Entry Type: Person

Barton, Thomas Harry

Colonel Thomas H. Barton, a pioneer El Dorado (Union County) oilman and philanthropist, launched his small Lion Oil Company into a major oil company that included exploration, production, marketing, distribution, refining, and research programs. Barton was born in Marlin, Texas, on September 20, 1881. His father, Thomas Killebrew Barton, was a merchant and farmer in Falls County. At age sixteen, he entered Texas A&M College, but limited funds forced him to leave school early in his second year. He entered the U.S. Army in 1901 and was discharged in 1904 with the rank of corporal. From 1905 to 1917, he worked in a variety of occupations that included banking and lumber in Dallas County. In 1906, he was commissioned with …

Bass, Raymond Henry

Raymond Henry Bass was an Olympic gold medalist, Gymnastics Hall of Fame honoree, and decorated World War II hero who rose to the rank of rear admiral in the U.S. Navy. Raymond Henry Bass was born on January 15, 1910, in Chambersville (Calhoun County) to Henry L. Bass and Maude Wise Bass. He entered the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, in 1927 and was recruited for the gymnastics team. He was coached by Lou Mang, who had developed an innovative rope-climbing technique stressing rhythm and balance. According to an Olympics biography of Bass, he was a boxer and wrestler at the Naval Academy before joining the gymnastics team and was nicknamed “Benny” by his classmates due to a resemblance …

Bates, Daisy Lee Gatson

Daisy Lee Gatson Bates was a mentor to the Little Rock Nine, the African American students who integrated Central High School in Little Rock in 1957. She and the Little Rock Nine gained national and international recognition for their courage and persistence during the desegregation of Central High when Governor Orval Faubus ordered members of the Arkansas National Guard to prevent the entry of black students. She and her husband, Lucious Christopher (L. C.) Bates, published the Arkansas State Press, a newspaper dealing primarily with civil rights and other issues in the black community. The identity of Daisy Gatson’s birth parents has not been conclusively established. Before the age of seven, she was taken in as a foster child by …

Bates, James Woodson

James Woodson Bates was an early Arkansas settler who was elected as the first Arkansas territorial representative to the U.S. Congress. After leaving that office, he went on to help develop Arkansas’s legal system as a judge and lawyer. Batesville (Independence County) was named after him in 1824. James Bates was born on August 25, 1788, in Belmont, Virginia, to Thomas F. Bates and Caroline Woodson Bates. Little is known of his early life, but he attended Yale College (now Yale University). He eventually graduated from Princeton College (now Princeton University) in 1807 and began practicing law in Virginia. In 1816, he moved to St. Louis, Missouri, where his brother Frederick Bates had been appointed territorial secretary. In 1819, he, …

Bates, Joseph

Joseph (Joe) Henry Bates—a pulmonologist, epidemiologist, microbiologist, and public health official—pioneered safe and effective outpatient treatment for tuberculosis in the 1960s and 1970s. He subsequently was instrumental in directing tobacco settlement money to public health initiatives and developing the Fay W. Boozman College of Public Health at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS).  Joe Bates was born on September 19, 1933, and grew up in rural Pulaski County. He was an only child; his father, Henry E. Bates, was a farmer and businessman, and, Susan Wallis Bates, his mother, whom he credited with his interest in education, was briefly a schoolteacher.   Bates was educated in the Little Rock (Pulaski County) public school system. He attended Hendrix College in Conway (Faulkner County) and graduated from the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville (Washington County) with a BS in 1954. He received an MD from what is now …

Bates, Lucious Christopher

Lucious Christopher (L.C.) Bates was the founder of the Arkansas State Press newspaper. Under his direction, the State Press, published in Little Rock (Pulaski County), waged a weekly statewide battle against the constraints of the Jim Crow era of segregation until the paper’s demise in 1959. Bates was a member of the executive committee of the Little Rock chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and, along with his wife Daisy, helped lead the fight that resulted in the 1957 admittance of the Little Rock Nine, the first Black students to attend Little Rock’s Central High School. Born in Liberty, Mississippi, in 1904, L. C. Bates was the only child of Laura and Morris Bates, …

Batson, Luenell

aka: Luenell
aka: Luenell Campbell
Luenell, who goes by only her first name professionally, is a comedian and a film and television actress known for her appearances in such movies as Borat: Cultural Learning of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006) and Hotel Transylvania (2012). She was inducted into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame in 2015. Luenell was born Luenell Batson on March 12, 1959, in Tollette (Howard County), a historically black community. Her father was murdered while her mother was pregnant with her. As her mother already had seven other children, she was adopted by family members out of state, becoming Luenell Campbell and moving to California. She attended school in the community of Castro Valley in the San Francisco …

Battle, Burrill Bunn

Burrill Bunn Battle was a prominent Arkansas attorney and jurist in the latter decades of the nineteenth century and the early part of the twentieth century. Although he was born in Mississippi, his family moved to Arkansas when he was a child, and it was there that he embarked on a legal career that culminated in a twenty-five-year tenure on the Arkansas Supreme Court. Burrill B. Battle was born on October 24, 1838, in Hinds County in Mississippi. His parents, Joseph Battle and Nancy Stricklin Battle, were native North Carolinians, but when Battle was six, the family relocated to Arkansas, settling in Lafayette County, where he received his early education. From there, Battle attended Arkansas College in Fayetteville (Washington County), …

Baucum, George Franklin

George F. Baucum was a Confederate officer and a Little Rock (Pulaski County) businessman. He served in many major battles of the Civil War’s western theater, including at Murfreesboro in Tennessee and Chickamauga and Atlanta in Georgia. After the war, he became a prominent grocer, cotton broker, and banker who owned plantations in central Arkansas. George Franklin Baucum was born on February 1, 1837, in St. Charles, Missouri. He was the son of Daniel Baucum and Kathryn Baucum, both of whom were natives of Mississippi. The family moved to Memphis, Tennessee, in 1851. Two years later, the Baucums settled in Searcy (White County). At the outbreak of the Civil War, Baucum was working as a grocer in Searcy. He joined …

Baxter, Elisha

Elisha Baxter, a Unionist leader during the Civil War and a jurist, is best remembered as Arkansas’s last Republican governor during Reconstruction. The attempt to overthrow him became known as the Brooks-Baxter War. Baxter’s victory resulted in the end of Reconstruction and the adoption of the Constitution of 1874. Elisha Baxter was born on September 1, 1827, in Rutherford County, North Carolina, to William Baxter and his second wife, Catherine Lee. She was the mother to five sons and three daughters out of William Baxter’s twenty children. His father had emigrated from Ireland in 1789 and prospered in Rutherford County in western North Carolina, acquiring land and slaves. Baxter received a limited education and sought to better himself by obtaining …

Bazzel, David

David Bazzel is an Arkansas media personality, public speaker, and sports promoter who came to Arkansas at age seventeen to play football for the Razorbacks at the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County). He later became well known for his morning drive show on radio station KABZ-FM, 103.7, in Little Rock (Pulaski County) and his leadership of the Little Rock Touchdown Club, one of the largest clubs of its type in the country. Bazzel helped elevate Razorback sports to Arkansas’s most prominent cultural institution. Harold David Bazzel was born on October 13, 1963, in Panama City, Florida, to Carolyn Branch Bazzel and Harold Bazzel. He excelled in athletics, leading his high school football team at A. Crawford Mosley …

Beall, Ruth Olive

Ruth Olive Beall was superintendent of Arkansas Children’s Hospital and Home from 1934 to 1961. She was largely responsible for the hospital’s survival during the financial difficulties of the Great Depression and for its expansion and improvement in the following years. Ruth Beall was born in St. Louis, Missouri, sometime in 1896, the daughter of Charles Carlton Beall, a traveling salesman, and Florance Walcott Beall. While she was attending a boarding school in Arcadia, Missouri, her parents moved to Rogers (Benton County). Beall graduated from Washington University in St. Louis before joining her family in Arkansas. In Rogers, Beall was advisor to the local chapter of the Junior Red Cross during World War I. She was briefly the owner and …

Beall, William Nelson Rector

William Nelson Rector Beall served as a Confederate brigadier general from Arkansas during the Civil War. He most notably served as an agent for the Confederate government to raise funds to purchase supplies for Confederate troops held in Federal prisons. William Beall was born on March 20, 1825, in Bardstown, Kentucky, the son of Samuel Beall and Sally Rector Beall. Sally Beall was a member of the Rector family, which was prominent in Arkansas politics. The Bealls moved to Arkansas in 1840, settling in Little Rock (Pulaski County). Both of Beall’s parents died soon thereafter, orphaning him and his four siblings. Beall graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1848, ranking thirtieth in a class of …

Beals, Melba Pattillo

Melba Pattillo Beals made history as a member of the Little Rock Nine, the nine African American students involved in the desegregation of Little Rock Central High School in 1957. The world watched as they braved constant intimidation and threats from those who opposed desegregation of the formerly all-white high school. She later recounted this harrowing year in her book titled Warriors Don’t Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Desegregate Little Rock’s Central High School. Melba Pattillo was born on December 7, 1941, in Little Rock (Pulaski County). Beals grew up surrounded by family members who knew the importance of an education. Her mother, Lois Marie Pattillo, PhD, was one of the first Black graduates of the University …

Bearden, Henry Eugene (Gene)

Gene Bearden was a major league baseball player in the late 1940s and early 1950s. After serving in World War II, he crafted a seven-year career that was highlighted by his role as a starting pitcher on the 1948 Cleveland Indians team that won the World Series. Henry Eugene (Gene) Bearden was born on September 5, 1920, in Lexa (Phillips County) to Henry and Ella Bearden. With his father working as a machinist for the Missouri Pacific Railroad, the family moved a number of times, but Bearden spent much of his youth playing sandlot baseball in Tennessee. Graduating from Technical High School in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1938, the left-handed pitcher whose boyhood hero was Lou Gehrig signed with the Philadelphia …

Bearss, Edwin Cole (Ed)

Edwin Cole Bearss was a public historian and preservationist who conducted some of the seminal research and writing on the Civil War in Arkansas and who facilitated the establishment of three National Park Service units in the state. Edwin Cole Bearss was born on June 26, 1923, in Billings, Montana, to Omar and Virginia Bearss. He grew up on the E—S (E bar S) ranch and had an affinity for Civil War history from an early age, naming his cattle for Civil War battles and generals. After attending a one-room school in Sarpy, Montana, Bearss attended the St. Johns Military Academy in Delaplaine, Wisconsin, in 1937. He graduated from Hardin High School in Montana in 1941 and spent the summer …

Beatty, Morgan Mercer

Morgan Mercer Beatty was a native of Little Rock (Pulaski County) who launched a newspaper career at the Arkansas Gazette and became, during World War II, one of broadcast news’ early and most eminent reporters and commentators. Beatty became famous as the Washington DC and wartime correspondent of the National Broadcasting Company (NBC). He broke the story that President Franklin D. Roosevelt was selecting an obscure senator from Missouri, Harry S. Truman, to be his running mate in 1944, before Truman knew it. His analytical reporting on the war set a standard that few print or broadcast journalists could match. Beatty also figured out that the first atomic bomb was going to fall on Hiroshima while the event was being …

Becker, Jerome Bill

Jerome Bill Becker served as president of the Arkansas American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) from 1964 to 1996. At the time of his death, Becker was noted as the longest-serving state AFL-CIO president in the United States. J. Bill Becker was born on February 25, 1924, in Chicago, Illinois. His parents, Joseph and Hazel Becker, were Russian immigrants. In 1942, Becker graduated in the upper third of his class from John Marshall High School in Chicago, where he was a standout football player. Becker suffered a knee injury while playing high school football, which initially made him ineligible to serve in the U.S. armed forces during World War II. Instead, he worked at a defense …

Beebe, Ginger Kay Croom

Ginger Kay Croom Beebe is the wife of Mike Beebe, who was the forty-fifth governor of Arkansas. In 2007, she became the state’s fortieth first lady. Outside of politics, she has been best known for her efforts in adoption, literacy, and removing the stigma from mental illness. Ginger Kay Croom was born in Little Rock (Pulaski County) on September 3, 1949. Adopted at the age of four, she was raised in Searcy (White County) by Buell and Virginia Croom. Her adoptive father was an Amoco Oil Company wholesale distributor, and her adoptive mother was a homemaker. She has no photographic record of life before her adoption, stating, “I was born in Little Rock, and then adopted at age 4 by …

Beebe, Mike

A veteran of state government, Mickey Dale (Mike) Beebe was inaugurated as Arkansas’s forty-fifth governor on January 9, 2007. He remained popular with Arkansas’s electorate across his entire eight-year term of service, with support that crossed party lines during a time of polarization in American politics. The steadiness of the Arkansas economy and state finances during the Great Recession, the near total elimination of the state’s sales tax on groceries, and the culmination of the Lake View School District No. 25 v. Huckabee public school lawsuit were the hallmarks of the Beebe governorship, which was often characterized as “pragmatic.” However, Beebe also served as the leader of the state Democratic Party during its historic fall from power. Mike Beebe was …

Beebe, Roswell

Roswell Beebe was the first benefactor of the city of Little Rock (Pulaski County); the town of Beebe (White County) was named after him. In the late 1840s and the 1850s, he was one of the most important businessmen and politicians in Little Rock. He donated several pieces of land to the city. Roswell Beebe was born on December 22, 1795, in Hinsdale, New York, to a wealthy English family. When he was seventeen, he talked his father into letting him go to New Orleans, Louisiana. He was behind the cotton bales with Andrew Jackson when the United States turned back the British at the Battle of New Orleans in 1815. Roswell was successful in several businesses. The 1832 New …

Bell, Al

aka: Alvertis Isbell
Al Bell is considered the driving force behind Stax Records as a producer, songwriter, and executive during the company’s most productive period, from 1965 to 1975. He was responsible for promoting the careers of such talent as the Staple Singers, Isaac Hayes, and Otis Redding, among many others. Al Bell was born Alvertis Isbell on March 15, 1940, in Brinkley (Monroe County). One of his earliest musical memories was that of listening to his father’s Louis Jordan records. In an interview published in 2001, Bell claimed Jordan, also a Brinkley native, as a distant relative. Bell’s family moved to North Little Rock (Pulaski County) when he was five years old. After attending Catholic and Seventh-Day Adventist private schools, Bell attended Scipio A. …