Entries - Entry Type: Place - Starting with H

Hackett (Sebastian County)

Hackett is the second-oldest city in Sebastian County, and at one time it was also the second-largest city in the county. Located at the intersection of State Highways 10 and 45, Hackett is several miles south of Fort Smith (Sebastian County) and is near the state border with Oklahoma. Hackett is named for Jeremiah Hackett, who established a homestead in western Arkansas Territory in 1834. Hackett—who came from Pomeroy, Ohio—named the community he founded Hickory Grove. As one historian wrote, “It was Mr. Hackett’s custom and delight to give everyone a lot who would build a residence.” Among those who accepted the offer of free land was Ammi Baston Merrill, who came from Ohio with his father, brother, wife, and …

Hagler (Arkansas County)

The community of Hagler was likely not populated until after the Civil War, though the Hagler family, after whom the community was named, came to Arkansas in the late 1840s, settling throughout Arkansas County. By 1878, tax assessments list W. G. R. Hampton, William A. Crockett, Robert Hagler, and Jacob Hagler as living in the Hagler community. Deeds indicate that William Graves purchased much land around the Hagler community after the war; he established the first known store in the area. In 1888, a petition was circulated by Robert L. Hagler for a post office, and he became the first postmaster. The store established by Graves closed in the late 1880s, and its clerk, John Scott, bought eighty acres up …

Halfway (Clark County)

Halfway was a community in Clark County located about seven miles north of Okolona (Clark County) and seven miles northeast of Antoine (Pike County) on State Highway 26. The community was located roughly halfway between Antoine and Hollywood (Clark County). Halfway was never a large settlement, but records reflect the operation of a post office for several years. The office opened in 1884 and closed in 1886. It reopened in 1900 and remained in operation until it was permanently closed in 1916. The operations of the office were moved to Okolona. Early settlers to the area farmed and worked in the timber industry. Samuel Dawson obtained the first land in the area with his patent filed on November 1, 1839. …

Hamburg (Ashley County)

As a small town, Hamburg is typical in the economic challenges facing it but is atypical in that it has become the educational center for most of Ashley County’s geographic area, as well as small parts of Chicot and Drew counties. Early Statehood through Reconstruction Hamburg was laid out in October 1849, two months after Ashley County was formed from part of Drew County in the area earlier known as the Great Wilderness. With the town’s designation as the county seat, two of the first public buildings were the courthouse and the county jail, erected in 1850. The site was chosen at least in part because the legislation organizing the county required that the county seat be within five miles …

Hampson Archeological Museum State Park

Hampson Archeological Museum State Park houses and exhibits the archaeological collection from a Mississippian era ceremonial complex and village known as the Nodena Site, located in Wilson (Mississippi County) and originally uncovered by Dr. James K. Hampson. This remarkable collection is accompanied by graphics and written material describing the lifestyles of the artistic people who lived here from AD 1400 to 1650. As a boy, Hampson (1877–1956) was fascinated by arrowheads. His interest in archaeology was rekindled in the early 1920s, when he returned to the family plantation, Nodena, to set up a successful medical practice. In 1927, he began a painstaking study of the physical remains of the people who inhabited the Nodena Site. Hampson, his wife, and his …

Hampton (Calhoun County)

Hampton has served as the seat of Calhoun County since the county was created in 1850, and it remains the county’s most populous city. Louisiana Purchase through Early Statehood The first white person to patent a claim in the area of what is now Hampton was Nathaniel Hunt of Tennessee, who arrived in 1848. He established a farm on the north side of what was later the Hampton and Warren Road. When Calhoun County was created in 1850, a county seat was established near Hunt’s farm due to its central location and named Hampton for Colonel John R. Hampton, a state senator. Oliver Hazard Perry Black of Union County settled in Hampton around 1850, starting the first store there. In …

Hanger Hill Historic District

The Hanger Hill Historic District was nominated to the National Register of Historic Places in 2007 for its good examples of early twentieth-century architectural styles. This district contains the 1500 block of Welch Street, located in the eastern section of the city of Little Rock (Pulaski County) between the downtown area and the industrial park/airport zone. The Hanger Hill Historic District represents the post-Victorian heyday of concrete block construction and the transition from the Queen Anne architectural style to the Craftsman style in a primarily working-class neighborhood. The Leifer Manufacturing Company is credited with the construction of this block of mostly concrete block houses. Their advertisement in the 1907 Little Rock City Directory shows a picture of the house at …

Happy Hollow

aka: McLeod's Amusement Park

McLeod’s Amusement Park, more commonly known as Happy Hollow, served as one of Hot Springs’s most popular tourist attractions from the late 1800s until the 1940s. It was located at the head of Fountain Street, just off Central Avenue, and north of Hot Springs Mountain. Photographer Norman McLeod owned and operated Happy Hollow from the time of its founding through 1908. McLeod, who was born in Georgia, became a wanderer after his college days, when he came to Hot Springs (Garland County) in 1888 and established his business. Happy Hollow began as a picture studio. The amusement park complex gradually developed from McLeod’s vision. He owned Happy Hollow until 1908, when he sold the property to Dave Anselberg. T. E. …

Harding University

Harding University, a private Christian university associated with the Churches of Christ, is located in Searcy (White County), occupying some 200 acres just east of the center of the city. It is the largest private educational institution in Arkansas. The motto of Harding University is “Developing Christian Servants.” The school was founded in Morrilton (Conway County). In April 1924, the boards of two struggling Christian junior colleges, Arkansas Christian College of Morrilton and Harper College of Harper, Kansas, agreed to combine their assets and create a single four-year institution. Adlai S. Croom was president and founder of Arkansas Christian College (1922), which had a faculty of ten, while John N. Armstrong was president of Harper College with a faculty of …

Hardy (Sharp County)

Located in northern Arkansas on the Spring River, Hardy (Sharp County) was established in 1883 as a result of the construction of the Kansas City, Springfield, and Memphis Railroad. The town emerged in the twentieth century as a popular tourist destination for Mid-southerners seeking the natural beauty of the Ozark foothills. The Arkansas General Assembly’s 1867 decision to pay companies $10,000 for every mile of track laid led to a statewide boom in railway construction. The Kansas City, Springfield, and Memphis Railroad through Arkansas was built, at least in part, because of this incentive. Named for railroad contractor James A. Hardy of Batesville (Independence County), the town was developed on 600 acres of land by early settler Walker Clayton in …

Hardy Cemetery Historic Section

The Hardy Cemetery Historic Section, which is located near the northern edge of Hardy (Sharp County), was added to the National Register of Historic Places on March 2, 2006. It was included in part due to its connection to the founders of the town and its funerary architecture. Though the area that became Hardy was settled by the 1880s, the town was not incorporated until July 12, 1894. Walter Clayton, a town founder, had donated the land for the town in 1883. He also donated the land for the cemetery, though it is not clear if this donation was made at the same time. There are a total of 322 burials in the cemetery. The oldest with a dated headstone …

Haretown (Clark County)

Haretown of Clark County is a community located about three miles northwest of Okolona (Clark County) and three miles southeast of Antoine (Pike County) along County Road 449. The earliest settlers in the area included Thomas McLaughlin, who obtained 120 acres of land in the area on July 1, 1859. On the same date, Jeptha Cornelius obtained 160 acres nearby. Both families worked the land as farmers, and neither owned slaves. After the Civil War, more families began moving to the area. William and Susan Hare moved to the area in the 1860s. Originally from South Carolina, the couple lived in Mississippi before moving to Arkansas. Working as a farm laborer, William also served as the founding minister of Center …

Harkey Valley (Yell County)

Harkey Valley, often referred to as “Harkey’s Valley,” is a community located in Yell County between County Roads 38 and 39. Located southwest of Dardanelle (Yell County), the community is bordered by Chickalah (Yell County) on Highway 27, which lies approximately ten miles to the east, and the Mount Magazine Division of the Ozark National Forest to the west. Portions of the community are located within the forest itself. The community’s history is closely associated with the neighboring community of Sulphur Springs (Yell County), which lies slightly to the north. Both areas are often referred to as simply “the valley.” County Road 38, which leads from Chickalah to Harkey’s Valley and Sulphur Springs, was renamed “Harkey’s Valley Road.” Therefore, many newcomers …

Harmontown (Independence County)

Harmontown (a.k.a. Harmon Town) is a farming community in Washington Township, located on Harmontown Road between Bethesda (Independence County) and O’Neal (Independence County). Willow and Pine Tree lanes circle the community near Harmon and Betsey Gill creeks. Harmontown is in the White River bottoms about a mile north of the river. The White River bottoms are noted for floods, often severe. About ten miles west of the county seat of Batesville (Independence County), Harmontown is about two and a half miles from Bethesda and about three miles from O’Neal. The Harmon family from Tennessee founded the community. Stephen William (Step) Harmon and his wife, Sarah Mary Luster Harmon, along with four of their five sons (Moses, Peter, Trent, and Bill), …

Harmony Grove (Ouachita County)

Harmony Grove (Ouachita County) is an unincorporated community located about five miles northeast of Camden (Ouachita County) and about four miles northwest of East Camden (Ouachita County). Early landowners in the area included the Stone family. Moving to the Camden area in 1844, the family included Thomas Stone, his wife Jemina Stone, and their seven children. Thomas Stone received 120 acres as a federal land patent in the area in 1849. The previous year, he obtained eighty acres west of Camden. He died in 1849, and his sons continued to acquire land in the Harmony Grove area. George Stone acquired forty acres in the area in 1856, and his brother followed suit with another forty acres the following year. When …

Harp (Hot Spring County)

Harp is an unincorporated community in Hot Spring County located on Arkansas Highway 9 about one mile south of the city limits of Malvern (Hot Spring County). Two of the earliest settlers in the area were Emanuel and Marguerite Harp. The family name also appears as Harps in some records. Originally from Georgia, the family moved to Arkansas in the 1850s. Emanuel received forty-two acres from the federal government in 1860, and over the next twenty years, the family acquired more than 200 additional acres. The couple had at least seven children, including eldest son Emanuel. The elder Emanuel donated three acres of land for a cemetery in 1862, and many members of the family are buried in it. The …

Harrell (Calhoun County)

Established as a railroad depot early in the twentieth century, the town of Harrell is in eastern Calhoun County, about five miles east of Hampton (Calhoun County), the county seat. Harrell still maintains a working sawmill in the twenty-first century. Calhoun County is part of the Gulf Coastal Plain. Caddo lived in these forested hills long before European exploration, and the county contains many reminders of their presence, including two prehistoric mounds and roughly 350 archaeological sites. European explorers entered the area by means of the Ouachita River, but more inland areas like what would become Harrell were not frequented until long after the county was created in 1850. After the Civil War, northern developers began to purchase land in southern Arkansas to …

Harrisburg (Poinsett County)

Situated upon Crowley’s Ridge, Harrisburg (Poinsett County) became the seat of Poinsett County in September 1856. Harrisburg is home to the Modern News, the oldest established weekly newspaper in Arkansas. It is situated on the Helena (Phillips County) branch of the St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern Railroad line. The town is named in honor of the Benjamin Harris family. The Harris family came to the Harrisburg area from Alabama before 1830. Benjamin Harris married Martha Thrower, a Kentucky native, and they had eleven children. This pioneer settler of the county was prominent in both local and state affairs, serving as magistrate, representative, and senator. Harrisburg was also the home of Benjamin Harris’s son, County Judge William Harris, who held …

Harrison (Boone County)

Located in the Ozark Mountains of north Arkansas, Harrison is a hub of regional tourism and industry. The town struggles, however, to overcome the national attention focused on it due to racial conflicts in the early 1900s and the reappearance of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1990s. Louisiana Purchase through Early Statehood Before white settlers arrived to settle the area that would become Harrison, the Osage called the area home. The Cherokee arrived during the Trail of Tears. The Benge Route was north of the present city of Harrison. With the arrival of white settlers by the 1830s, the Osage and Cherokee were forced out of the area. Named after the creek that continues to run …

Hartford (Sebastian County)

The city of Hartford, in southern Sebastian County, is most famous for its role in the history of gospel music publishing. A city that flourished during the peak of coal mining in western Arkansas early in the twentieth century, Hartford has diminished in population but remains an anchor of the region. The history of Hartford is actually an account of two communities. The older settlement to take the name Hartford dates to before the Civil War. About seventeen families were homesteading in southern Sebastian County, between the Sugar Loaf and Poteau mountains. Their settlement was known to some residents as the Old Sugarloaf Valley Community, but most called the settlement Hart’s Ford, honoring Betsy Hart, the widow of James Hart, who lived …

Hartford Commercial Historic District

The buildings in the Hartford Commercial Historic District in Hartford (Sebastian County) were constructed in the early twentieth century during a period of rapid growth of the town and housed important frontier amenities like grocery stores, banks, drugstores, and clothing stores. This concentration of historic commercial buildings provides a context for the development of coal industry boom towns throughout southern Sebastian County. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on July 15, 2009. Hartford is located in the southwestern part of Sebastian County about three and a half miles east of the Arkansas-Oklahoma border. Situated in the Upper Sugar Loaf Valley between the Sugar Loaf and Poteau mountains, Hartford began as a small village near the West Creek …

Hartman (Johnson County)

The city of Hartman, eleven miles west of Clarksville (Johnson County) on U.S. Highway 64, was settled by German immigrants in the 1880s after railroad service was established. A center of cotton and peach farming, as well as coal production, the city prospered until the Great Depression but has struggled since that time. The first owner of the land on which Hartman was built was Oren Davis Hogins, who purchased several tracts of Johnson County land beginning in 1837. Other settlers also bought land in the area and established farms that grew cotton and various fruits and vegetables, as well as raising livestock. When the Civil War began, many of the men from the area enlisted with the Confederate army, …

Harvey (Scott County)

Harvey is an unincorporated community in eastern Scott County, near the border of Yell County. Harvey is within close proximity to the community of Nola (Scott County), just two miles east along Highway 28. The area where Harvey and Nola are located was once known as Nebraska (Scott County). The area along the Fourche La Fave River valley was once a wilderness thick with timber and wildlife. Archaeological evidence shows Archaic, Woodland, and Mississippian peoples living in the area. Prior to European exploration of Arkansas, the Caddo tribe lived along the Fourche La Fave River valley, and burial mounds and other archaeological sites can be found along the river. In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, French hunters and …

Haskell (Saline County)

Haskell is a city on Highway 67 in Saline County, about seven miles south of the county seat of Benton. Once recognized as a railroad town, located between the Missouri Pacific and the Rock Island tracks, Haskell is best known in the twenty-first century as the home of the Harmony Grove School District. Southern Saline County, watered by creeks that flow into the Saline River, was a rugged wooded area when Arkansas became a state in 1836. One of the first to receive a land grant for the area that would become Haskell was Mabel Gilbert, who received land grants dated 1837 and 1838. Other early settlers included Thomas Montgomery and William Washington White. Following the Civil War, railroads began to …

Hatfield (Polk County)

Hatfield is a town on U.S. Highway 71 in Polk County. Although it originated earlier than the Civil War, its survival is due to the railroad, now the Kansas City Southern, that was built at the end of the nineteenth century. White settlers from Georgia, Virginia, Tennessee, Missouri, and Kentucky first began to arrive in the vicinity of Hatfield in the 1840s. Thomas Adams, Edward Read, and Berry Ward each received patents from the land office in 1855. A sawmill was built near the location where the Old Line Road crossed Six Mile Creek, and a community called Clayton Spur developed. The community had a blacksmith shop, a lodge hall, and several shops connected with the lumber industry. No schools …

Havana (Yell County)

Havana is a second-class city located on Highway 10 between the Ozark National Forest to the north and the Ouachita National Forest to the south. Highway 309 winds north from Havana to Mount Magazine, and Blue Mountain Lake on the Petit Jean River is a few miles west of Havana. The small city is the birthplace and childhood home of three major league pitchers, the most renowned of whom is Johnny Sain. Before Havana was incorporated in 1900, several names were given to the small settlement that was developing on the north side of the Petit Jean River. Marvinville was the earliest name given to the settlement, which was a stopping-point on the Military Road which connected Dardanelle (Yell County) …

Haven of Rest Cemetery

Haven of Rest Cemetery in Little Rock (Pulaski County) is the largest African American cemetery in Arkansas and consists of more than eighteen acres and over 7,000 burials. Established in the early 1900s, the cemetery is located along 12th Street in the University Park neighborhood. Burials at the cemetery include civil rights activists, medical pioneers, and civic and religious figures. This cemetery was listed by the Arkansas Cemetery Board as a historical cemetery. Daisy Bates and Scipio Jones are among the notable civil rights figures buried in the cemetery. Bates was elected president of the Arkansas State Conference of branches for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), was co-publisher of the Arkansas State Press newspaper with …

Haygood Seminary

Haygood Seminary in Washington (Hempstead County) was established in 1883 as one of the first schools for African Americans funded by the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church (CME) in Arkansas. Its mission was to prepare preachers and teachers for their vocation so that they could help with the education and development of other African Americans. Haygood Seminary was one of the first five educational institutions in the South supported by the CME Church in the late nineteenth century. Haygood Seminary, also known as Haygood Academy, was organized in March 1883 by former slave John Williamson in Washington. His former master was the Reverend Samuel Williamson of the Presbyterian Church in Washington. John Williamson was a member of the CME congregation in …

Haynes (Lee County)

Haynes is a town in north-central Lee County, about one mile from the St. Francis County line and two miles from the L’Anguille River. Cotton and the railroad brought Haynes into existence, but the town’s population has varied over the years. Before Arkansas became a state, its eastern Delta region was dotted with large cotton plantations, with a slave population that largely outnumbered the white landowners. Several homes were built in the area that would become Haynes from the 1820s to the 1840s. Stores, a Baptist church, and a school for white children had already been established by 1850. The Civil War changed the economy of the region, bringing an end to slavery, but the African-American tenant farmers of the area lived much the same lives as …

Hazel Grove (Independence County)

The historic community of Hazel Grove is in Dota Township on Walden Road about four miles north-northeast of Cord (Independence County). It was once located on a main thoroughfare built in the early 1830s, the Military Road, which paralleled the Southwest Trail. Curia Creek is nearby, and the Black River lies a few miles to the east. Batesville, the county seat, is sixteen miles to the west-southwest. Hazel Grove is just south of the point at which Independence, Lawrence, and Sharp counties meet. The French LaBass family played a leading role in establishing Hazel Grove. The deed records at Powhatan (Lawrence County) show that five French settlers claimed lands along the Black River: Joseph Janis, son of Anthony Janis; John …

Hazen (Prairie County)

Hazen is located near the center of Prairie County, approximately forty-three miles directly east of Little Rock (Pulaski County) on Highway 70 and Interstate 40. It is in the northern part of the Grand Prairie, land once thought good only for growing prairie hay and wild animals. Louisiana Purchase through Early Statehood The town is named for Dr. William Cogswell Hazen, who came to the area from Covington, Tennessee, with his family and twenty-one slaves in 1854. He settled in a spot 1.3 miles north of present-day Highway 70 and one mile west of Highway 63, in a place where the prairie ends. Hazen persuaded family friend the Reverend John W. Hudson to come with them. Hudson settled three miles …

Headquarters House Museum

aka: Tebbetts House

Located in the historic district of Fayetteville (Washington County), the Headquarters House Museum serves as the headquarters for the Washington County Historical Society. The museum offers daily house tours, walking tours of the gardens and grounds, and educational programs to teach local children about the history of Fayetteville. The Headquarters House Museum hosts the annual Heritage School during the summer months to promote awareness of past traditions and manners. It also provides numerous luncheons and receptions each year for visitors and guests. Headquarters House was built in 1853 by Judge Jonas Tebbetts and his wife, Matilda Winlock Tebbetts. The house is one of the best examples of Greek Revival architecture still standing in Arkansas, containing fluted columns on the front …

Hearn (Clark County)

Hearn is an unincorporated community located about four miles northwest of Arkadelphia (Clark County) along Arkansas Highway 8 in Clark County. The community is closely tied with Arkadelphia. Early settlers include Gabriel Denton, who obtained a federal land patent for just over 439 acres in 1837. John Buck obtained forty acres in 1839. Buck lived on the land with his family, totaling fifteen people according to the 1840 federal census. He appeared in the 1850 census along with his wife, son, and daughter, owning $600 of real estate. Buck appeared in the 1860 census with his wife and daughter and is listed as owning $800 of real estate, with $2,400 of personal property. He also owned an enslaved sixteen-year-old girl …

Heber Springs (Cleburne County)

Heber Springs, the county seat of Arkansas’s youngest county, has been identified as a tourist area from the beginning. Even before the town was formed, the area was known for its mineral springs. Since the formation of Greers Ferry Lake on the Little Red River in the early 1960s, the town has become a popular resort for camping, boating, and other water sports. Pre-European Exploration At least 10,000 years ago, people hunted and foraged in the land that would become Cleburne County. At some point nearly 2,000 years ago, they began to domesticate plants, including corn and squash, and around 1,000 years ago they established settled communities with substantial houses, especially in the river valleys. Over 200 archaeological sites are known …

Hebron (Clark County)

Hebron is a rural community in Clark County located about nine miles east of Gurdon (Clark County). Extremely isolated and only accessible by county roads, the community looks much as it did when it was founded in the nineteenth century. An alternative spelling of the name of the community is Hebren. Early landowners in the area include James Nunn, who obtained a Federal Land Patent for forty acres in 1855 and an additional forty in 1859. Appearing in the 1860 federal census, Nunn was listed as a blacksmith with no family members, $600 of real estate, and seventy-five dollars of personal property. Eli Cole and Levi Whitton together acquired 160 acres in 1858, and no other patents were issued in …

Hector (Pope County)

The town of Hector is on Arkansas State Highway 27, about seventeen miles north of Atkins (Pope County) and just south of the Ozark-St. Francis National Forest. It has an elementary school and a high school that serve the children of northern Pope County. One of the first settlements in Pope County was Boiling Springs, about a mile west of what became Hector. A large Methodist camp meeting was held at Boiling Springs early in the 1830s, while Arkansas was still a territory. After the meeting, a Methodist congregation was established at the site, led by five preachers: Mahlon Bewley and his sons John, Robert, George, and Nelson. A log building was constructed for the congregation in 1832. School classes …

Hedges (Stone County)

Hedges is a historic community located on Gunner Pool Road (Highway 93) about a mile northeast of Fifty-Six (Stone County) and about two miles north-northeast of the recreational area known as Gunner’s Pool, a popular camping, swimming, and fishing site in Stone County. This area is part of the Ozark National Forest. Native Americans hunted and fished in the Hedges area at least 1,000 years ago, as evidenced by a skeleton discovered in 1955 during the first systematic exploration of the caverns by cavers. The skeleton had a fractured skull, fractured ribs, and a fractured leg. How this explorer entered the cave is unknown. Radiocarbon dating of the remains of a cane and wooden torch indicates that prehistoric human exploration …

Helen Dunlap School for Mountain Girls

aka: Helen Dunlap Memorial School for Mountain Girls

The Helen Dunlap School for Mountain Girls, later known as the Helen Dunlap Memorial School for Mountain Girls, is considered one of the best early examples of a Mountain Mission School in Arkansas, according to historian Brooks Blevins. These schools were supported by churches of various denominations in northern states, and their purpose was to provide secondary academic and vocational education to children living in isolated mountain communities. The Helen Dunlap School for Mountain Girls was established around 1905 in Winslow (Washington County), a small mountain town on the St. Louis–San Francisco Railway. The building, known as “Boston Heights” and built by the original owners as a family residence, was donated to St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Winslow by Dr. Albert Dunlap, …

Helena Confederate Cemetery

The Helena Confederate Cemetery is located in the southwestern corner of Maple Hill Cemetery in Helena-West Helena (Phillips County). The cemetery contains the graves of Confederate soldiers, two memorials, and the grave of Major General Patrick Cleburne. The cemetery lies on Crowley’s Ridge overlooking the downtown area of the city. The cemetery was created in 1869 by the Phillips County Memorial Association when the bodies of seventy-three known and twenty-nine unnamed Confederate soldiers were moved into a one-acre portion of Maple Hill Cemetery. Most of these men died at the Battle of Helena on July 4, 1863, or from wounds shortly after. The body of Cleburne was moved to the cemetery and re-interred in 1870. A prewar resident of Helena, he …

Helena Museum of Phillips County

aka: Helena Library and Museum

The Helena Museum of Phillips County in Helena-West Helena (Phillips County) has an extensive collection of artifacts, most of which are associated with the history of the region. The Helena Museum of Phillips County began as part of the Helena Library. The library was built at 623 Pecan Street by the local building firm, Raenhart and Simon, in 1891. The three-story building was painted pink to reflect its Mediterranean style. To meet the growing need for a space to display the many artifacts that were given to the library by citizens of Helena, a separate building, designed by Andrew Pomerory Coolidge, was completed in 1930 to house what was to be the museum. The museum was one of the few …

Helena-West Helena (Phillips County)

Helena-West Helena is located on the Mississippi River about seven and a half miles below the mouth of the St. Francis River. Helena was incorporated in 1833 and prospered as a river port, while West Helena began as a railroad town, incorporated in 1917. The two cities united their school systems in 1946 and merged into one city (preserving both names) on January 1, 2006. Louisiana Purchase through Early Statehood Two land speculators, Sylvanus Phillips and William Russell, created the present town site of Helena, which was originally part of a Spanish land grant. Phillips, who played the major role in the establishment of the town, arrived in the area about 1797 and moved to the present site of Helena …

Hell’s Half Acre

Hell’s Half Acre is a talus hillside (a slope formed by an accumulation of broken rocks) located on Indian Mountain, about four miles northeast of downtown Hot Springs (Garland County). Since the first white settlers arrived in Arkansas, the unique contrast of blighted rock surrounded by otherwise ordinary forest has captured the imaginations of locals. Through the efforts of tourism boosters and storytellers, the area earned its name and its popularized reputation as an area haunted by the Devil himself. A Hot Springs tourist guide published in 1892 described Hell’s Half Acre as “[a] barren, weird, forbidding conglomeration of boulders, an arsenal for Titans. Not a blade of grass, not a shrub, not even a lichen dares brave the atmosphere …

Hemingway-Pfeiffer Museum

The Hemingway-Pfeiffer Museum and Educational Center, located at 1021 West Cherry Street in Piggott (Clay County), opened on July 4, 1999. The museum and educational center is designed to contribute to the understanding of the 1920s and 1930s by focusing on the internationally connected Pfeiffer family of Piggott and their son-in-law, Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Literature in 1953 for the novel The Old Man and the Sea and was named Nobel Laureate in Literature in 1954 for his overall contribution to writing. The museum includes the Pfeiffer-Janes House and the Hemingway Barn-Studio. W. D. “Buck” Templeton built both structures in 1910. Paul Pfeiffer bought the house and barn in 1913 and moved his family to …

Hempstead County

Hempstead County, located in the southwest corner of the state, was organized in 1818, before Congress established Arkansas Territory. The Missouri territorial legislature had created three counties from Arkansas County—Hempstead, Clark, and Pulaski. The county was named for Edward Hempstead, the first delegate to Congress from Missouri Territory. It has been the home of four Arkansas governors: Augustus H. Garland, Daniel Webster Jones, William Jefferson Clinton (later a U.S. president), and Michael Dale Huckabee. European Exploration and Settlement Early Spanish and French explorers traded with the Indians, and it is possible that Hernando de Soto’s 1539–1542 expedition visited this area. Archaeologists have found evidence of Caddo Indian villages and mounds. The Caddo were known to hunt along the Red River …

Henderson State University (HSU)

Henderson State University (HSU) is a public, co-educational university located in Arkadelphia (Clark County). HSU is Arkansas’s only public liberal-arts school and is one of the oldest publicly funded universities in Arkansas. HSU was founded in 1890 as Arkadelphia Methodist College. The name was changed in 1904 to Henderson College to honor Charles Christopher Henderson and to Henderson-Brown College to honor Walter William Brown in 1911. After thirty-nine years of Methodist control of the institution, the state convention decided to close the institution and combine it with Hendrix College in Conway (Faulkner County). The student body of Henderson-Brown strongly opposed the idea, as did most of the administration and local citizens. After negotiations with state lawmakers, it was decided to …

Henderson-Brown College

Henderson-Brown College (HBC) was a private, co-educational college located in Arkadelphia (Clark County). HBC served as a Methodist institution of higher learning in the southern part of the state. It exists today as Henderson State University. HBC was founded in 1890 as Arkadelphia Methodist College. Local members of the Methodist state convention had decided to start a college to serve students in southern Arkansas and to compete with Ouachita Baptist College (now Ouachita Baptist University), also located in Arkadelphia. The school was the third Methodist college in the state, joining male-only Hendrix College in Conway (Faulkner County) and Galloway Female College in Searcy (White County). Arkadelphia Methodist College was the first co-educational school in the Methodist state convention. Methodist citizens …

Hendrix College

Hendrix College is an independent, liberal arts college located in Conway (Faulkner County) and affiliated with the United Methodist Church. In its 2007 “America’s Best Colleges” guide, U.S. News & World Report included Hendrix in the top tier of the nation’s liberal arts colleges; it was the only college or university in Arkansas to be listed. The Reverend Isham Lafayette Burrow established a school in 1876, then known as Central Institute, in Altus (Franklin County) with an initial enrollment of twenty students. In the 1881–82 school year, the name was changed to Central Collegiate Institute. In 1884, Burrow appealed to the Methodist Church for financial help. The following year, the conferences raised funds to purchase the school and elected Burrow …

Hendrix College Addition Neighborhood Historic District

The Hendrix College Addition Neighborhood Historic District in Conway (Faulkner County) is primarily a white, middle-income neighborhood. Its namesake, and the focal point for the neighborhood, is Hendrix College, and the neighborhood’s popularity has historically depended on the success of the school. On September 19, 2007, the neighborhood was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Hendrix College Addition is positioned north along Washington Avenue to Fleming Street, east along Fleming Street to Cleveland Avenue, south along Cleveland Avenue to Harton Street, east along Harton Street to Harkrider Street, south along Harkrider Street to Winfield Street, and west along Winfield Street to Washington Avenue. It is directly across the street from Hendrix College, and both are in close …

Hendrix, James Richard

James Richard Hendrix was a World War II veteran and recipient of the Medal of Honor for his actions during that war. James Hendrix, the son of a sharecropper, was born on August 20, 1925, in the small town of Lepanto (Poinsett County) near Jonesboro (Craighead County). At an early age, he left school to work alongside his parents, Pearl Hendrix and James Hendrix Sr., on the family farm. In 1943, at age eighteen, Hendrix was drafted into the U.S. Army. After attending basic training in Florida, Private Hendrix was sent to Europe assigned to the Fifty-third Armored Infantry Battalion, Fourth Armored Division. Hendrix, along with his unit, waited out the Allied invasion of Normandy on a ship in the English …

Henry’s Chapel

Henry’s Chapel was a log church built at Mound Prairie (Hempstead County) around 1817 by Methodist pioneers from Bellevue Valley, Missouri. Many accounts refer to Henry’s Chapel as the area’s first Protestant church. In 1817, a Methodist conference appointed itinerant Methodist preacher William Stevenson to the Hot Springs Circuit, a wilderness area on the western frontier in what would later become southwest Arkansas. Stevenson had scouted the area in 1813 and realized the need to establish a church. He chose the tiny settlement of Mound Prairie as the place for it. At Stevenson’s urging, thirty families from the Bellevue Methodist Church moved to the area. The leader of the group was the Reverend John Henry, a thirty-eight-year-old preacher and farmer. Several others …