Entries - Entry Type: Thing - Starting with C

C. E. Forrester House

The C. E. Forrester House is located on Danville Street near the Commercial Historic District in Waldron (Scott County). The house was built in 1896 by prominent businessman and philanthropist Charlie Edward (C. E.) Forrester. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on September 3, 1998. Charlie Forrester was born in Parks (Scott County) in 1871. He began his career in Waldron by working in his father’s general store. He eventually bought out his father and began the Forrester-Goolsby Corporation. His commercial ventures expanded to three Main Street businesses selling groceries, dry goods, and hardware. Forrester also began dealing in cotton and timber, and establishing several sawmills throughout the area, including the county’s largest planing mill, in …

C. E. Thompson General Store and House

The C. E. Thompson General Store and House is located in Arkadelphia (Clark County). Serving as both a store and home into the mid-twentieth century and later renovated to be used as a restaurant, the structure was added to the National Register of Historic Places on April 4, 2001. Located at the intersection of State Highways 8 and 26, the building was constructed in 1936 by the Thompson family. The Craftsman-style building was designed to serve as both a home and a store. The house sits on a continuous brick foundation but was constructed on brick piers. Covered in weatherboard, the building is topped with a composition shingled roof. Most of the windows are double hung three over one. The …

Cache River

The Cache River arises near the Arkansas-Missouri border at the confluence of a few agricultural ditches and flows south-southwesterly through Arkansas until it empties into the White River just east of Clarendon (Monroe County). Though it is not a major transportation corridor, the Cache River has nonetheless had an important place in Arkansas history, especially in debates about environmental conservation. The town of Cash (Craighead County) takes its name from the river. The Cache River was an important water resource for prehistoric Native Americans; for instance, important Indian mound sites connected to the Plum Bayou culture lie within the Cache River floodplain. These early peoples could exploit the variety of natural resources provided by the river and surrounding area, which was …

Caddisflies

aka: Trichopterans

Caddisflies (Phylum Arthropoda, Class Insecta, Order Trichoptera) make up the largest and most diverse group of aquatic insects. More specifically, caddisflies are a group of small to medium-sized (2 to 30 mm in length), moth-like insects with two pairs of hairy membranous wings; they have aquatic larval forms that metamorphose into terrestrial adults. The name for the order Trichoptera comes from the name Trichos, which means “hairy,” and ptera, which means “wings.” The word “caddis” dates back to The Compleat Angler, written by Izaak Walton (1594–1683) and published in 1653, in which “cod-worms or caddis” were named as being used for bait. Caddisflies are a favorite food of many fish, and therefore are attractive to anglers, particularly trout fly fishermen, …

Caddo Mountain Salamander

aka: Plethodon caddoensis

The Caddo Mountain salamander (Plethodon caddoensis) is a slender, medium-sized (90–100 millimeters in total length) terrestrial salamander. It is one of twenty or so members of the caudate family Plethodontidae that can be found in Arkansas. Adults of this species possess numerous tiny white spots and/or brassy flecks on the back and tail; the dorsal body color is otherwise uniformly black. The lateral body surfaces are creamy white in appearance. The throat region is distinctly pale or white. Juveniles may lack much of the lateral body coloration. This species is one of three endemic salamanders known to exist in Arkansas and is primarily confined to the Caddo Mountains area of the southern Ouachita National Forest and several outlying areas in …

Caddo River

The Caddo River of west-central Arkansas is known widely as the Natural State’s premier family float stream. This scenic river is named after the Caddo Indians who settled the Ouachita Mountain drainage area. Since that time, many generations have settled, explored, and enjoyed this watercourse. This spring fed Ouachita Mountain stream offers something for everyone. Visitors to the Caddo can experience diverse recreational opportunity in a safe, easily accessible, natural setting. For centuries, this unique waterway has carved its way through sedimentary rock formations, creating a broad shallow river valley and leaving miles of gravel along its path. In some places, the nearly vertical beds of sandstone and novaculite create rapids and water gaps. The Caddo, known for extremely clear …

Caddo River Lumber Company

Caddo River Lumber Company was one of the largest lumber companies operating in the Ouachita Mountains during the first half of the twentieth century. During the Depression, it may have been the largest manufacturing employer in the state. However, like many other lumber companies of the era, it succumbed to a shortsighted policy of non-sustainable practices. The Caddo River Lumber Company was organized in 1906 by Thomas Whitaker Rosborough, M. R. Smith, W. E. Cooper, and Lee Wilson of Kansas City, Missouri, with Smith as president and Rosborough as vice president, though the latter managed the operations of the company. Rosborough had previously operated sawmills and a planing mill in Arkansas and Louisiana and had done some work for Ozan …

Cairo and Fulton Railroad

Today’s Union Pacific Railroad line from the Missouri state line through Little Rock (Pulaski County) to Texarkana (Miller County) was constructed by the Cairo and Fulton Railroad. Over a period of more than 100 years, the Cairo and Fulton merged first into the St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern (StLIM&S), then into the Missouri Pacific, and finally into today’s Union Pacific. As the first railroad to connect Arkansas to Missouri and the eastern United States, the Cairo and Fulton opened up the state for development. The Cairo and Fulton Railroad was chartered by the Arkansas General Assembly on January 12, 1853, to build a railroad line from the Arkansas-Missouri state line across Arkansas to Texas, including one or more branches …

Calhoun County Courthouse

The Calhoun County Courthouse is a 1909 building composed of a rectangular central wing flanked on all sides by a variety of projections. The courthouse includes arched double-hung windows, and arched doorways form the exterior of the first floor. The second floor houses paired, rectangular windows. While devoid of many intricacies, the building demonstrates common Classical and Colonial Revival details. On December 12, 1976, the courthouse was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Calhoun County Courthouse is at 309 W. Main St. in Hampton (Calhoun County), 200 feet north of the Hampton Cemetery and slightly west of the Hampton Masonic Lodge Building, both of which are also listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Constructed in …

Calico Rock Home Economics Building

The Calico Rock Home Economics Building, located on Second Street in Calico Rock (Izard County), was built in 1940–1941 with assistance from the National Youth Administration (NYA), a Depression-era federal relief agency. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on September 10, 1992. Students in the White River town of Calico Rock were being served by a two-story school building erected in 1921 and a later gymnasium when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal created opportunities for an additional building. The school district turned to the NYA, which provided employment opportunities for young people, to build a home economics building on the school campus. Though the NYA approved the project around 1938, construction was delayed. The Calico …

Calico Rock Methodist Episcopal Church

aka: Calico Rock Music Hall

The Calico Rock Methodist Episcopal Church, located in Calico Rock (Izard County), was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2007, the same year it was reopened as the Calico Rock Music Hall. The building’s Craftsman style and tan and dark red bricks are unusual in the Ozark Mountains. In the sanctuary, the original banked pews, pine floors, triple tray pressed-tin ceiling, and stained glass windows are still in place, as well as the 500-pound bell in the tower. Each of the five classrooms on the first floor has several six-foot-long double-hung windows. When the St. Louis and Iron Mountain Railroad began laying tracks along the banks of the White River in 1903, Calico Rock became a boom …

Calico Rock Museum and Visitor Center

The Calico Rock Museum and Visitor Center, which was formally dedicated on April 12, 2014, occupies two of the oldest surviving buildings in downtown Calico Rock (Izard County): the E. N. Rand Building (built in 1903) and the Bluff City Bank Building (built in 1896). The museum foundation also owns the 1906 Calico Rock Progress Building, which houses a café and ice cream parlor. While the museum preserves and displays the art and history of the community, it also has a contract with the City of Calico Rock to provide visitor center services. In 2007, a group of interested citizens formed the Calico Rock Organization for Revitalization Efforts (CORE) and began searching for a location to establish a museum to …

Camark Pottery

Founded in 1926, Camden Art Tile and Pottery Company was the third and last producer of Art Pottery in Arkansas. By the end of its first year, its name had changed to Camark to include both the city of Camden (Ouachita County) and the state of Arkansas. Camark Pottery eventually became one of Camden’s best-known industries and was known nationwide. Samuel Jacob “Jack” Carnes, a native of Zanesville, Ohio, and an engineer with knowledge of the pottery business, wished to access the regional pottery market, so he created the company with several Ohio associates, including businessmen and artists. They held a competition among twenty-five cities for its placement. Camden won the appointment in 1926. At this time, Camden was booming. …

Cambridge [Steamboat]

The steamboat Cambridge was carrying a regiment of Confederate soldiers on the White River when it struck a snag and sank near Grand Glaise (Jackson County) on February 23, 1862. The Cambridge was a 242-ton sternwheel paddleboat built in 1856 for Captain William Dean, who ran it on a route going from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Cincinnati, Ohio, to St. Louis, Missouri. Around January 1862, Captain John Williams bought the Cambridge for $7,000, operating out of Memphis, Tennessee. The Cambridge became a troop transport by coincidence. Colonel G. W. LeMoyne had assembled his Seventeenth Arkansas Infantry Regiment (CS) in Little Rock (Pulaski County) and was preparing to go to Pocahontas (Randolph County) when a measles outbreak struck the Confederate troops. LeMoyne …

Camden Confederate Monument

The Camden Confederate Monument is a commemorative sculpture erected in 1915 on the grounds of the Ouachita County Courthouse in Camden (Ouachita County) through the efforts of the Hugh McCollum Camp 778 of the United Confederate Veterans (UCV), aided by the Hiram L. Grinstead Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC), to honor women who had supported the Confederacy during the Civil War. The Camden Confederate Monument is one of two Arkansas memorials that honor the women who supported the Confederate cause, and as with the Monument to Confederate Women on the Arkansas State Capitol grounds, it was raised through the efforts of the United Confederate Veterans. Sufficient money was raised by the McCollum Camp, with help from …

Camden to Washington Road, Rosston Segment

The Camden to Washington Road formerly connected the towns of Camden (Ouachita County) and Washington (Hempstead County). Some sections of the road still exist in the twenty-first century, including a segment near Rosston (Nevada County) that is part of Nevada County Road 10. This portion of the road was added to the National Register of Historic Places on January 29, 2009. The first effort to create the road began in 1821 when residents of Hempstead County petitioned the Court of Common Pleas to construct a road linking their county with a point on the Ouachita River. This would allow farmers to transport their crops to the nearest navigable river. A map drawn that same year shows a road leaving Ecore …

Camden Water Battery

The Camden Water Battery was part of a system of Civil War fortifications that Confederate soldiers built in late 1864 to protect the city of Camden (Ouachita County) and block any Union movements toward Shreveport, Louisiana. In mid-September 1864, Major General Sterling Price led a force of 12,000 Confederate men—including most of the cavalry serving in the state—on a raid into Missouri, which left only a few infantry divisions around Washington (Hempstead County) to defend southern Arkansas. Those troops were under the command of Major General John Bankhead “Prince John” Magruder, who faced the challenge of defending southwestern Arkansas as aggressive Federal patrols probed the region in the absence of Price and the Confederate cavalry. Magruder’s ability to defend the …

Camp Halsey

Camp Halsey was a Soil Conservation Service camp established in 1934 a few miles to the east of Greenbrier in the northeastern corner of Faulkner County. It later became a forestry camp before closing in 1939. In the twenty-first century, the site is archaeological site 3FA313. The location is about one mile east of Woolly Hollow State Park. The small community of Centerville (Faulkner County) is located about one mile to the west of the camp location. In response to expansive droughts in the early twentieth century, the U.S. government established “demonstration projects” tied to programs of soil conservation within watersheds. The Cadron Creek Demonstration Project was one of the first of these in Arkansas, although it was not affiliated …

Camp Ozark

Camp Ozark, located six miles west of Mount Ida (Montgomery County), is a summer sports and adventure camp in the Ouachita Mountains, fifteen miles from Lake Ouachita. The camp-owned property encompasses seventy-one acres, with additional land leased to the camp, along with access to land bordering Lake Ouachita. Each summer, more than 7,000 children (ages seven to seventeen) attend sessions at Camp Ozark, traveling from forty-one states and thirteen countries. Its location allows water and outdoor sporting activities such as wakesurfing, wakeboarding, waterskiing, canoeing, kayaking, laser tag, paintball, skeet shooting, mountain biking, horse riding, archery, and fishing. The property also includes a ropes course, various ball fields, and archery and shooting ranges. Campers aged twelve and older can complete their …

Campaign Finance Laws

In the modern era, through a combination of legislation and initiated acts, the state of Arkansas has developed a system of campaign finance laws for state elections. While critics charge that the system has problematic holes within it that allow money to unduly influence policymakers’ decisions, it is a system that is now in the mainstream of American states and is generally strong in terms of the disclosure of campaign contributions and expenditures. Such contributions and expenditures were completely unregulated in Arkansas until the mid-1970s, when an initial campaign finance law was passed (Act 788 of 1975). This came a year after the first major federal campaign finance legislation was passed following the Watergate scandal in which quid pro quo …

Capital Punishment

aka: Death Penalty

The death penalty was practiced in Arkansas even before the state was admitted to the Union in 1836, with the first legally sanctioned execution reportedly occurring at Arkansas Post in 1820. The Arkansas criminal code provides for the death penalty or life without parole upon conviction of capital murder or treason. Those convicted of rape were also subject to the death penalty until January 1, 1976, prior to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Coker v. Georgia that a death sentence for rape of an adult woman was disproportionate to the crime and violated the Eighth Amendment. The first Arkansas penitentiary was authorized in 1838. Shortly thereafter, the state purchased ninety-two acres for $12 per acre and authorized $80,500 to …

Captain Charles C. Henderson House

aka: Henderson House

The Henderson House is a Queen Anne–style home with Craftsman and Neoclassical additions located in Arkadelphia (Clark County). Owned by Charles Christopher Henderson (for whom Henderson State University—HSU—was named), it was added to the National Register of Historic Places on August 24, 1998. Charles Christopher Henderson was born in Scott County on March 17, 1850. Moving with his family to Arkadelphia in 1869, Henderson worked in a number of businesses, most notably in banks, timber, and railroads. Marrying in San Antonio, Texas, in 1880, Henderson and his wife returned to Arkadelphia, where they began to purchase a number of successive houses and plots of land. On July 16, 1892, Henderson bought a plot at the corner of present-day 10th and …

Captain Goodgame House

The Captain Goodgame House is a historic home located in the Holly Springs (Dallas County) area; it is near Arkansas Highway 128 just north of the intersection with Arkansas Highway 9. Constructed in 1918, the home is a late example of architectural details typically seen on nineteenth-century homes. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on October 28, 1983. John Goodgame was a native of Bibb County, Alabama. Born in 1828, he moved to Holly Springs in 1851. He married Permila Watkins the following year, and the couple eventually had eight children. Goodgame farmed in Holly Springs until he enlisted in the Confederate army, where he served as an officer in the Thirty-Third Arkansas Infantry Regiment. Goodgame’s …

Captain Isaac N. Deadrick House

The Captain Isaac N. Deadrick House was a two-story, Greek Revival–style residence constructed in 1850 in the Levesque community of Cross County. Before it collapsed around 2013, the Deadrick House was considered one of the oldest extant buildings in Cross County and the last physical building of the antebellum period in that area. The house and family cemetery were located several miles north of Wittsburg (Cross County), which was the closest population center at the time the house was built. Historians suspect that the house was constructed by slaves owned by John D. Maget (or Maggett) as a wedding present for Isaac N. Deadrick (sometimes spelled Deaderick) and Maget’s daughter, Virginia. Isaac Deadrick, his wife, and his father-in-law are buried …

Captain John T. Burkett House

The Captain John T. Burkett House is a Folk Victorian–style home located near Frenchport (Ouachita County). Constructed around 1900, the house was added to the National Register of Historic Places on June 3, 1998. Little is known about John Burkett’s early life. Some sources give his birth year as 1868 in Louisiana. He did operate a steamboat for a time on the Ouachita and Mississippi rivers, leading to the honorific title “Captain.” Burkett married Sula Jones on October 8, 1893. Sula was the daughter of Henry and Hattie Jones. Henry Jones served as a justice of the peace in Ouachita County and owned a 700-acre cotton farm. Receiving land from Henry Jones as part of a dowry, Burkett built the …

Car of Commerce [Steamboat]

The Car of Commerce was a steamboat that burst a boiler north of Osceola (Mississippi County) on May 14, 1828, killing at least twenty-one passengers and crew members. While heading from New Orleans, Louisiana, to St. Louis, Missouri, an engineer on the Car of Commerce shut down the vessel’s engines briefly around 10:00 a.m. on May 14, 1828, at an area on the Mississippi River known as the Canadian Reach, to examine the force pump. Moments after the engines were restarted, one of the boilers burst, “moving from their place in a forward direction every boiler, the greater part of the water being thrown to the upper deck, several of the deck passengers, and the greater part of the crew …

Caraway Hall (Arkansas Tech University)

Caraway Hall, located at 1403 North Arkansas Avenue on the Arkansas Tech University campus in Russellville (Pope County), is a three-story brick building designed in the Colonial Revival style of architecture and constructed in 1934–1935 with assistance from the Public Works Administration (PWA), a Depression-era federal relief program. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on September 10, 1992. Arkansas Polytechnic College (which later became Arkansas Tech University) had seventeen major buildings, including several dormitories that the U.S. Office of Education deemed “unfit for human habitation” at the time Joseph W. Hull became the college’s eighth president in January 1932 and embarked on a major building campaign. In early 1934, the college received funding from the PWA—a …

Carlisle Independent

The Carlisle Independent, based in Carlisle (Lonoke County), began in 1905 under Thomas P. Young. Young worked as publisher and editor, issuing the paper once a week on Thursdays. For the first few years, the Independent was non-political, printing news about Carlisle and the surrounding communities. In 1907, Ernest Ellis took over the Independent, changing it to a Democratic paper. Jewel Lester Matthews Sr. took over in 1914 and ran the Independent for two years before turning it over to Clifford R. Griffin. Griffin also ran the paper for two years and then sold it to Edward M. Williams in 1918. Williams stayed with the Independent for several years, using his extensive newspaper experience to promote the welfare of Carlisle. …

Carnegie Libraries

Four libraries built in Arkansas between 1906 and 1915 using grants from philanthropist Andrew Carnegie carry the classification “Carnegie Libraries.” These four libraries were built in Eureka Springs (Carroll County), Fort Smith (Sebastian County), Little Rock (Pulaski County), and Morrilton (Conway County). Of these, two continue to operate as libraries (Eureka Springs and Morrilton), one has been dismantled (Little Rock), and one is being used for a new purpose (Fort Smith). It is not known how many Arkansas cities applied for grants from Andrew Carnegie, or how many requests were denied, although very few communities nationally were denied grants. One exception was Branch Normal College (now the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff). Principal Isaac Fisher solicited library funds from …

Carolina Methodist Church

The Carolina Methodist Church is located near Rosston (Nevada County). Constructed in 1871, the building and associated cemetery are the last remnants of the Carolina community. The church was added to the National Register of Historic Places on January 3, 1991. The first settlers to the area began arriving around 1855, when the land was part of Ouachita County. Some evidence suggests that the church congregation was founded the following year. The land where the church would be built was purchased by the board of trustees for twenty-five cents on January 15, 1870, from the John W. Shell and W. C. Hatley families. The church building was likely constructed by the following year, and the property records were transferred to …

Caroline [Steamboat]

The Caroline was a steamboat that caught fire while traveling up the White River on March 5, 1854, and sank, with forty-five passengers and crew members losing their lives in the disaster. The Caroline was a 150-ton sternwheel paddleboat built in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1853. The vessel was 134 feet long and twenty-four feet wide with a draft of 3.5 feet. The Caroline left Memphis, Tennessee, on March 4, 1854, with a full load of cargo and passengers, many of whom were immigrant families. The steamboat was in the White River about twenty miles from its mouth on the afternoon of March 5 when a wood pile near the boilers caught fire, soon enveloping the entire boat in flames. The …

Carpenter Dam

aka: Lake Hamilton

Carpenter Dam is the second of three dams constructed along the Ouachita River in the vicinity of Hot Springs (Garland County), following Remmel Dam (completed in 1924) and preceding Blakely Mountain Dam (completed in the 1950s). The concrete gravity dam was built by Arkansas Power and Light (AP&L), which later became Entergy, for purposes of producing hydroelectric power. It impounds the 7,200-acre Lake Hamilton. Carpenter Dam was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on September 4, 1992, in recognition of its role in the growth and development of Hot Springs. Flavius Josephus (Flave) Carpenter, an associate of AP&L president Harvey Couch, selected the site for the construction of Carpenter Dam, ten miles upstream from Remmel Dam, and so …

Carps

In Arkansas, carps are an invasive (exotic or non-native) species whose introduction has caused economic and/or environmental damage. To date, there are five species of invasive carps that have entered or have been deliberately introduced into Arkansas for various reasons, and all belong to the order Cypriniformes and the minnow family Cyprinidae. Many of these fish originated from Asia or Europe, were introduced into North America, and pose a major threat to the ecology of native fishes, the environment, and the economy of fisheries in Arkansas. The longer it takes to respond to the damage done to an ecosystem done by these fish, the more money and time must be spent restoring and protecting that ecosystem. Grass Carp The grass …

Carroll County Courthouse, Western District

The Carroll County Courthouse, Western District in Eureka Springs (Carroll County) was built in 1908 from a design by local builder William Octavos Perkins and reflects the Italianate style of architecture. After Carroll County was created in 1833, its first seat of justice was in the home of William Sneed Jr., located between Carrollton (Carroll County) and Osage (Carroll County). Carrolton was selected as the county seat, and a two-story log courthouse was built in 1836, serving until a more substantial brick building was erected in 1844–1845. Fire destroyed that courthouse in the winter of 1859–1860, and a new one was not built until 1865 after the end of the Civil War. That building burned a year later, and a …

Carrollton Road

The Carrollton Road was part of an east-west road that crossed northern Arkansas in the 1830s and is noteworthy as one of the few documented roads used by the John Benge Detachment of Cherokee during the Indian Removal of the late 1830s. A segment of the road survives today. The Cherokee Removal detachment led by Captain John Benge initially consisted of 1,079 people and seventy wagons, though others would join the group as it headed west. The detachment departed from Fort Payne, Alabama, in late September and early October 1838. It crossed into Tennessee and later crossed the Mississippi River at Iron Banks in Kentucky. Traveling west and southwest through Missouri on the Military Road, the detachment crossed into Arkansas …

Carver Gymnasium

The Carver Gymnasium, located at 400 Ferguson Street in Lonoke (Lonoke County), is the last remaining structure associated with the town’s first African-American school. The plain-traditional-style concrete block construction building was added to the National Register on September 23, 2009, under Criterion A, due to its significance to local African-American history. In 1889, Goodspeed’s history documented that Lonoke was home to two schools, one for white students and one for “colored people.” A total of 1,640 African-American students were recorded in the county. The African-American school consisted of a two-story frame structure. It provided educational opportunities for grades one through eight. Attendance was sporadic due to the vast majority of students living and working on farms. In the fall of …

Case-Shiras-Dearmore House

The Case-Shiras-Dearmore House, located at 351 East 4th Street in Mountain Home (Baxter County), is a two-story wood-frame house in the Plain Traditional style, with a cut-stone outbuilding located to the rear (west side) of the house. The house is perhaps best known for its association with the noted Baxter County newspaper publisher Tom Shiras of the Baxter Bulletin. However, it was also the home of Dr. J. H. Case, the first dentist in Mountain Home. The Case-Shiras-Dearmore House was added to the National Register of Historic Places on February 3, 1992. The ell-shaped, intersecting gable roof plan of the main house features a historic gable roof addition at its northern end. The front (east) façade consists of a gable …

Cash: The Autobiography

Published on November 1, 1997, Cash: The Autobiography was the second autobiography written by Johnny Cash. As was true of his previous memoir, Man in Black, this book contains numerous stories about his upbringing in Arkansas. Written amid Cash’s mid-1990s comeback, the book was a success among fans and critics. Cash was Johnny Cash’s third book. After the publication of Man in Black, Cash had published a novel, Man in White, about the apostle Paul. For writing his second autobiography, he had the help of English music critic Patrick Carr. Carr conducted extensive interviews with Cash and then transcribed what Cash said in narrative form, much of it verbatim. Cash is markedly different in tone and structure from Man in …

Catfish Industry

aka: Ictalurus punctatus

The catfish industry is the largest component of aquaculture in the United States and a significant industry in Arkansas. Arkansas is the birthplace of the commercial catfish industry, with at least two farms selling catfish in the late 1950s. Arkansas farmers began to replace buffalofish (Ictiobus spp.) with catfish (Ictalurus punctatus) in the 1960s. By 1966, Arkansas had 4,500 acres in catfish production and three processing plants. However, increases in the price of fishmeal (an ingredient used in making fish feeds), an economic recession, and the lack of year-round production technology resulted in an industry downturn in the mid-1970s. Multiple-batch production technologies developed in the 1980s allowed for year-round supplies to processing plants. Catfish are raised in ten- to twenty-acre earthen …

Cave Crayfishes

aka: Troglobitic Crayfishes

Crayfishes belong to the Phylum Arthropoda, Subphylum Crustacea, Class Malacostraca, Order Decapoda, and Family Cambaridae. Crayfishes are a taxonomically diverse cosmopolitan group with more than 669 species worldwide. There appear to be two centers of geographic diversity, one in southeastern Australia (Southern Hemisphere center) and one in the southeastern United States (Northern Hemisphere center) in the southeastern Appalachian Mountains. Obligate cave-dwelling taxa in the United States occur in five main karst (limestone) geographic regions: (1) the Cumberland Plateau of the southern Appalachians of eastern Kentucky, eastern Tennessee, and northern Alabama; (2) the Interior Lowlands of southern Indiana, western Kentucky, and northwestern Tennessee; (3) the Greenbrier Valley of West Virginia; (4) the Ozark Plateau of southwestern Missouri, northern Arkansas, and eastern …

Cave Fishes

aka: Hypogean, Phreatic, Stygobitic, Subterranean, Troglomorphic, and Troglobitic Fishes

Cavefishes, found in fresh and brackish water, are adapted to living in caves and other subterranean habitats. There are more than 200 species of obligatory cavefishes found on all continents, except for Antarctica. New cavefish species continue to be described annually, and there are certainly undescribed species yet to be discovered. In terms of relative numbers of species on various continents, by far the greatest diversity is in Asia with more than 120 species, followed by South America with more than thirty species, and about thirty species in North America. In comparison, nine species are known from Africa, five from Oceania, and only a single species from Europe. China possesses the greatest diversity with more than eighty species, followed by …

Cavender’s All-Purpose Greek Seasoning

Lester “Spike” Cavender of Harrison (Boone County) created Cavender’s All-Purpose Greek Seasoning with his son Ronald Stephen Cavender in the late 1960s. It was adapted from a recipe by a Greek friend of Cavender’s who was a chef. For many years, the seasoning was shared only with their friends and family until they began selling it in 1969. Since 1978, Cavender’s All Purpose Greek Seasoning has been manufactured and sold by the S-C Seasoning Company, Inc. In May 1988, the company moved from its original location to a larger facility in Harrison. By 2015, a third generation of the Cavender family was producing and selling their world-famous Greek seasoning. Lester Robert “Spike” Cavender was born in Cooper, Delta County, Texas, …

Caves and Caverns

Caves and caverns are natural underground openings large enough for humans to enter. They are primarily formed by volcanic activity or the eroding effects of water and wind. The caves of Arkansas are of the latter variety, the result of the dissolution of limestone and other soluble rock throughout the state’s mountainous regions. Hence, the highest concentration of caves is in the northwest and north-central areas of the state. Arkansas boasts several caves of sufficient size to be of interest to tourists and spelunkers, and all of these can be described as “living caves”—caves in which water remains present, along with its continuing ability to alter cave structure. The caves of Arkansas display vast arrays of stalactites and stalagmites, underground …

Caviar

Arkansas caviar, which is distributed nationally, consists of eggs from certain freshwater fish caught in the state’s rivers. The commercial fishermen who supply the product to wholesalers generally obtain the eggs from the Arkansas, Mississippi, White, Cache, and St. Francis rivers in eastern Arkansas from late November until early April. The eggs come from paddlefish (commonly referred to in the Arkansas Delta as spoonbill catfish), shovelnose sturgeon, and bowfin. Armenian brothers Melkoum and Mouchegh Petrossian often are credited with popularizing caviar in Paris, France, in the 1920s and spurring a worldwide interest in the product. Paddlefish eggs make up the majority of the Arkansas caviar that is harvested. Paddlefish can be distinguished by their large mouths and elongated snouts, called the rostrum. …

CCC Company 749 Powder Magazine

The CCC Company 749 Powder Magazine is located north of Forest Service Road 4128 and south of Briggsville in Yell County. Company 749 of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) built the structure around 1933 to store explosives (powder or blasting caps) for its work in the rugged forests of the area. The CCC Company 749 Powder Magazine is a small stone and concrete structure originally constructed for use by the Civilian Conservation Corps working in the Ouachita National Forest. The square building measures six feet on each side. It is five feet high with a four-inch-thick concrete top and a concrete floor. The cut-stone and concrete walls vary from six to eleven inches in thickness. Civilian Conservation Corps Company 749 …

Cedar Creek Bridge

aka: Goodie Creek Bridge

The Cedar Creek Bridge, located on Independence County Road 235 where it crosses Cedar Creek about one and a half miles south of its intersection with Arkansas Highway 14 near Rosie (Independence County), is a stone, closed-spandrel deck arch bridge. It was constructed in 1941 by the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a Depression-era public relief agency. The road to the site of the Cedar Creek Bridge did not appear on Arkansas maps until 1936, five years before the structure was erected, indicating it was likely the location of a ford. Independence County leaders turned to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal for funding to improve this and other roads throughout the county during the Great Depression. On January 29, 1940, …

Cedar Grove Cemetery (Johnson County)

aka: Mason Cemetery
aka: Darnell Cemetery

The Cedar Grove Cemetery near Clarksville (Johnson County), not to be confused with cemeteries of the same name in Boone and Scott counties, was used by the initial settlers of the area and is located between the Interior Highlands of the Boston Mountains and the Arkansas River Valley of Arkansas. The cemetery is currently covered with overgrowth of vegetation. The graves have recessed, and many of the headstones have been toppled. Also, there are small trees and shrubs growing throughout the area both near and over marked gravesites. According to tradition, early white settlers founded the cemetery. Unevenly cut headstones carved from local sandstone were used as grave markers, although some no longer have readable markings. It is unknown what …

Cedar Grove School No. 81

Located five miles north of Pocahontas (Randolph County) in the Brockett community is the Cedar Grove School No. 81. The school opened after a redistricting of Randolph County school districts in 1890 and offered classes through the eighth grade. The original school building served the local community until it was destroyed by a tornado on March 30, 1938. The building that replaced it held classes until the school district consolidated with the Pocahontas School District in 1949. After consolidation, the building served for a time as a meeting place for the Brockett Home Extension Club and as a community building. Cedar Grove School No. 81 is a Greek Revival–style building with the original well house and outhouse. The well house …

Celeste

As part of the Union’s Mississippi River Squadron, the sternwheel steamer Celeste served on the Mississippi River and its tributaries, including expeditions on the White River during the ongoing battle for control of significant interior rivers in the Trans-Mississippi Department during the Civil War. The Celeste displaced 300 tons, but specific details about its construction and acquisition by Union forces are not known. In late August 1864, Brigadier General Christopher Columbus Andrews, commanding the Second Division of the Seventh Army Corps headquartered at DeValls Bluff (Prairie County), ordered an expedition up the White River to locate and pursue the troops under the command of Brigadier General Joseph Orville Shelby and Colonel Archibald Stephenson Dobbins. The initial phase of this expedition …

Centennial History of Arkansas

Dallas Tabor Herndon’s three-volume Centennial History of Arkansas (1922) was created in the early days of the Arkansas History Commission (AHC), now the Arkansas State Archives. Herndon, the AHC’s first director, wrote that “the state had no history that could be relied upon as authentic,” and he saw a need for a more “comprehensive state history” to aid him in his work with researchers at the AHC. Herndon believed that his history would be more reliable and accessible than any other before it, such as Little Rock (Pulaski County) native Fay Hempstead’s multi-volume Historical Review of Arkansas, published in 1911, when Herndon first began work at the AHC. Unlike Hempstead, Herndon was not from Arkansas, and thus he believed his …