Entries - Entry Type: Thing

Movies

aka: Film
aka: Motion Pictures

Even though most American motion picture production has focused on the East Coast or West Coast, Arkansas has made important contributions to cinematic history. Several successful movie stars and directors were born in Arkansas, and the state has hosted the production of several important motion pictures. Since the 1960s, Arkansas’s state government has participated in the promotion of motion picture production, and in the 1990s, Arkansas began hosting film festivals that have captured worldwide attention. The connection between Arkansas and the motion picture business begins with the earliest of American movies. Most scholars consider Edwin S. Porter’s The Great Train Robbery (1903) the first step in developing a Hollywood style of filmmaking. Featured in three roles in that short movie …

Mud

Mud is the third film written and directed by Little Rock (Pulaski County) native Jeff Nichols. The film was shot over an eight-week period in parts of Dumas (Desha County), DeWitt (Arkansas County), Lake Village (Chicot County), Crockett’s Bluff (Arkansas County), and Stuttgart (Arkansas County) in the fall of 2011. The film used more than 400 locals as extras. Other Arkansan actors in the film include Jacob Lofland of Yell County in the role of Neckbone and El Dorado (Union County) native Stuart Greer, a noted character actor, as a bounty hunter called Miller. The film made its premiere at the famous Cannes Film Festival in France on May 26, 2012, and was shown at the Sundance Film Festival before …

Mulberry Home Economics Building

The Mulberry Home Economics Building, located on Church Avenue in Mulberry (Crawford County), was built between 1937 and 1939 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. Mulberry Campground housed one of the first schools in Crawford County in the late 1820s, and a formal school was established in the town of Mulberry in 1878, two years before the community incorporated. In 1931, Mulberry Public Schools consolidated with the Vine Prairie and Pleasant Hill school districts as part of a wave of 591 consolidations around the state, and a $45,000 brick school building was built shortly afterward. In 1937, the school …

Mulberry River

The Mulberry River, a tributary of the Arkansas River, rises from the intersection of several streams in the Ozark Mountains of northern Franklin County and Johnson County. It flows generally southwest from its source and empties into the Arkansas River south of the city of Mulberry (Crawford County), for a total length of approximately seventy miles. Reportedly named for the number of mulberry trees growing in its vicinity, it is today well known among canoeists. The area around the Mulberry River has been the site of human habitation as far back as approximately 10,000 BC. In historic times, the Osage Indians claimed much of this part of Arkansas, including the area drained by the Mulberry River, as their hunting grounds. …

Mullets

aka: Gray Mullets
aka: Flathead Gray Mullets

Fishes commonly known as mullets, of the Family Mugilidae and Order Mugiliformes, are a group of more than seventy mostly marine species within some fifteen to twenty-five genera. The genus Mugil is cosmopolitan in distribution except in upper latitudes, and at least five species occur in North America. The latest evidence suggests that mullets are most closely related to atherinomorph fishes (silversides and topminnows). Although most mullets are strictly marine, the striped mullet (Mugil cephalus) has the physiological ability to travel between freshwater and salt water, spending much of its life in streams. It is a cosmopolitan resident of estuaries, temperate and tropical oceans, salt marshes, and shoreline areas along the Atlantic Coast of Nova Scotia south to Mexico and Brazil. …

Multiculturalism

The term “multiculturalism” is usually employed to describe the promotion of multiple cultural traditions, and the acceptance of such traditions, within a particular place, through policies and activities both official and unofficial. In 2013, the U.S. Census Bureau reported Arkansas’s population to consist of the following racial makeup: 79.9 percent white, 15.6 percent African American, 6.9 percent Hispanic or Latino, 1.5 percent Asian, 1.0 percent American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.3 percent Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander, and 1.9 percent two or more races. As both Arkansas and the United States as a whole have become increasingly diverse, steps have been taken by academic institutions, organizations, government entities, businesses, and individuals to encourage positive multicultural environments. Academic institutions in …

Municipal Designations

The State of Arkansas recognizes its incorporated communities in three separate categories: cities of the first class (or first-class cities), cities of the second class (or second-class cities), and towns. These categories are mostly determined by the population of the communities and the size of the city or town government. According to the Arkansas Municipal League, there are 502 incorporated cities and towns in Arkansas as of October 2019. According to Arkansas statutes as of 2019, a first-class city has more than 2,500 residents (although a second-class city with more than 1,500 residents may vote to become a first-class city). A second-class city has from 500 to 2,500 residents (although a town may vote to become a second-class city). A town …

Murphy Oil Corporation

Murphy Oil Corporation developed from family timberlands in southern Arkansas and northern Louisiana that were owned by Charles H. Murphy Sr. Officially formed in 1950 by the children of Murphy, the Murphy Oil Corporation now operates oil production facilities and processing plants across the world. The company was based in El Dorado (Union County) until 2020, when it was announced that Murphy Oil was consolidating its offices in Houston, Texas, following the collapse of oil prices that year. When oil was discovered in the Caddo Field north of Shreveport, Louisiana, in 1907, Charles Murphy Sr., the owner of timber and banking interests in Union County, decided that his timber company should purchase land on a scattered non-contiguous pattern to provide …

Murphy-Jeffries Building

The Murphy-Jeffries Building, located at 2901–2903 South Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in Little Rock (Pulaski County), is a two-story brick commercial building constructed around 1925 that served as the office of a prominent African-American businessman. The Murphy-Jeffries Building was listed on the Arkansas Register of Historic Places on April 3, 2019. John F. Murphy and Ethel Murphy built a two-story structure on what was then High Street to house a small neighborhood grocery store in one storefront and another business, initially a pharmacy, in the other. Residential space upstairs was used by the Murphys and their son and daughter-in-law. The building became the anchor of a small business district between Twenty-ninth and Thirtieth streets that served the surrounding neighborhood. …

Murry’s Dinner Playhouse

In 1967, Ike Murry—the attorney general of Arkansas from 1949 to 1953 and a gubernatorial candidate in 1952—opened the Olde West Dinner Theatre in Little Rock (Pulaski County). Tickets were $7, and the theater was decorated in a Western theme. The buffet was mobile and was rolled onto the stage for serving. The establishment later became known as Murry’s Dinner Playhouse. Actors, including well-known performers from television, stage, and screen, once traveled a circuit of dinner theaters. Murry’s hosted some big names over the years, including Marjorie Lord, the actress who played opposite Danny Thomas on The Danny Thomas Show, starring in Neil Simon’s Barefoot in the Park; Margaret Truman, daughter of President Harry S. Truman, starring in the production …

Muscadine

aka: Vitus rotundifolia

Muscadines (Vitis rotundifolia) are grapes native to Arkansas and other parts of the southeastern United States. The grapes have thick skins, large seeds, and a unique, soft, musky-flavored pulp. Cultivars can vary in color from almost white to nearly black. Common names for dark-fruited muscadines include bullace, bull grape, and Southern Fox. The term “scuppernong” is often used to refer to all bronze-fruited varieties, but it is actually the name of a specific muscadine cultivar. The muscadine cultivars most commonly grown in Arkansas for commercial juice and wine production include Carlos, a bronze cultivar that produces light-colored products and white wine, and Noble, a dark cultivar that makes deep-red products. Consumers who are accustomed to the unique qualities of muscadines, …

Museum of American History

The Museum of American History, formerly known as The Museum/Cabot High, is the only student-founded and -operated museum of history in Arkansas. The award-winning museum, which is owned by the Cabot School District, was founded in 1985 on the campus of Cabot High School and was later moved to a building in downtown Cabot (Lonoke County). It is currently closed pending relocation to a new site. The idea for a museum operated by teachers and students originated in 1981 after high school teacher Mike Polston observed how historical artifacts sparked his students’ interest. He and fellow teacher David Howard formed a school history club with the stated goal of collecting, preserving, and displaying objects associated with the history of the …

Museums

Arkansas’s many museums—most focusing on state and local history, science, and military history—are an important part of Arkansas’s culture, as they promote education and the preservation of valuable artifacts. The University of Arkansas Museum in Fayetteville (Washington County), which was founded in 1873, is most likely the first public museum in Arkansas. (The university maintains the collections of the museum, though there is no dedicated museum space as of 2013.) Another early museum is the Fort Smith Museum of History, originally called the Old Commissary Museum, which was founded in 1910 in a building built in 1838; the present-day museum is located in a different historic building, the Atkinson-Williams Building. The Museum of Natural History and Antiquities (which later became …

Music and Musicians

Arkansas has long been among the most significant contributors to the nation’s musical foundation, serving as fertile ground for the development of multiple genres as well as being native home to some of the best-known and influential musicians, singers, songwriters, and songs that the world has known. Much of this is due to the state’s geography—both its diverse landscape and populace and its proximity to key musical hubs and regions in the nation. Pre-European Exploration through the Nineteenth Century “From the first, music mattered. You can even see it in what the archaeologists find…fragments of cane flutes and whistles older than Columbus,” wrote Robert Cochran in his history of Arkansas music, Our Own Sweet Sounds: A Celebration of Popular Music …

My Life

My Life is the autobiography of William Jefferson Clinton, a former governor of Arkansas and the forty-second president of the United States, and was written during the three years after he left the office of president in 2001. The 957-page book, published in hardcover in 2004 by Alfred A. Knopf of New York, was the most thorough memoir of a presidency ever published and the most financially successful. Knopf ordered a first printing of one and a half million copies, but two million orders were received before its release; the company ordered a second printing of 1,075,000. On the day of its release, booksellers sold more than 400,000 copies. Clinton had received a ten-million-dollar advance to write the book, which …

My Own, My Native Land

My Own, My Native Land, published in 1935, is an anthology of short stories by Thyra Samter Winslow, a native of Fort Smith (Sebastian County). In writing these stories, Winslow contributed significantly to the new wave of popular American magazines in the early twentieth century. These stories and sketches depict the mores of a small Southwestern town, likely modeled on Fort Smith, showing people preoccupied with social status and family pride. The anthology contains forty pieces. Some appeared in The New Yorker under a heading that became the title of the collection. Others were first published in other magazines, especially Smart Set, a widely read publication subtitled, “A Magazine of Cleverness,” edited by H. L. Mencken and George-Jean Nathan. Winslow …

Mysid Shrimps

aka: Opossum Shrimps

Mysida is an order of small, shrimp-like crustaceans in the Class Malacostraca and Superorder Peracarida, with two families, Mysidae (nine subfamilies) and Petalopthalmidae (two subfamilies); 178 genera; and 1,132 species. Most are marine species, but there are about 72 freshwater species, being predominantly found in the Palearctic and Neotropical biogeographical realms. The first report of a species of mysid shrimp documented in Arkansas was in 2012. Species within the order are found throughout the world across a broad range of habitats, such as subterranean, freshwater, and brackish. They can also be found in shallow coastal waters and in surface to deep-sea habitats. In marine waters, they can be benthic (living on the seabed) or pelagic (living in mid-water), but they …

Myxozoans

Myxozoans are a group of microscopic, oligocellular, obligate endoparasites that belong to the Phylum Cnidaria, which also includes sea anemones, box jellies, corals, true jellies, sea pens, and hydrozoans. There are two parasitic classes, the Malacosporea and Myxosporea, and more than 2,200 nominal species of myxozoans classified into sixty-four genera and seventeen families. Myxozoans were, for years, placed within their own phylum (Myxozoa). Similarities to cnidarians had been noted at various times but not firmly until 2007. Although morphological and genetic evidence support placement of the Myxozoa as cnidarians, and this taxonomy has been followed by some authorities, others have not reached the same conclusion; exactly where the Myxozoa fit in this taxonomic scheme is not yet entirely known. Less …

Nancy F [Ferryboat]

The Nancy F was a ferryboat that caught fire and sank in the Mississippi River on December 3, 1929, killing the vessel’s pilot after he saved the life of a preteen girl. The Nancy F, which was powered by a seventy-horsepower oil-burning diesel engine, began ferrying vehicles and passengers between Westover (Phillips County) and Friars Point, Mississippi, around 1925. It was owned by Fletcher P. Fitzgerald of Clarksdale, Mississippi, and was valued at $20,000. The vessel left Westover on a bitterly cold December 3, 1929, with five crew members and fifteen passengers, including George Smith of Helena (Phillips County) and his daughters Opal, Effie, and Estelle, who with their truck full of household goods were heading across the river to …

Nannie Gresham Biscoe House

The Nannie Gresham Biscoe House is a Queen Anne–style home located in Arkadelphia (Clark County). Constructed in 1901, the home is notable for passing from mothers to daughters, all of them educators, since its construction. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on January 21, 2004. Nancy “Nannie” Caroline Gresham was born in 1847 in Walton County, Georgia. She married John Basil Biscoe in 1871, and the couple had three sons and a daughter. John died in 1883 when the family was residing in Forrest, Mississippi. Nannie moved that year with her children and her adopted nephew to Arkadelphia to live near her brother and his family. In 1886, Ouachita Baptist College (now Ouachita Baptist University) began …

Narrow Gauge Railroads

Arkansas was home to nine narrow gauge railroads that offered freight and passenger service to the public. The three-foot gauge was most common; a pair of 3½’ gauge railroads later converted to the yard-wide gauge. Arkansas’s narrow gauge mileage peaked at more than 550 miles in the mid-1880s but declined rapidly thereafter. Narrow gauge railroads required less capital because they used narrower right-of-way and followed the terrain closely to minimize the cost of moving earth for cuts and fills. Passenger and freight cars were smaller, lighter, and supposedly more efficient than standard gauge equipment. Narrow gauge steam engines required lighter track and less-expensive bridges. The disadvantage of narrow gauge was a lack of easy freight interchange with the standard gauge …

Narrows Dam

aka: Lake Greeson

Narrows Dam is located six miles north of Murfreesboro (Pike County). Authorized by the Flood Control Act of 1941, it was constructed on the Little Missouri River as a project for flood control and hydroelectric power. The Little Missouri River flows through the Ouachita Mountains and enters Pike County at its northwest upper corner, dropping 1,035 feet before it runs into Lake Greeson. Before the dam was constructed, heavy rains in the mountains often caused the area around Murfreesboro to become flooded, causing damage to houses and resulting in loss of livestock and farm crops. Martin White Greeson, the owner of the Murfreesboro-Nashville Southwest Railroad, urged the development of the watershed in order to control the water of the Little …

Nashville Post Office

The Nashville Post Office in Nashville (Howard County) is a single-story, brick-masonry structure designed in a restrained interpretation of the Art Deco style of architecture and featuring a mural created through the U.S. Treasury Department’s Section of Painting and Sculpture (later renamed the Section of Fine Arts), a Depression-era stimulus project that promoted public art. The post office was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on August 14, 1998. On June 26, 1936, the Nashville News reported that the Howard County seat of Nashville was selected as the site of a new U.S. Post Office facility under a $60 million federal emergency construction program. Site proposals were requested four days later, and on September 18, the News reported …

Nashville Sauropod Trackway

The Nashville sauropod trackway, which may be the largest dinosaur trackway in the world, was located near Nashville (Howard County). The most unusual thing about the Nashville trackway is its size, but it also represented, for over twenty-five years, the only evidence of sauropods in Arkansas other than bone fragments found nearby. This discovery has greatly informed the scientific study of sauropods and other dinosaur trackways. A trackway is a path of preserved footprints left by dinosaurs. There are between 5,000 and 10,000 assorted tracks on the Nashville trackway, most of which have been identified as having been made by sauropods. Some species of sauropods are the diplodocus and the titansaur. Sauropods had long necks and long tails and walked on all …

National Education Program

The National Education Program (NEP) was founded by Harding College (now Harding University) president George S. Benson to disseminate his ideas on Americanism. These included three fundamental principles: belief in God, belief in the U.S. Constitution, and belief in the free-enterprise system. Sources disagree about the date the NEP was founded, citing 1936, 1941, and 1948. The NEP wedded fundamentalist Christian religion with free-enterprise economic thought, which became foundational to the conservative movement that gained prominence with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. A native Oklahoman and a member of the Church of Christ, Benson completed his bachelor’s degree at Harding College and afterward served as principal of its high school division. In 1925, he and his wife, Sallie …

National Fish Hatcheries

Thirty-five states are home to a total of seventy national fish hatcheries (NFHs). Arkansas is home to three: Mammoth Spring, Norfork, and Greers Ferry. Arkansas’s role in the federal fish hatchery system—designed to conserve, protect, and enhance the fish population nationwide for the benefit of all Americans—is key. Arkansas is the systems leader in trout production, has the single Gulf Coast striped bass facility in the world, and engages universities in collaborative research efforts. The United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) in the Department of the Interior administers the world’s largest fish hatchery system, comprising not only hatcheries, but also Fish Health Centers and Fish Technology Centers. Federal fish hatcheries trace their formation to a joint resolution of the …

Native American Pottery

Indians in Arkansas began making pottery containers about 2,500 years ago, during the Woodland Period, and they continued this craft until their handmade containers were replaced by industrial counterparts made in metal, glass, and clay in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Broken pieces of Indian pottery, called sherds or potsherds, are among the most common artifacts remaining at abandoned settlements, and they provide a wide range of information today about the cultural traditions of the people who made them. Complete pottery vessels display both sophisticated craftsmanship and the complex aesthetics of their makers. Southeastern Indian pottery-making began in the area of eastern Georgia, South Carolina, and Florida about 4,000 years ago and spread gradually from there to cultures across eastern …

Natural Gas

The earliest natural gas find is reported to have been in Scott County in 1887 during an effort to develop a commercial water well. The second recorded gas well was drilled two years later (also in Scott County) by an oil driller, Harry Kelly, to a depth of 1,600 feet. This was recognized as the first recorded effort to find oil in Arkansas, though “only gas was present.” No other efforts to find oil or gas were reported until 1901–1902, when the Mansfield Pool was developed by Choctaw Oil and Gas Company. While no oil was found, this effort did provide large amounts of gas, with some wells producing as much as 5 million cubic feet of gas per day. …

Neal v. Still

Neal v. Still was a case decided by the Arkansas Supreme Court in 1970 that addressed issues of free speech and free expression. After thoughtful deliberations, the Arkansas Supreme Court held that the statute under which the alleged violators, Joe and Barbara Neal, were arrested and charged was unconstitutionally vague and violated the free speech rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. The case had its roots in the February 21, 1969, arrest of Joe Neal and his wife, Barbara Wink Neal, on the campus of Henderson State College (now Henderson State University) in Arkadelphia (Clark County). The couple, who were distributing information at the college’s Student Union Building, was charged with violating Act 17 of 1958, which prohibited creating a …

Negro Motorist Green Book, Arkansas Listings in the

Published between 1936 and 1966, The Negro Motorist Green Book (commonly called the Green Book) provided African American travelers information on hotels, restaurants, and other amenities that would serve Black Americans during a time when many establishments would not. While it was initially focused on the New York City area, the popularity of the title led to the inclusion of other places across the country. It was published by Victor Hugo Green until his death in 1960 and then for a few more years. The passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the expansion of interstate highways led to the demise of the publication. Numerous businesses in Arkansas appeared in various editions of the book. The earliest edition to …

Nematodes

aka: Roundworms

The phylum Nematoda includes three classes (Anoplea, Chromodorea, and Rhabditida), sixteen to twenty orders, and about 27,000 described species (and possibly up to one million) of mostly dioecious, elongate, bilaterally symmetrical pseudocoelomate worms. They can be found in abundance in nearly every habitat on Earth, with a diverse array of species existing in both marine and terrestrial habitats. Most are free-living, with less than half considered to be parasitic. Nevertheless, many species threaten the health of plants and animals (including humans) on a global scale. Nematodes are variable in size from less than one millimeter to more than one meter in length. They have been in existence for an estimated one billion years, having evolved from simple animals some 400 …

Nematomorpha

aka: Horsehair Worms
aka: Hairworms

Horsehair worms belong to the phylum Nematomorpha and are typically obligate parasites of terrestrial arthropods (e.g., beetles, crickets, cockroaches, locusts, grasshoppers, and mantids). As adults, however, they are free-living in aquatic environments. These worms are sometimes found in coiled clusters termed “Gordian knots” from the intricate legendary knot of Greek mythology. Another myth is related to the common name given these worms, “hairworms” or “horsehair worms,” originating from the idea that horse hairs that fell into water became worms. This belief was not disproved scientifically until American anatomist and paleontologist Joseph Leidy (1823–1891) noted in 1870 that horse hairs placed in water for many months did not come to life. The first published report of a horsehair worm from Arkansas …

Nemertea

aka: Ribbon Worms

The phylum Nemertea is an invertebrate phylum that contains over 1,000 species within 250 genera of mostly marine organisms known variously as ribbon, proboscis, or nemertean worms. Only a few taxa inhabit freshwater, and there are several terrestrial species. Most are free living; however, a few are known to be parasitic. The name means one of “Nereis” (unerring one), which refers to the unerring aim of the proboscis. Ribbon worms are unique in having an eversible muscular proboscis that is used for grasping prey. It lies free inside of a cavity above the alimentary canal known as the rhynchocoel. This muscular tube can be swiftly thrust out to catch prey items. This phylum is also occasionally called the Rhynchocoela, which …

Neosho [Steamboat]

The steamboat Neosho struck a snag and was lost on the Arkansas River on February 6, 1837, near Arkansas Post (Arkansas County); one passenger drowned in the accident. The Neosho began making runs on the Arkansas River in November 1834; it was briefly owned by Phillip Pennywit, a noted steamboat captain. Captain Thomas Tunstall acquired the steamboat Neosho in June 1836, and the Arkansas Gazette reported that “a new, staunch and light draft boat will ply regularly on the Arkansas and White Rivers…and when business will justify will make occasional trips to New Orleans for the accommodations of merchants and others.” The Neosho was steaming down the Arkansas River near Arkansas Post around noon on February 6, 1837, the “weather …

Neuropterans

aka: Net-Winged Insects

Neuropterans belong to the Phylum Arthropoda, Class Insecta, and Order Neuroptera. The Neuroptera (antlions, lacewings, mantidflies, and their relatives) and allied orders Megaloptera (dobsonflies, alderflies) and Raphidioptera (snakeflies) together make up the clade Neuropterida. There are three suborders (Osmyloidea, Hemerobiiformia, and Myrmeleontiformia) and nine extinct and fifteen extant families. There are about 6,400 species in the group worldwide, with about 450 found in the United States and Canada. Neuropterans can be found on all continents except Antarctica. There are several types of neuropterans in Arkansas. In the fossil record, neuropterans first appeared during end of the Permian period (251 million years ago), which ended in the largest mass extinction the Earth ever experienced, as shown by fossils of the Permithonidae …

Nevada County Courthouse

The Nevada County Courthouse is located in downtown Prescott (Nevada County). Constructed in 1964, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places on May 24, 2018. Nevada County was organized on March 20, 1871, from portions of Hempstead, Columbia, and Ouachita counties. The county court convened for the first time at Mount Moriah Methodist Church on May 8, 1871. No incorporated towns existed in the county. The following year, Rosston was named as the county seat by a governor-appointed commission, and in 1877, the voters of the county selected Prescott as the county seat. When the county seat moved to Prescott, a two-story building on East First Street served as the courthouse. Three permanent purpose-built courthouses have served …

Nevada County Depot and Museum

The Nevada County Depot and Museum, founded in 1976, is the only museum in Nevada County. Located in the 1912 Iron Mountain Railroad Depot in downtown Prescott (Nevada County), it is a non-profit organization that preserves and promotes the history of Nevada County. In 1968, passenger service from the Prescott Depot was suspended by the successor to the Iron Mountain Railroad, the Missouri Pacific Railroad. The City of Prescott purchased the building and its adjoining parking lots from the Missouri Pacific in 1970 for one dollar. Over the next two years, the building was used for a variety of purposes, but the noise of passing trains soon forced the city simply to use the depot for storage. During the 1972 …

New Deal

In many ways, Arkansas experienced the hardship of the Great Depression of the 1930s even before the stock market crash of 1929. In the 1920s, it led the nation in per capita indebtedness. As an agricultural state, Arkansans was affected by low crop prices, which left people unable to pay taxes. Schools and roads deteriorated. Without funding for road construction, some towns found themselves isolated and cut off from the rest of the state. Arkansas also suffered as it alternated between both drought and floods—the Flood of 1927, followed by the Drought of 1930–1931 and the Flood of 1937. Banks failed, wiping out savings and ready cash. Many Arkansans lost their land, being forced to become tenant farmers. Others could …

New Hampshire [Steamboat]

The New Hampshire was a steamboat that suffered twelve fatalities when its boilers exploded on the Arkansas River below Little Rock (Pulaski County) in the early morning hours of May 6, 1847. The principal owners of the New Hampshire were William Harvey Allen, who was the captain, and his younger brother George, who was first clerk. An old family friend, Robert B. Cupples, was second clerk on the New Hampshire. The steamboat ran a route between Little Rock and New Orleans, Louisiana, and boasted of being “new, with good accommodations for passengers, and from her light draught, affords better facilities for shippers having their goods delivered without delay, than any boat in the trade.” The vessel was steaming up the …

New Home Church and School

New Home Church sits on Peach Orchard Road just south of Bella Vista (Benton County), on 1.7 acres now within the city limits of Bentonville (Benton County). A school was also once located on the property. Benton County real estate records list the church property being transferred on November 21, 1896, from someone named Peterson to the Methodist Episcopal Church, and the church was built shortly thereafter. At some point, the church came to be called the New Home United Methodist Church. As described in the application for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places, which was granted on January 28, 1988, the modest frame church building is a gabled rectangle, three window bays in length, entered by a …

New Madrid Fault

aka: New Madrid Seismic Zone

The New Madrid Fault, also called the New Madrid Seismic Zone, is actually a series of faults, or fractures, at a weak spot in the earth’s crust called the Reelfoot Rift. It lies deep in the earth and cannot be seen from the surface. The fault line runs roughly 150 miles from Arkansas into Missouri and Illinois. In 1811–1812, it was responsible for the most violent series of earthquakes in the history of the continental United States (though there have been larger individual earthquakes). Scientists predict that another large earthquake is due which could inflict great damage to Arkansas as well as up to half the nation. The New Madrid seismic zone runs roughly northeast from Marked Tree (Poinsett County). …

Newspapers during the Civil War

When the Civil War began in 1861, Arkansas was still basically a frontier state, with thirty to forty small newspapers; only about ten remained by 1862. By the end of the war in 1865, only one of those newspapers, the Washington Telegraph in Hempstead County, had published throughout the conflict. The Arkansas State Gazette suspended publication in 1863 but restarted in May 1865. Arkansas’s newspapers were weeklies with small staffs—primarily just editors and printers. The papers were highly partisan, poorly documented, and had little fresh news from the outside world. The papers got much of their outside news through exchanges, in which editors mailed free copies of their papers to each other. The editors then selected news items from these …

Newton County Courthouse

The Newton County Courthouse is located at 100 Court Street in downtown Jasper (Newton County). The Arkansas Historic Preservation Program recognizes the two-story building as architecturally and historically significant for its local standing in Newton County and as a visible result of the New Deal programs active during the Great Depression. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on December 1, 1994, and serves as the anchor of the Jasper Commercial Historic District. The present Newton County Courthouse is the fourth to govern county affairs. The first was a log cabin, burned by Union soldiers during the Reconstruction period in 1866. Newton County replaced it with a brick-and-mortar structure in 1873, contracting Robbie Hobbs to build it. …

Newton House Museum

The Newton House Museum in El Dorado (Union County) was the home of John and Penelope Newton, early settlers of Union County. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on November 6, 1974. For many years, the home was referred to as the Rainey-Newton House, due to a misconception that El Dorado city founder Matthew Rainey had built the home. However, extensive research by one of John Newton’s descendants proved that Rainey sold city property to the Newtons, but the Newtons were the actual builders of the house. The Newton House was built circa 1849 in the Greek Revival style popular in the antebellum era. The house features many characteristics of Greek Revival vernacular architecture, including simplified …

Newton Sutterfield Farmstead

The Newton Sutterfield Farmstead in rural Stone County near the small community of Alco (Stone County) is an excellent example of an antebellum yeoman farm in the Ozarks. The farmstead was added to the National Register of Historic Places on May 20, 2003. Little information exists about the Sutterfield family. J. Newton Sutterfield likely arrived in the Alco area in the 1850s and constructed his home well before the Civil War. The family grew vegetables, fruits, and nuts; raised livestock; and operated a blacksmith shop. The farmstead is not located near navigable water or in a particularly fertile area. Constructed in stages, the house is a good example of how families expanded their dwellings over time. Sitting on a continuous …

Nick Wall [Steamboat]

The Nick Wall was a sternwheel river packet that struck a snag on the Mississippi River near Grand Lake (Chicot County) on December 18, 1870. At least thirty-nine passengers and crew members died in the accident. The Nick Wall, named for a noteworthy Missouri River riverboat captain, was a 338-ton sternwheel paddleboat built in 1869 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The vessel was heading from St. Louis to Fort Benton, Montana, on the Missouri River when it struck a snag near Brownville, Nebraska, in March 1869 and sank. The steamboat was reportedly “raised by Submarine No. 14” in May and sent to St. Louis for repairs, which were completed in June. Thomas Poe of Georgetown, Pennsylvania, bought a half interest in the …

Niloak Pottery

Niloak is a popular American Art Pottery that was created in Benton (Saline County) from 1909 until 1946 by the Eagle Pottery Company. Niloak is best known in the pottery world for its unique Mission-swirl design, but the company in later years produced two other lines, Hywood Art Pottery and the Hywood by Niloak. The name “Niloak” is the word “kaolin” spelled backward. Kaolin is a type of fine-grade clay found near Benton and used in production. Niloak was the creation of Benton native Charles Dean “Bullet” Hyten and an Ohio potter named Arthur Dovey. Hyten grew up in the business, taking over his stepfather’s Benton pottery in partnership with his brothers, Paul and Lee, in 1895. The Hyten Brothers …

Nine from Little Rock

Nine from Little Rock is a short documentary film produced in 1964. Coming less than a decade after the desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock (Pulaski County), the film checks back with the Little Rock Nine—Melba Pattillo, Carlotta Walls, Elizabeth Eckford, Gloria Ray, Minnijean Brown, Thelma Mothershed, Ernest Green, Jefferson Thomas, and Terrence Roberts—offering an update on their lives, while also including some reflections by the pioneering students on the personal impact of their efforts. Nine from Little Rock was a production of the United States Information Agency (USIA). Commissioned by USIA’s director of the Motion Picture and Television Service, George Stevens Jr., it focused not on the controversial integration effort of 1957, but rather on the nine …

Norman Library

The Norman Library has been known as the smallest public library in the state. Located in the town square of Norman (Montgomery County), the single-story structure constructed of brick has been used as a library and for other purposes since its construction. According to the Department of Arkansas Heritage, it once held the Guinness Book of World Records title as the smallest free-standing public library in the country. Norman was founded in 1907 along the Gurdon and Fort Smith Railroad. The town quickly grew to support several lumber mills. Originally named Womble, the name was changed in 1925. After most of the timber surrounding the community was harvested, the economy and population declined. Many residents moved to other towns to …

Norman Town Square

The Norman Town Square is located in the center of the small town of Norman (Montgomery County). Constructed between 1935 and 1940, the park includes a large green space and a small library. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on February 25, 1993. Incorporated in 1910, Norman was known as Womble until 1925, being called such in honor of Walter Womble, a land speculator who was the first citizen and postmaster of the settlement. The town grew due to its location near two large lumber mills and the Gurdon and Fort Smith Railroad. The name was changed to Norman in 1925 to honor a benefactor of the Caddo Valley Academy, a local school. The town square …