Carolina, to Walter Blythe Rutherford Sr. and Sarah McTyre Rutherford; he was the fourth of nine children. His father had migrated from Jedburgh, Scotland, in the winter of 1815 to Rutherford County, which was named after other members of the family who lived there before the American Revolution. In February 1849, Rutherford traveled to Independence County in Arkansas for his father to collect a $3,000 debt from a man named Dillingham; this was money owed to his uncle Jimmie Rutherford. …

Sanders, Amy

Amy Sanders was a longtime city clerk for the City of Sherwood (Pulaski County), which named its new Central Arkansas Library System (CALS) branch library in her honor in 1989. A new library building that opened in Sherwood in 2018 retained the name. Amy Sanders was born on August 4, 1924, in Prescott (Nevada County), the child of William Hayes Barnes and Allie Mae Dye Barnes. She married Reo Dale Sanders in Texarkana (Miller County) in 1944, and the couple had two children. They were married for more than sixty-three years, until his death on June 7, 2007. Sanders went to work for the City of Sherwood in the early 1970s and, in April 1973, was appointed to replace a …

Satterfield, John Vines (J. V.)

John Vines Satterfield Jr. was elected mayor of Little Rock (Pulaski County) in 1939 and oversaw, during his one term, substantial improvement in the city’s critical financial condition. He served in the Army at the Pentagon during World War II. He was later appointed the state director of the Federal Housing Administration and then was elected president of the Peoples National Bank. J. V. Satterfield Jr. was born on May 14, 1902, in Marion (Crittenden County), the oldest of six children of Dr. John Vines Satterfield and Mary Lena Marshall Satterfield. In 1904, they moved to nearby Earle (Crittenden County), where Satterfield grew up. In high school, he played baseball, was captain of the undefeated football team, and worked in …

Schexnayder, Charlotte Tillar

Journalist and state politician Charlotte Tillar Schexnayder co-owned the Dumas Clarion newspaper in Dumas (Desha County) with her husband for more than four decades and served in the Arkansas House of Representatives for fourteen years. She was the first woman appointed to the Arkansas Board of Pardons and Parole, and she was the first female president of the Dumas Chamber of Commerce. She was also president of several associations for professional journalists, including the Arkansas Press Women, the Arkansas Press Association, the National Federation of Press Women, and the National Newspaper Association. Charlotte Tillar was born on December 25, 1923, in Tillar (Drew and Desha counties) to Jewell Stephen Tillar and Bertha Terry Tillar. The family moved to McGehee (Desha County) in …

Scott, Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus Scott was appointed to the Arkansas Supreme Court after the resignation of Williamson Simpson Oldham Sr. in 1848. He was elected to the position in 1850 and reelected in 1858. He served on the Arkansas Supreme Court until his death in 1859, the longest tenure of any justice in the antebellum period. Christopher C. Scott was born in Scottsburg, Virginia, on April 22, 1807. He was the son of General John Baytop Scott, who was a prominent lawyer and Revolutionary War soldier, and Martha “Patsy” Thompson, an accomplished daughter of a wealthy planter. John Baytop Scott was friends with many of the nation’s founding fathers, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison. He was a graduate of …

Seiz, Bill

aka: William Augustav Seiz
William Augustav (Bill) Seiz was one of the most active and visible leaders in Hot Springs (Garland County) from the 1920s through the 1980s. Seiz was at the forefront of the industrial development, city planning, and other civic endeavors. Bill Seiz was born on June 19, 1902, in St. Louis, Missouri. His father, William Gustov, was a sign painter in St. Louis. Seiz was the oldest son of the seven children in his family. The Seiz family moved to Hot Springs in 1908, where the elder Seiz established Seiz Sign Company. Seiz excelled in the Hot Springs public schools through the eighth grade, when his father took him out of school to begin work. The family was extremely poor, and …

Selig, Helen Elizabeth Boyd

Helen Elizabeth Boyd Selig was active in the business world and in civic matters, serving as mayor of Hot Springs (Garland County) from 1994 to 2000. During her tenure as mayor, the Hot Springs Convention Center was constructed. She was the first woman to chair the board for the Greater Hot Springs Chamber of Commerce, was named Woman of the Year three times, and was an influential leader of the 1992 effort to select Hot Springs as the site of the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts (ASMSA). Helen Elizabeth Boyd was born in Siloam Springs (Benton County) on July 16, 1937, to Ryland Samuel Boyd and Catherine Elizabeth Bell Boyd. After her high school years in Siloam …

Semmes, Samuel Spencer

Samuel Semmes was a Civil War veteran, lawyer, and businessman in Mississippi County in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He served one term as the county judge. Samuel Spencer Semmes, the son of Raphael Semmes and Ann Elizabeth Spencer Semmes, was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on March 4, 1838. His father, who was later the famed raider of the Confederate CSS Alabama, had moved to Ohio in 1834, marrying Ann in 1837. Semmes was the oldest of their six children. In about 1848, after serving in the Mexican War, Semmes’s father moved his family to near Mobile, Alabama, where Semmes spent his youth. By the early 1850s, he was attending the Jesuit school Spring Hill College in Mobile, …

Shackelford, Lottie Lee Holt

Lottie Lee Holt Shackelford is a prominent African-American political leader who became the first female mayor of Little Rock (Pulaski County) and commanded leadership roles in the national Democratic Party for three decades. She was an Arkansas delegate to every Democratic National Convention from 1980 through 2012, often as a so-called superdelegate, and was chosen to be an automatic superdelegate for the 2016 convention. In addition, she was the longest-serving national vice chair in the Democratic Party’s history. She is a member of the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame. Lottie Lee Holt was born on April 30, 1941, in Little Rock, one of four children—with two sisters and a brother—of Curtis Holt Sr. and Bernice Linzy Holt. Her father was …

Sharp, Ephraim

Ephraim Sharp, for whom Sharp County was named, was an early pioneer in Arkansas. He also served in the state legislature during the fifteenth and seventeenth sessions of the Arkansas General Assembly. Ephraim Sharp was born on July 30, 1815, in Hamilton County, Ohio, the ninth of ten children born to farmers John Sharp and Elizabeth Elston Sharp. His mother died when he was three. When he was twelve years old, his father moved the family from Ohio to Decatur County, Indiana. On October 29, 1833, Sharp married his first wife, Margaret Stevens; they had five children. In 1837, Sharp and his younger brother, William, moved their families to Arkansas. They settled as farmers in Sugar Loaf Township, near the …

Shaver, James Levesque Jr.

James L. Shaver Jr. became an influential figure in the Arkansas House of Representatives in the second half of the twentieth century. Over the course of almost four decades in the Arkansas House, he played an important role in shaping policy in numerous areas. James Levesque Shaver Jr. was born on November 23, 1927, in Wynne (Cross County). The son of one-time lieutenant governor James Levesque “Bex” Shaver and Louise Davis Shaver, he grew up in Wynne and received his early education there, graduating from the local high school. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy. After he received an honorable discharge in February 1946, he attended the University of Arkansas School of Law, receiving a JD in 1951. Shaver married …

Smith, Lindsley Farrar Armstrong

Lindsley Smith was a state representative from Fayetteville (Washington County) in the 85th, 86th, and 87th Arkansas General Assemblies, serving from 2005 to 2010. Lindsley Farrar Armstrong was born on September 8, 1963, in Birmingham, Alabama, to Jewel Dean Ott, who was a homemaker and secretary, and Lewis Munn Armstrong, a civil engineer. She attended public schools in Birmingham and graduated from Woodlawn High School in 1981. She received an AA in business administration from Jefferson State Community College in 1984. While living in Birmingham, she sang in the choir at Stockham Memorial Methodist Church, was active in community theater, and played clarinet in the Birmingham Civic Orchestra. She received a speech and debate scholarship to the University of West …

Smith, Morgan

Morgan Smith—a physician, administrator, and legislator—was a leader in the drive to improve public health and medical education in Arkansas. Following his service as dean of the Arkansas Medical School, now the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS), from 1912 to 1927, he represented Pulaski County as a Democrat in the state House of Representatives from 1928 to 1934. Born on March 8, 1868, in El Dorado (Union County), Morgan Smith was the second son of James Monroe Smith, who was a planter and merchant, and Mary Josephine Morgan Smith. He had two brothers and one sister. His father, who formerly served in various county offices, was a state senator and a representative from Union County. Educated in the …

Smith, Ray Sammons, Jr.

Ray Sammons Smith Jr. was a lawyer and politician from Hot Springs (Garland County) who spent twenty-eight years as a member of the Arkansas House of Representatives and rose to be speaker of the House and majority leader, despite a political bent that often put him at odds with the prevailing political sentiments of the state and his own community. For example, when the legislature and Governor Orval E. Faubus began to enact legislation early in 1957 to deter or limit school integration, Smith was often one of the few votes in either house against any of the bills. When the legislature in August 1958, shortly before school opening, passed a bill written by Attorney General Bruce Bennett and supported …

Smith, Stephen Austin

Stephen Smith is a professor, author, and politician. He taught communication at the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County) from 1982 to 2015, after which he was named Professor Emeritus of Communication. He also served two terms in the Arkansas House of Representatives, from 1971 to 1974. Stephen Austin Smith was born on May 15, 1949, in Fayetteville to Austin Clell Smith, who was a country doctor, and Margaret Lucille King, a homemaker and business owner. His family had a long tradition of public service. Charlie King, his great-grandfather, served three terms as Madison County judge, and his grandfather, Albert King, served three terms as Madison County treasurer, while his father and his younger sister, Nancy, were members …

Sprick, Dan Travis

Dan T. Sprick was a prominent political figure in Little Rock (Pulaski County) in the middle of the twentieth century. He served a single term as mayor of Little Rock before spending a decade in the Arkansas Senate. Daniel Travis Sprick was born on May 19, 1902, in Little Rock. Little is known about his early years before he entered the military to serve in World War I. After the war, he built a company that constructed the first trunk sewer line around Little Rock. He later founded the Donnafill Corp. Turning from business to politics, Sprick served three terms on the Little Rock City Council, from 1935 to 1941. During his time on the council, Sprick was the only …

Stephens, Witt

aka: Wilton Robert Stephens
Wilton Robert Stephens founded Stephens Inc., which once was the largest brokerage firm off Wall Street. He was a prime mover in the development of the natural gas industry after World War II and exerted great influence on the political and economic fortunes of Arkansas during the second half of the twentieth century. Witt Stephens was born on September 14, 1907, in Prattsville (Grant County), the second of six children of A. J. “Jack” Stephens and Ethel Pumphrey Stephens. His father was a farmer and politician who served two terms in the Arkansas House of Representatives from Grant County, as would Witt thirty years later (being elected to two terms in the House starting in 1961). The elder Stephens directly …

Stephenson, M. L.

M. L. Stephenson, a Union officer from Illinois, fought in several major Civil War battles in Missouri and Arkansas, was wounded three times, and eventually settled on a law career in Arkansas that climaxed in a very brief but eventful term on the Arkansas Supreme Court, where he participated in one of the critical episodes and law cases of the post–Civil War era—the dispute that became the Brooks-Baxter War. Stephenson was one of the Republican justices who ruled that Joseph Brooks, not Elisha Baxter, had been elected governor in 1872—a decision that President Ulysses S. Grant effectively reversed. Marshall Lovejoy (M. L.) Stephenson was born on March 29, 1838, in rural Nicholas County, Kentucky, northeast of Lexington. His parents, Robertus …

Stirman, Erasmus Irving

Arkansas native Erasmus Irving Stirman was a Confederate colonel during the Civil War who, after the hostilities, became a successful politician and lawyer. Erasmus Irving Stirman was born in Benton County on April 16, 1839, soon after his parents, Alfred Addison Stirman and Pauline Fry Stirman, had crossed the state line, moving from Palmyra, Missouri, to Fayetteville (Washington County), where they would establish a mercantile business. Ras Stirman was orphaned at a young age but attended Arkansas College in Fayetteville and worked as a store clerk as he studied to prepare to attend the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland. Those plans ended when Arkansas seceded from the Union, and he enlisted as a sergeant in the “Pike Guards,” which …

Stovall, Bill H. III

Bill H. Stovall III was a leader of the Arkansas House of Representatives in the early part of the twenty-first century. After term limits restricted his time in office, he served on the staff of the House Speaker for almost a decade. Bill H. Stovall III was born on February 21, 1960, in Blytheville (Mississippi County) to Bill H. Stovall Jr. and Vivian Lee Stovall. He earned an Associate of Arts degree from Pulaski Technical College, a BA in political science from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, and a Master of Liberal Arts degree from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Stovall later settled in Quitman (Cleburne and Faulkner counties). In 1992, he won the first of …

Taylor, Charles Edward

Charles Edward Taylor, Progressive reform mayor of Little Rock (Pulaski County) from 1911 to 1919, brought a new sense of responsibility to city government and directed a wide range of reforms that transformed Little Rock from a nineteenth-century river town into a twentieth-century modern municipality. Charles Taylor was born on September 15, 1868, in Austin, Mississippi, the son of William Arbuckle and Mary Perkins Taylor. During the mid-1870s, the Taylors moved to eastern Arkansas, where W. A. Taylor died. The family then moved to Little Rock when Charles was around twelve. After attending Scott Street High School and taking a bookkeeping course at a local business school, Taylor went to work to help support his mother and sister. He clerked …

Tebbetts, Jonas March

Jonas March Tebbetts of Fayetteville (Washington County) was a prominent lawyer, judge, and politician known for his abhorrence of slavery and support for the Union during the Civil War. His aid to Union forces led to his later arrest by Confederates, who condemned him to death. But fortuitous circumstances led to his freedom, and he lived a long life. Jonas M. Tebbetts was born on January 5, 1820, in Rochester, New Hampshire, one of five sons of Enoch Tebbetts and Anne Roberts Tebbetts. Tebbetts attended Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire. At sixteen, he was working as a marketing agent selling copies of The Family Expositor by English religious nonconformist Philip Doddridge. As a salesman, he traveled throughout New England, …

Thompson, Green Walter

Green Walter Thompson was a major African-American political leader and businessman in Little Rock (Pulaski County) from the end of the Civil War until his death. Green Thompson was born Green Elliott, a slave on the Robert Elliottt farm in Ouachita County. Nothing is known of his early life, though his tombstone lists a birth date of August 15, 1847. A birth year of 1848 is estimated from documents accumulated later in his life. The 1880 census records him as a “mulatto,” so it is likely a white man fathered him. His mother eventually married a slave named Thompson, and Green Elliott took his stepfather’s name. While a teenager, he married a slave named Dora Hildreth; they soon had a …

Trimble, Jackson Stewart (J. S.)

Jackson Stewart Trimble was an influential figure in the development of Independence County in Arkansas’s early years.  J. S. Trimble was born on March 28, 1815, in Smithland, Kentucky, to James Trimble and Elizabeth Stewart Trimble. In 1817, the family left Kentucky and ventured into what would become Arkansas, settling in an area about five miles southwest of Batesville (Independence County). Trimble grew up there and received his early education in the county’s common schools and at Batesville. After his formal schooling ended, Trimble became a farmer. In 1850, he married Catherine P. Hamilton. The couple had a daughter, Elvira.  That same year, Trimble entered politics, successfully biding to represent Independence County in the lower house of the Arkansas General Assembly. A devotee of Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson, he ran as a Democrat. In …

Turner, Grover White “Buddy,” Jr.

G. W. “Buddy” Turner Jr. was an influential member of the Arkansas House of Representatives in the latter part of the twentieth century who helped shape state policy throughout the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. Grover White Turner Jr. was born on August 15, 1923, in Thornton (Calhoun County) to Grover White Turner and Ollie Robinson Turner. He grew up in Rison (Cleveland County), where he helped his family on the farm his father had bought during the Great Depression. In addition to picking and chopping cotton on the farm, he worked at the family store, which, in addition to a sawmill, his father had also acquired. Eventually, Turner became an accomplished meat cutter. By the time he graduated from Rison …

Turner, Jesse

Jesse Turner, a North Carolina native, was a lawyer and politician who played a major but fickle role in Arkansas’s long odyssey through slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction. He finally turned to economic development, principally railroads. He was a leader of the Whig Party in Arkansas until its disintegration during the Civil War, and he then took a respite from politics; during Reconstruction, he returned as a Democrat. Turner was elected to both houses of the Arkansas General Assembly, was the federal prosecuting attorney in the new United States District Court for the Western District of Arkansas, and served briefly as an associate justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court. He spent most of his life in Van Buren (Crawford …

Tutt-Everett War

aka: King-Everett War
The Tutt-Everett War began as a struggle over political power in Marion County in the 1840s. Though centrally involving the Tutt and Everett families, the contest attracted many county residents to one side or the other. It spanned nearly a decade of increasingly violent confrontations, claiming the lives of up to fourteen people. The Arkansas legislature created Marion County in 1836. In its early politics, the Everetts and their supporters became identified with the Democratic Party, while the Tutts and their supporters were associated with the Whig Party. The two sides clashed repeatedly as they competed for electoral office and thus control of the county. Driving the conflict was the knowledge that if “their side” held political power, one could …

Tyer, Gaylord Arlo

Arlo Tyer was an Arkansas businessman and politician who served as a county official in his native Randolph County in the 1960s and in two separate stints in the Arkansas House of Representatives in the 1960s and 1970s. A previously low-key county official, Tyer fired one of the opening shots of the culture wars that would erupt in the 1980s. Gaylord Arlo Tyer was born on September 15, 1911, in the Water Valley community of rural Randolph County, the oldest of five children of Silas Lafayette and Emma Mae Vermilye Tyer. After military service and his marriage to Mary Lou Mock in 1946, Tyer engaged in farming and small business until his election to the Arkansas House in 1952, where …

Upham, Daniel Phillips

Daniel Phillips Upham was an active Republican politician, businessman, plantation owner, and Arkansas State Militia commander following the Civil War. He is perhaps best remembered, and often vilified, for his part during Reconstruction as the leader of a successful militia campaign against the Ku Klux Klan in the Militia War from 1868 to 1869. D. P. Upham was born in Dudley, Massachusetts, on December 30, 1832, to Clarissa Phillips and Josiah Upham. His mother died less than a week later at age 29. His father remarried Betsy Larned in March 1836, and the couple had four sons. Upham received his education at Dudley’s public schools, and he married Massachusetts native Elizabeth (Lizzie) Nash on February 15, 1860. The couple eventually …

Utley, Joseph Simeon (J. S.)

J. S. Utley was an influential attorney and Democratic officeholder in the first half of the twentieth century. Joseph Simeon (J. S.) Utley was born on October 18, 1876, on a farm in Greenbrier (Faulkner County) to Francis David Utley and Amanda Melvina Snow Utley. He received his early education in the county’s rural schools, and beginning in 1894, he taught in the county schools. In 1897, he enrolled at Hendrix College in Conway (Faulkner County), from which he would receive a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1906. While he pursued his own education, he also served as the principal of the public school in Ashdown (Little River County) from 1902 to 1905. Following his graduation from Hendrix (to which …

Villines, Floyd Galloway “Buddy”, III

Buddy Villines was a longtime public official in central Arkansas. Following service on the Little Rock Board of Directors, he became the city’s mayor before serving for over two decades as Pulaski County judge. Over that time, he oversaw a significant transformation of Arkansas’s capital city. Floyd G. “Buddy” Villines III was born on June 23, 1947, in Roxboro, North Carolina. Nicknamed Buddy at an early age due to his pleasant demeanor, he was one of three children born to Floyd Villines and Hazel Villines. As his father was a Methodist minister who served numerous counties all over the state, the family led a nomadic existence, moving frequently during Villines’s youth. In 1969, he graduated from Hendrix College, having majored …

Waggoner, William Jayson (Bill)

William Jayson Waggoner, a lifelong resident of Lonoke County, served for forty-one years as circuit judge. Elected state representative in 1914, he served in that role until resigning to take a commission in the U.S. Army in 1917. Upon his return, he was elected prosecuting attorney and continued to serve in elected office for the rest of his life. Bill Waggoner was born near the community of Needmore (Lonoke County) on November 12, 1889, to Thomas J. Waggoner and Nancy Munsch Waggoner; he was one of ten children. After Waggoner’s father’s death in 1898, the family lived in Carlisle (Lonoke County) and Lonoke (Lonoke County). Waggoner’s mother remarried in 1911 to William Henry Stout. After graduating from the Law Department …

Ward, John Paul

John Paul Ward was a lawyer and politician from Independence County who spent the last twenty-six years of his career as a trial and appellate judge. He was an associate justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court from 1951 until 1968.  John Paul Ward—who went by Paul—was born on February 20, 1890, in Batesville (Independence County), the son of W. J. Ward and Mollie Churchill Ward. He was educated in the Batesville public schools, received a bachelor’s degree at Arkansas College (now Lyon College) in Batesville in 1912, attended Tulane University in New Orleans, and received a law degree at the University of Oklahoma in Norman in 1915. When the United States entered World War I, he enlisted and became a commissioned officer in the American Expeditionary Force’s hundred-day offensive, the Meuse River-Argonne Forest Campaign in France, during the fall of 1918, the …