Entry Type: Thing - Starting with C

Crushed stone is an angular form of construction aggregate, made by breaking quarried rock into fragments that may be sorted, sized, and recombined into a variety of products. Crushed stone is typically quarried—that is, mined using benching methods (carrying out work from a ledge in a mine or quarry) and explosives, as opposed to the mechanical digging used for extracting sand and gravel. Consolidated rock is cut into vertical ledges, so that drilling can be done from above to place explosives within the wall for proper breakage of rock during mining. Benches typically vary from twenty to sixty feet in height, depending on how competent the rock is. The quarry stone is normally run through a primary crusher and then …

Crustaceans (subphylum Crustacea) are a very large and diverse group of arthropods (invertebrate animals having an exoskeleton, jointed appendages, and segmented bodies). Crustaceans are distinguished by having paired mandibular jaws and maxillae, along with two pairs of antennae. Recent classifications include six classes within crustaceans—Branchiopoda, Remipedia, Cephalocarida, Maxillopoda, Ostracoda, and Malacostraca. The Classes of Crustacea Class Branchiopoda includes several groups of primitive aquatic and marine animals, including clam shrimp, the small fairy shrimp (less than one centimeter in length and living in temporary pools), and the “living fossil” tadpole shrimp. The most noteworthy brachiopods are the cladocerans, or water fleas, that make up many of the zooplankton in Arkansas lakes and ponds. These small, free-swimming animals are a critical food …

Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, located in Bentonville (Benton County), officially opened to the public on November 11, 2011. The 201,000-square-foot museum with its 120 acres of forest and garden was designed to portray the spirit of America. The museum was founded by Alice Walton, daughter of Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart Inc. The museum took its name from Crystal Spring, which is located nearby on the grounds, and the bridge-shaped design of the building, designed by Moshe Safdie. The museum collection includes art from colonial times to the present day. It also offers temporary exhibits from other museums and collections. Alice Walton was ranked as one of the richest people in the United States in 2010 and …

The Crystal Recreation Area, located in the Ouachita National Forest, included two structures listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in 1935, the stone dam and log picnic structure were added to the National Register of Historic Places on January 21, 1993. The site is located on Forest Road 177 north of Norman (Montgomery County). The shelter was constructed by CCC Company 741. The company was formed on May 1, 1933, at Camp Pike. The company completed numerous projects in the Ouachita National Forest and was stationed at Crystal Springs at the time of the project. The dam is placed across Montgomery Creek and is constructed from fieldstone. The two-tier structure is …

During the Civil War, the Confederate navy’s ironclad vessel bearing the state’s name was the ram CSS Arkansas. It was in use only twenty-three days, yet earned the rage of the Union and the respect of the Confederacy. The Confederate navy’s task to defend rivers from its better-equipped adversary’s attacks and blockades required the building of vessels capable of meeting the challenge. To this end, on August 24, 1861, the navy ordered two ironclads from Memphis, Tennessee, shipbuilder John T. Shirley; one was christened the CSS Arkansas. The CSS Arkansas’s keel was laid in October 1861, with work continuing through the winter. While the vessel was under construction, news arrived that Union naval forces were en route to capture Memphis. …

The CSS General Earl Van Dorn was a Confederate ram that saw combat on the Mississippi River before being set afire and blown up on the Yazoo River in 1862. The steamboat that would become the CSS General Earl Van Dorn was built as the Junius Beebe in Algiers, Louisiana, in 1853. The sidewheel towboat was 182 feet long, 28.3 feet wide, and 10.7 feet deep and was owned by the Good Intent Towboat Company. The Confederate army acquired the Junius Beebe in 1862 and fitted the vessel out as a ram with a new name honoring the general who commanded Confederate troops at the Battle of Pea Ridge. The Van Dorn was attached to the Mississippi River Defense Fleet. …

The CSS General M. Jeff Thompson was a Confederate ram that saw combat on the Mississippi River before being set afire and blown up during the 1862 Battle of Memphis. The Confederate War Department purchased fourteen boats in 1862 with the intent of converting them into warships as the Mississippi River Defense Fleet under the command of Captain James E. Montgomery. One of them was named for M. Jeff Thompson, a brigadier general in the Missouri State Guard who would see extensive service in Arkansas. Conversion of the steamboat, the original name of which is unknown, into the ram General M. Jeff Thompson began in New Orleans, Louisiana, on January 25, 1862, with the addition of a sheathing of four-inch-thick …

The CSS General Sterling Price was a Confederate ram that saw combat on the Mississippi River before being sunk during the 1862 Battle of Memphis, after which it served the rest of the Civil War as a Union warship. The Confederate War Department purchased fourteen boats in 1862 with the intent of converting them into warships in the Mississippi River Defense Fleet under the command of Captain James E. Montgomery. One of them was the Laurent Millaudon, a 483-ton sidewheel towboat built in 1856 in Cincinnati, Ohio, for the Good Intent Towboat Company and commanded by Capt. W. S. Whann. The Confederates renamed it the General Sterling Price after the Missouri State Guard general who led troops in extensive action …

Like many vessels that saw active military service with the Confederate navy during the Civil War, the CSS Maurepas started out as a civilian vessel engaged in river commerce and transportation. In 1858, J. A. Cotton of New Orleans, Louisiana, contracted with the shipbuilding yards in New Albany, Indiana, for a wooden-hulled sidewheel steamer packet named the Grosse Tete. Upon completion, the vessel measured 180 feet with a thirty-four-foot beam. It weighed 399 tons, drafted seven feet, and carried a crew of seventy-nine. Between 1858 and 1860, the Grosse Tete worked the New Orleans–Bends commercial trade route, piloted by Captain Isaac Hopper. In 1860, the Bayou Sara Mail Company purchased the Grosse Tete and placed it under Captain J. McQuoid for …

The CSS Pontchartrain was a Confederate warship that served on the Arkansas and White rivers. While it never saw combat in Arkansas, the Pontchartrain played a supporting role in several battles and affected Union strategy in 1862 and 1863. The CSS Pontchartrain began its career as the Lizzie Simmons, a 454-ton sidewheel paddleboat built at New Albany, Indiana, in 1859. The Lizzie Simmons ran between New Orleans, Louisiana, and the Ouachita River in 1860 under Captain George Hamilton Kirk; it then worked the river between New Orleans and Memphis, Tennessee, under Captain W. B. Richardson. The Confederate navy purchased the ship in October 12, 1861, and converted it into a gunboat in January and February 1862. It was renamed the …

Arkansas freshwater mussel shell provided the raw material for cultured pearl farming in the latter half of the twentieth and the early twenty-first centuries. Following World War II, cultured pearls were the quintessential statement of elegance, and this drove the demand for Mississippi River Valley freshwater shell. The 1960–1980s were the heyday for shell harvesting from northeast Arkansas waterways. Most of the shell was shipped to Japan, where Kokichi Mikimoto had perfected a cultured pearl process in the early 1900s. In this process, a bead, or nucleus, was inserted into a marine oyster and the creature layered its natural nacre around the orb, thus creating a pearl. As is the case with human organ transplants, pearl oysters could potentially reject …

Curran Hall, sometimes known as the Walters-Curran-Bell House, stands at 615 East Capitol Avenue in the MacArthur Park Historic District and is one of the few remaining antebellum landmark properties in Little Rock (Pulaski County). Dating back to 1842, the house was constructed during the city’s first building boom, which reached its peak around 1842 and faded out with the depression of 1843. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on January 1, 1976. According to widely accepted tradition, Curran Hall was constructed in the Greek Revival style by noted Greek Revival architect Gideon Shryock, who designed the Kentucky State Capitol as well as the Old State House, making this house of particular significance. The original one-story …

The Current River crosses into Arkansas from Missouri at the border between Randolph and Clay counties and flows for approximately forty miles before merging with the Black River near Pocahontas (Randolph County). The river was the site of four Civil War skirmishes at Pitman’s Ferry in Randolph County. This is a well-known river for canoeing and was made a part of the Ozark National Scenic Riverways, a national park located in southern Missouri, in 1964. The Current River arises in the Ozark Mountains from the confluence of Montauk Spring and Pigeon Creek in Dent County, Missouri. Numerous other springs pour into the river as it progresses through Missouri, thus giving it a fairly constant flow of water throughout the year; …

The Cyprinidae is a diverse family of mainly freshwater fishes belonging to the ostariophysian order Cypriniformes, collectively called cyprinids. They include carps, true minnows, and their relatives. The Cyprinidae is the largest and most diverse fish family and, in general, the largest vertebrate animal family, with about 3,160 species, of which only 1,270 are extant, divided into about 376 genera. The family occurs in Africa, Eurasia, and North America (northern Canada to southern Mexico). Only two species of cyprinids occur in true marine waters, daces (Tribolodon brandtii and T. sachalinensis) from eastern Asia, and a few stray into brackish water only very rarely. More than sixty-two species of cyprinids are known from Arkansas, which represents almost a third of the …