Entry Type: Event

Thornton, Flanigan (Lynching of)

On April 19, 1893, an African-American man named Flanigan (sometimes referred to as Flannagan or Flannigan) Thornton was hanged in Morrilton (Conway County) for allegedly murdering constable Charles Pate. While there are no records for Flanigan Thornton in Arkansas, he may have been the ten-year-old living with his parents Hyram and Chasity Thornton in Desoto County, Mississippi, in 1880 and working as a farm hand; this would have made him twenty-three at the time of the lynching. Charles Pate was born in White County, Arkansas, but by 1891, when he married Alice Phelps, he was living in Conway County. According to newspaper accounts, the alleged murder happened on April 4 near Menifee (Conway County) station, about fifteen miles from Morrilton. …

Thurairajah v. City of Fort Smith

In Thurairajah v. City of Fort Smith, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit found that police lacked probable cause to arrest Eric Roshaun Thurairajah for disorderly conduct after he drove by a traffic stop and yelled, “F**k you!” to an officer on the side of the road, because the shout constituted protected political speech. Thurairajah was one of a line of cases in federal and state appellate courts in Arkansas and elsewhere in which the judiciary used a minor incident, such as uttering offensive words or brushing the American flag during a protest, to hold that an arrest merely for offensive conduct violated a person’s First Amendment rights. In 2015, Arkansas State Trooper Lagarian Cross was performing …

Timberfest

Timberfest is held the first weekend of October every year on the courthouse square in Sheridan (Grant County). Timberfest celebrates Sheridan and Grant County’s long involvement with the timber industry and is sponsored by the Grant County Chamber of Commerce. The idea for Timberfest began in 1982 when the Grant County Chamber of Commerce board of directors decided to combine the Blue Mountain Bluegrass Festival and the Merchants Fair into one festival. The first Timberfest was held in 1984 on the courthouse square in Sheridan. Since then, it has grown into a very large event. Around 1995, a lumberjack competition was added to the Timberfest activities. The funds raised by Timberfest are used for scholarships that are awarded to Grant …

Times-N-Traditions Festival

In the 1930s, Newark (Independence County) hosted Old Home Week, said to have been one of the state’s largest summer festivals. After several years, it was replaced by a three-day annual picnic known as the Old Settlers Reunion, which had ceased by the late twentieth century. In 1995, local business leaders initiated plans to develop a new festival, the Times-N-Traditions Festival (TNT). The festival, which is sponsored by the Newark Area Chamber of Commerce, began in 1995 as a Friday and Saturday event. While the previous festivals were held in downtown Newark, the TNT is held at the Newark City Park. Low attendance and competition with local Friday-night high school football resulted in a Saturday-only event. However, in 2014, a …

Titan II Missile Accident (1965)

Titan II ICBM Launch Complex 373-4 near Searcy (White County) was the site of an accident on August 9, 1965, in which fifty-three workers were killed—the largest loss of life ever suffered in a U.S. nuclear weapons facility. Titan II ICBM Launch Complex 373-4 was one of eighteen Arkansas launch complexes operated by the 308th Strategic Missile Squadron headquartered at the Little Rock Air Force Base in Jacksonville (Pulaski County). Construction of Launch Complex 373-4 had commenced on January 3, 1961, and was finished on July 31, 1962—the first of the 308th’s sites to be completed and the first to go on alert (meaning that it was fully operational and ready to respond) on May 16, 1963. After it had …

Titan II Missile Explosion (1980)

The Titan II Launch Complex 374-7 in Southside (Van Buren County), just north of Damascus (Van Buren and Faulkner counties), became the site of the most highly publicized disaster in the history of the Titan II missile program when its missile exploded within the launch duct on September 19, 1980. An Air Force airman was killed, and the complex was destroyed. The Titan II Missile Launch Complex 374-7 Site was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on February 18, 2000. Complex 374-7 had already been the site of one significant accident on January 27, 1978, when an oxidizer leak sent a cloud of toxic fumes 3,000 feet long, 300 feet wide, and 100 feet high drifting across U.S. Highway …

Toad Suck Daze

Toad Suck Daze is an annual spring festival in Conway (Faulkner County) that features arts and crafts vendors, live music, a variety of foods, and toad races for children. It is held on the streets of downtown Conway, where more than 150,000 people attend the three-day event. No admission is charged, and proceeds of the festival support Faulkner County residents attending colleges located in the county. While the festival is now one of the largest and most unique in Arkansas, it began as an idea John Ward had in 1982. Ward—managing editor of the Log Cabin Democrat, Conway’s local newspaper—wanted to raise the spirits of local residents experiencing the hard times of a recession and high interest rates. He thought …

Toll (Lynching of)

The only documented lynching recorded in Saline County occurred on October 23, 1854, when a slave known only as “Toll” was murdered by a mob. He was hanged on a hill near the Saline County Courthouse in Benton. Recent scholarship has argued that the Toll lynching was not a spontaneous event but was instead an organized act of vengeance. The man known as Toll—spelled “Tol” in the Arkansas Gazette—was a slave owned by Scottish-born Samuel McMorrin, who, at the time, was living in Fourche Township in Pulaski County. Reportedly, in 1853, Toll sneaked up on and shot two white men, Jessup McHenry and John Douglas, who were deer hunting about fifteen miles outside of Little Rock (Pulaski County). Toll was …

Tontitown Grape Festival

The Tontitown Grape Festival is held each year in August as a celebration of the Italian heritage of Tontitown (Washington County). Featuring spaghetti dinners, carnival rides, arts and crafts booths, live music, and the crowning of Queen Concordia, the three-day festival is believed to be the longest-running annual community celebration in Arkansas. Tontitown was founded in 1898 by a group of Italian Catholic immigrants led by their priest, Father Pietro Bandini. At the end of June 1898, Tontitown settlers—who had cleared land and planted gardens, orchards, and vineyards—held a thanksgiving picnic in observance of the Feast of St. Peter, Father Bandini’s patron saint. The celebration was observed annually by Catholic families in Tontitown, and after a few years, an invitation …

Tornado Outbreak of 1952

The tornado season of 1952 was a particularly eventful one throughout the state. Twenty-six tornadoes were reported to have touched down in Arkansas from January to November that year. While twenty-six is well below the modern average of about thirty-nine tornadoes per year in Arkansas, an unusually large number of these storms in 1952 were EF-3 and stronger on the Enhanced Fujita Scale used to rate the strength of tornadoes (the ratings go from EF-0 to EF-5). Of the twenty-six tornadoes in this outbreak, at least five were rated EF-4. Among these tornadoes, the most deadly and most widely reported was the March 21, 1952, EF-4 tornado that struck White County on March 21. Over the course of the year, …

Tornado Outbreak of 2023

On March 31, 2023, a massive outbreak of tornadoes struck nine states across the country, from Arkansas and Iowa to as far east as Delaware. The storms killed more than thirty people across seven states—five in Arkansas. One tornado hit the Pulaski County cities of Little Rock, North Little Rock, Sherwood, and Jacksonville. Another hit the eastern Arkansas community of Wynne (Cross County). This outbreak came a week after a similar system killed twenty-one people in Mississippi and one in Alabama. In the days leading up to the outbreak, the National Weather Service had been warning about the potential for severe storms striking the state on Friday, March 31, 2023. By the afternoon, a supercell started showing signs of becoming …

Tornado Outbreak of March 1, 1997

The tornado outbreak of March 1, 1997, was one of the deadliest in the history of the state of Arkansas. Sixteen tornadoes tracked across the state, killing twenty-five Arkansans. Several of the tornadoes had unusually long tracks, traveling between fifty and seventy-five miles. There was also a higher than statistically expected number of tornadoes of F3 strength or higher—that is, tornadoes with wind speeds in excess of 158 miles per hour. Of the sixteen tornadoes, four were responsible for all fatalities in the state, as well as much of the property damage. All sixteen tornadoes were produced by four supercell thunderstorms, with the four killer tornadoes being spawned from two such storms that formed ahead of a cold front. The …

Trammell, Albert (Execution of)

Albert Trammell was a Black preacher who was hanged at Rosston (Nevada County) on December 27, 1877, for the 1868 murder of his wife. The 1870 U.S. Census for Ouachita County shows that a twenty-eight-year-old farm worker named Albert Trammell was living in Camden (Ouachita County); he could be the same man who had killed his wife Nancy (some sources say her name was Caroline) two years earlier. According to a newspaper account, Trammell “suspected the fidelity of his wife to her marital duties” and borrowed a gun from one person and buckshot from another. Early on the morning of December 29, 1868, Trammell went outside their cabin, stuck the barrel of his rifle through a crack in the wall …

Treaty of Council Oaks

On June 24, 1823, Acting Governor Robert Crittenden of Arkansas Territory met with a group of Arkansas Cherokee; the place of their meeting been described in many sources on the south side of the Arkansas River  in the vicinity of modern Dardanelle (Yell County), though this is debatable, as the agent for the Cherokee, Edward W. DuVal, was likely headquartered north of the river, the land south of the river having been reserved for the Choctaw. The leaders present included John Jolly (who was likely the most influential member of the group and would soon be elected principal chief of the Arkansas Cherokee), Black Fox, Wat Webber, Waterminnow, Young Glass, Thomas Graves, and George Morris. Each group came to the meeting with …

Triple Execution of 1994

On the night of August 3, 1994, three inmates of the Arkansas Department of Correction were put to death at the Cummins Unit for their participation in the same crime. Convicted of a murder and robbery committed in Rogers (Benton County) on January 8, 1981, the three men were executed at one-hour intervals. On the night of January 8, 1981, the home of Donald Lehman and his family was the scene of a home invasion. Four masked men rang the doorbell and burst into the home. At least two were armed with handguns, and a third carried a chain. Lehman was thrown into his bedroom and repeatedly shot and struck with the chain, killing him. Lehman’s wife and daughter were …

Triple Execution of 1997

A triple execution took place at the Cummins Unit of the Arkansas Department of Correction on January 8, 1997. The first two inmates to be executed, Paul Ruiz and Earl Van Denton, were convicted of murders perpetrated during a post-escape crime spree. Ruiz and Van Denton escaped together from an Oklahoma prison on June 23, 1977. Van Denton was serving a life sentence for murder, while Ruiz was serving life for armed robbery. The pair moved across Oklahoma and into Arkansas, committing a number of crimes. On June 29, near the town of Magazine (Logan County), the men kidnapped town marshal Marvin Ritchie and handcuffed him in the back seat of his patrol car. Driving the patrol car, the two …

Troop Train No. 571 Wreck of 1918

aka: Garland Troop Train Accident of 1918
A northbound St. Louis Southwestern train (No. 571) derailed on the morning of May 21, 1918, at Moyston Station near Garland (Miller County). The train was bound for St. Louis, Missouri, and was carrying a detachment of thirteen soldiers from the 619th Aerial Squadron at Camp MacArthur near Waco, Texas. The locomotive, a Baldwin K1 2-8-0, pulled one baggage car, two Pullman tourist cars, two Pullman sleeping cars, and a caboose. The train left the station at Texarkana (Miller County) around 7:15 a.m. and derailed at trestle number 972, about 4.3 kilometers (2.7 miles) north of McKinney Station. The trestle measured 140 meters (460 feet) long and 2.4 meters (11 feet) high, except that it rose to a height 7.9 …

Trumann Wild Duck Festival

The Trumann Wild Duck Festival is an annual festival held in Trumann (Poinsett County) on the last Saturday in September. It includes two days of music, food, arts-and-crafts vendors, softball games, beauty pageants, bingo, a car show, carnival rides, and a parade. A golf tournament is also held on the weekend prior to the festival. The event has its roots in the annual Singer Barbeque that was held each fall for the employees of the Singer Company in Trumann beginning in 1948. Trumann at the time was almost a company town, so the picnic brought out most of the residents, as well as county and state dignitaries. The Singer Barbeque was the brainchild of local facility manager Alfred Carlson. More …

Tucker-Parnell Feud

The Tucker-Parnell Feud (or Parnell-Tucker Feud) refers to a series of assaults and shootings in the Union County area between 1902 and 1905, stemming from a shootout in downtown El Dorado (Union County) that left three dead in October 1902. The repercussions of the downtown shootings led to an estimated thirty to forty deaths in Union County over the three-year period. The dispute began not between the Parnells and the Tuckers, two Union County families, but between two other men over which would marry an El Dorado woman. William Puckett of Texarkana (Miller County) had arranged to marry Jessie Stevenson and arrived in El Dorado on September 17, 1902, to meet her. Stevenson worked for local photographer Bob Mullens, who …

Tucker, Frank (Lynching of)

On September 15, 1932, an African-American man named Frank Tucker was lynched in Crossett (Ashley County) for allegedly attacking deputy city marshal Henry Reed with a razor. Reed had been in Crossett for about eight years and had worked as a marshal for three. According to the Arkansas Gazette, he was “well and favorably known among the business men of the city.” Frank Tucker had lived in Crossett almost his whole life, and at the time of the 1920 census, he was twelve years old and living there with his parents, Sidney and Melissa Tucker. His father was working in a lumber mill, and Tucker was attending school; both could read and write. By 1932, Tucker, too, was working in …

Tucker, James (Execution of)

James Tucker was an African American man hanged at Paris (Logan County) on May 30, 1884, for murdering his partner at their farm on Red Bench Mountain. James Tucker and Aaron Barker rented property on Red Bench Mountain in Logan County, where they built a cabin and were growing cotton on their small farm. Tucker suspected that Barker had some money, and on the night of December 27, 1883, he “stole upon his victim while asleep and discharged both loads of a double-barreled gun into his person.” After stealing “the trifling sum that he possessed,” Tucker fled deeper into the mountains. The erstwhile farmer “became an outlaw, terrorizing the community and defying the authorities.” He evaded repeated attempts to catch …

Tuggle, Browning (Lynching of)

Twenty-eight-year-old jitney (vehicle for hire) driver Browning Tuggle was lynched in Hope (Hempstead County) on March 15, 1921, for allegedly attacking a white woman. According to the 1910 U.S. census, Tuggle, then eighteen, was living in Hope with his widowed mother, Minnie. Both were native Arkansans. At the time, Tuggle was working in a factory as a handle grinder. On February 26, 1919, Tuggle married Alice Harris. At the time of the 1920 census, they were living in Hope with their daughter, Vadaleen. Both Browning and Alice could read and write. He was working as a jitney driver, and she was a washerwoman. On March 14, 1921, an unidentified middle-aged white woman arrived in Hope to visit her daughter, who …

Tulip, Skirmish at

The October 11, 1863, Skirmish at Tulip was a small action in which Union colonel Powell Clayton led men from the Fifth Kansas and First Indiana Cavalry Regiments in an attack that routed Colonel Archibald Dobbins’s First Arkansas Cavalry Regiment, capturing men and equipment. Also captured was a flag that became a prized artifact in the collection of the Old State House Museum. Following the Union occupation of Little Rock (Pulaski County) on September 10, 1863, a delegation of citizens from Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) came to Little Rock and asked General Frederick Steele to establish a garrison there to protect property and keep citizens from being conscripted into the Confederate army. Steele duly ordered Clayton’s small cavalry brigade to …

Turkey Trot Festival

Turkey Trot is an annual festival held in Yellville (Marion County) on the second weekend in October, all day Friday and Saturday. Like many Arkansas festivals, Turkey Trot was founded to draw attention to local natural resources as well as to provide community entertainment. However, it has also been a source of controversy due to the treatment of turkeys during the festival. The festival originated just before Thanksgiving in 1946, when Yellville’s American Legion post, with help from local businessmen and professionals, sponsored a National Turkey Calling Contest and Turkey Trot. The day’s activities were intended to be a wild turkey–conservation activity, calling attention to Arkansas’s dwindling turkey population, which by the mid-1940s had dropped to only 7,000, very few of …

Turner v. Arkansas (1991)

Turner v. Arkansas, 784 F. Supp. 585 (E.D. Ark. 1991), a 1991 decision by the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the Eastern District of Arkansas, was the culmination of a battle over the drawing of congressional districts within the state, one that reflected the growing challenges states faced in the reapportionment process required after each decennial census. The dispute stemmed from challenges to the redistricting effort that had been undertaken by the Arkansas General Assembly in Act 1220 of 1991. The plaintiffs Jessie Turner, Christine Brownlee, Jack Foster, Alan Smith, and Freddie Lyon argued that the plan violated the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution as well as the federal Voting Rights Act—and most importantly ran afoul …