Entries - Entry Type: Thing - Starting with C

Clermont [Steamboat]

The Clermont was a small steamboat that struck a snag and sank in the Mississippi River on March 8, 1867; one passenger drowned in the accident. The Clermont was a seventy-nine-ton sternwheel steamboat built in 1863 in New Richmond, Ohio. By early 1867, the vessel was carrying freight and passengers between Memphis, Tennessee, and ports along the White River in Arkansas. The steamer was heading from Jacksonport (Jackson County) to Memphis with a few passengers, 200 bales of cotton, and “some small lots of freight” when it struck a snag on the Mississippi River about twenty-five miles above Helena (Phillips County) at around 10:00 p.m. on March 8, 1867. The impact caused the Clermont to turn over, casting its chimneys …

Clermont No. 2 [Steamboat]

The steamboat Clermont No. 2 sank after hitting a snag on the White River near Augusta (Woodruff County) on December 4, 1851, killing twenty-two passengers. The Clermont No. 2 was a 121-ton sidewheel paddleboat built in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1845. Owned by a Captain Collins, the Clermont apparently usually ran on the St. Francis River but was traveling on the White River in late 1851. The steamboat hit a snag and sank in late September but was quickly raised and put back into service. The vessel had a far more serious accident in December. The Clermont No. 2 steamed away from Augusta on December 3, 1851, bound for Jacksonport (Jackson County) with nine cabin passengers and twenty-six deck passengers. At …

Cleveland County Courthouse

The Cleveland County Courthouse in Rison was designed by Theodore M. Sanders and constructed in 1911. It incorporates the Classical Revival and Modern Renaissance styles of architecture with quoins, Tuscan pilasters, and denticulated cornices. The original Cleveland County seat was Toledo, but the Toledo courthouse burned down in 1889 and all of the records inside were lost. Although Rison had been accepted as the new county seat on August 17, 1889, it was not until April 11, 1891, that Rison was formally chosen by the Arkansas Supreme Court as the new county seat after two contested elections. In 1892, a frame courthouse was constructed in Rison for $8,000. It was in use until the completion of the current courthouse in 1911, located …

Cleveland County Herald

In 1888, George H. Tisdale started the Cleveland County Herald at Rison (Cleveland County). It was a Democratic paper published on Thursdays. Sallie Irene Robinson worked briefly as editor for Tisdale and, by 1893, had purchased the paper. The Herald is the longest-running newspaper in Cleveland County. Robinson learned the newspaper business from her uncle, Leon Roussan, who ran the Osceola Times (1870–) in Osceola (Mississippi County). Robinson moved to Rison in 1892 or 1893 and quickly took over the Herald. In 1895, she married lawyer William Joseph (Billie) Stanfield, becoming Sallie Robinson-Stanfield. She is the first recorded woman in Arkansas to hyphenate her last name after marriage. Together, they had five children, and Robinson-Stanfield taught them all the newspaper …

Climate and Weather

Officially classified by climatologist Wladimir Köppen as having a humid sub-tropical climate, Arkansas is indeed humid, but numerous weather extremes run through the state. Humid sub-tropical is classified generally as a mild climate with a hot summer and no specific dry season. The Köppen classification is correct in that regard, but the state truly has four seasons, and they can all range from fairly mild to incredibly extreme. The topography of the land and its proximity to the plains to the west and the Gulf of Mexico to the south play a crucial role in its climate and weather. In the United States, warm, moist air travels into the plains from the Gulf of Mexico and interacts with cool, dry …

Climate Change

The spring of 2019 brought record flooding along the Arkansas River from Van Buren (Crawford County) to its confluence with the Mississippi River in the east. Historic crests occurred at Dardanelle (Yell County), Morrilton (Conway County), Toad Suck Lock and Dam near Conway (Faulkner County), and Pendleton (Desha County) between May 30 and June 6. In July 2019, the National Weather Service reported that the remnants of Hurricane Barry dumped 16.17 inches of rain on Dierks (Howard County), the most rain ever measured in a twenty-four-hour period (1:00 p.m. July 15 through 1:00 p.m. July 16) in Arkansas; the three-day total of 16.59 inches was the most rain associated with a tropical system in recorded state history. Murfreesboro (Pike County) …

Climber Motor Corporation

The automobile craze grew by leaps and bounds during the early twentieth century. A 1907 issue of Outing Magazine reported that “In 1906, the cost of the annual American output of automobiles was $65,000,000. There were 146 concerns in business, which represented a capitalization of probably $25,000,000 and were giving employment directly and indirectly to an army of men which reached well up into the hundreds of thousands.” Arkansas was in no way left behind by the explosive growth of the use of the automobile. By 1913, there were 3,596 registered passenger vehicles in Arkansas. Even though automobile production was growing year by year, the improvement of roads to accommodate the new vehicles was severely lagging behind across the nation, …

Clinton Chronicles, The

The Clinton Chronicles: An Investigation into the Alleged Criminal Activities of Bill Clinton is a 1994 video produced by Patrick Matrisciana that accuses former president Bill Clinton of crimes in Arkansas. The video, which has been called a propaganda piece, put forward a conspiracy theory, the “Clinton Body Count,” regarding individuals whom Clinton was alleged to have had killed. The Clinton Chronicles was produced by a group called Citizens for Honest Government of Westminster, California. Partially funded by Arkansan Larry Nichols, its parent organization was Creative Ministries, Inc. According to the New York Times, Nichols had been hired in the 1980s by Governor Clinton as marketing director for the Arkansas Development Finance Authority (ADFA). In 1988, Nichols was fired by …

Clinton House Museum

The Clinton House Museum in Fayetteville (Washington County) preserves the home lived in by Bill and Hillary Clinton during the 1970s. It offers exhibits, programs, events, and collections relating to the Clintons. The stated mission of the museum is to interpret the lives of President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during the time they lived in Fayetteville and occupied the home at 930 W. Clinton Drive. Built in 1931 in the Tudor Revival Style, the home is 1,800 square feet. In 1973, Bill Clinton joined the faculty of the University of Arkansas School of Law, and Hillary Rodham did likewise the following year. Hillary made a passing comment about how she liked the home when driving by. …

Clinton v. Jones

The U.S. Supreme Court case Clinton v. Jones, 520 U.S. 681 (1997) had the immediate impact of allowing a civil suit filed against President Bill Clinton to proceed while he was in office. In fact, although the case arose from an alleged incident that occurred before Clinton assumed the presidency, his status as president was central to the arguments the Supreme Court had to address. Ultimately, the decision’s more far-reaching impact directly affected the presidency on multiple levels. First, the Court’s ruling both reinforced and extended the idea that the president is not above the law, a concept that had been at the heart of the legal issues surrounding the Watergate affair. In addition, statements made by Clinton in the …

Cnidarians

aka: Hydroids
aka: Corals
aka: Jellyfishes
aka: Sea Anemones

Cnidarians (hydroids, jellyfishes, corals, and sea anemones) form a diverse phylum (Cnidaria, old Phylum Coelenterata) that contains more than 10,000 species. The phylum also includes the parasitic Myxozoa. Typical cnidarians inhabit aquatic (predominantly marine) environments. Cnidarians are divided into two major groups: the Anthozoa (corals, sea anemones, and sea pens), which live as sessile polyps, and the subphylum Medusozoa (Hydra, jellyfishes, and sea wasps), many of which form a free-swimming medusa as well as polyps. There are five main classes: Anthozoa, Cubozoa, Hydrozoa, Scyphozoa, and Staurozoa. Only a few cnidarians can be found in Arkansas, including a jellyfish seen in lakes and rivers. In terms of evolutionary relationships, modern molecular phylogenetic results support the notion that anthozoans represent the first …

Coal Mining

Coal fields in Arkansas are located in the Arkansas River Valley between the western border of the state and Russellville (Pope County) an area only about thirty-three miles wide and sixty miles long. Until about 1880, most coal mined in Arkansas was used near its original location, often to fuel the fires of blacksmiths. Between 1880 and 1920, coal was Arkansas’s first mineral/fuel output, used especially for locomotives and steam-powered machines, as well as for heating homes and businesses. After 1920, oil and oil byproducts pushed aside the popularity of coal as a fuel, and mining of coal decreased. Much of the coal mined in Franklin County and Sebastian County around the year 2000 was used in the manufacture of …

Coal to Diamonds

Coal to Diamonds: A Memoir (2012) was written by Beth Ditto, singer and songwriter for the band Gossip, and co-written by queer popular fiction writer Michelle Tea. In the memoir, Ditto writes about growing up poor in Judsonia (White County) with five siblings, as well as the rampant sexual abuse her female family members experienced. She also discusses coming into her own as a singer, femme-identified lesbian, and feminist. As Ditto recounts, her youth was often turbulent. She frequently lived with her aunt Jannie, along with her aunt’s two children and three cousins placed there by social services. Despite the fact that she was often left with the responsibility of cooking, cleaning, and looking after the children, Ditto describes the …

Coccidia

Coccidians are microorganisms belonging to the Phylum Apicomplexa and Suborder Eimeriorina, which includes eight to thirteen families, about 39 genera, and well over 2,000 species. These protists are intracellular (meaning they function inside the cell) parasites of medical and veterinary importance, including those in the genera Caryospora, Cryptosporidium, Cyclospora, Eimeria, Isospora, Sarcocystis, and Toxoplasma. Most are considered intestinal parasites that infect both invertebrates as well those animals in all vertebrate classes. These parasites cannot complete their life cycle without exploiting a host. Coccidiosis is a general term for the disease they can cause, and it is recognized as a major health concern in wild animal populations, domestic animals, and zoo animals. However, some infections appear not to cause any pathology …

Cockroaches

aka: Blattodea

Cockroaches belong to the Phylum Arthropoda, Subphylum Labiata, Superclass Hexapoda, Class Insecta, and Order Blattodea. The order includes approximately 4,600 species in almost 500 genera and seven families. Very likely at least twice this number remains to be discovered and described worldwide. Some of the most well-known cockroach examples are two pest species belonging to the family Blattidae: the American cockroach (Periplaneta americana) and German cockroach (Blattella germanica). Cockroaches are considered one of the most successful groups of invertebrates because of their adaptability in various environmental conditions and occupy a very wide range of habitats from caves to mountains to rainforests to deserts. As a group, cockroaches also exhibit a remarkable diversity of form, coloration, size, and behavior. Although no …

Cold Spring

Cold Spring is located along County Road 93, just south of Forest Service Road 19 along Sugar Creek, in northeastern Scott County. The structure surrounding the spring was built around 1936 by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 21, 1993. The Cold Spring structure was built by the 1707th Company of the Arkansas CCC District, which was stationed at the nearby Waldron Camp. The structure was built to help protect the head of the cold spring from contamination and to direct the flow of the water north to Sugar Creek. The conservation project was also an attempt to protect a source of clean water and control erosion of the …

Cold Springs School

aka: Hepsey School

The Cold Springs School, located in Cold Spring Hollow within the Buffalo National River area in Marion County, is a single-story, Craftsman-style building constructed around 1935 with assistance from the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a Depression-era federal relief program. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 20, 1992. Located in a remote area along the Buffalo River in Marion County, the community of Hepsey (Marion County) received a post office in 1896, though it was discontinued in 1924. It is not known when the first school was built in the area, but one was in place by 1926 when an eighteen-year-old high school student, Erma Pierce, from Bruno (Marion County) taught there during the summer. …

Cold Water School

The Cold Water School, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is located in the former village of McPhearson (Baxter County) and was one of the earliest schools in Baxter County. The first building was constructed in the late 1880s, as population growth had necessitated a school. The second building, which still stands in the twenty-first century, was built between 1920 and 1926. This one-room schoolhouse was used as a school, church, and community center. The Cold Water School is the oldest and only surviving structure in McPhearson and is located twenty-five miles south of Mountain Home (Baxter County). As early as 1829, the Arkansas Territorial Legislature passed laws concerning public schools. The first laws allowed the …

Coleman Dairy

Coleman Dairy in Little Rock (Pulaski County) is the oldest continuously operating dairy by the same family west of the Mississippi River and was listed in 2001 by Family Business Magazine as the seventy-fifth-oldest family business in the United States. Five generations of Colemans have operated the business since its beginning in the early 1860s. Coleman Dairy became a division of Hiland Dairy in 2007. Eleithet B. Coleman founded Coleman Dairy in 1862. Attempting to stay ahead of the Civil War, he brought his family to central Arkansas with a few dairy cows. At the time he started the business, dairymen hauled their raw milk in crocks and poured it into whatever containers were brought out to the delivery wagon …

Collembollans

aka: Springtails

Springtails (collembolans) belong to the phylum Arthropoda and subphylum Hexapoda. They form the largest (about thirty-five families and 9,000 different species) of the three lineages of modern hexapods that are no longer considered to be included in the class Insecta (the other two are the proturan and dipluran apterygotes). Since each has internal mouthparts, the three are sometimes grouped together into a class called Entognatha. However, they do not appear to be any more closely related to one another than they all are to insects, which have external mouthparts. Indeed, they do share some features of insects, such as a body divided into three parts, a head with antennae, a three-segmented thorax, and each segment having a pair of jointed …

Collier Springs Shelter

Constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), the Collier Springs Shelter is located in the Collier Springs Picnic Area in the Ouachita National Forest, about seven miles northeast of Norman (Montgomery County), along Forest Road 177. Constructed in 1939, the shelter was added to the National Register of Historic Places on October 20, 1993. The shelter was constructed by CCC Company 741. The company was formed on May 1, 1933, at Camp Pike and completed numerous projects in the Ouachita National Forest. At the time of the construction of the Collier Springs Shelter, the company was stationed at the Crystal Springs Camp, about twelve miles east. The shelter was the only structure constructed by the CCC at the Collier Springs …

Collins v. State

In 1972, with the Furman v. Georgia case, the U.S. Supreme Court suspended use of the death penalty throughout the nation because it found the capital punishment system to be unconstitutional due to arbitrary enforcement. The Furman decision allowed individual states to revise their capital punishment statutes in order to eliminate the subjectivity of the death penalty. Arkansas revised its statutes in March 1973, and in the 1977 Collins v. State case, the Arkansas Supreme Court defended these newly revised statutes. In 1974, Carl Albert Collins was convicted of the murder of John Welch, his employer. Collins first attacked Welch’s wife, Gertrude, and then shot Welch. Collins left both for dead, stole Welch’s wallet, and took his truck. Though John …

Colored Industrial Institute

The Colored Industrial Institute in Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) was one of the first Catholic-supported schools for African-American children in Arkansas. The school was established by Father John Michael Lucey, a white Confederate veteran, who was considered progressive for speaking out against lynching and protesting efforts to pass separate coach legislation. Planning for the school began in May 1889. Lucey approached leading citizens of Jefferson County to fill the school’s board of directors. This integrated board included wealthy black Pine Bluff citizens, including Ferdinand (Ferd) Havis and Wiley Jones. Jones was also one of three members of the school’s executive committee and served as secretary. The other two executive committee members were Pine Bluff mayor J. W. Bocage and Reverend …

Columbia County Courthouse

The Columbia County Courthouse, an early twentieth-century building designed by W. W. Hall, is a classic example of the Second Renaissance Revival style. Located at 1 Courthouse Square in Magnolia (Columbia County), the current Columbia County Courthouse was finished in 1906 and is the third courthouse to be located on these grounds. The first was a temporary log courthouse built immediately after the county formed in 1852. In 1856, a more permanent courthouse was built. In 1903, a tax levy was created to provide funds for construction of the current courthouse. While the courthouse was originally only two stories, the courthouse rotunda—which centers the building and once served as the courtroom—has been divided to form two floors, giving the building …

Combs, Cass and Eastern Railroad

The Combs, Cass and Eastern Railroad Company (CC&E) has several distinctions. It was the last railroad built in northwestern Arkansas. It reached the highest elevation of the railroads operating in northwest Arkansas and was the sole standard gauge logging railroad there. Prominent Arkansan J. William Fulbright became president at the age of eighteen, thus becoming the youngest railroad president in the United States. Construction of the then-unnamed railroad began in 1913 at Combs (Madison County) on the St. Paul (Madison County) branch of the St. Louis–San Francisco Railway (Frisco). The line headed south along Mill Creek for nearly nine miles. Upon entering Franklin County, the railroad encountered difficult rock conditions as it climbed to Summit (Franklin County) at about 1,900 …

Come Early Morning

Released in 2006, Come Early Morning is a movie written and directed by Joey Lauren Adams, best known for her acting roles in Dazed and Confused (1993) and Chasing Amy (1997). It was filmed primarily in Adams’s hometown of North Little Rock (Pulaski County), with several scenes shot in her grandmother’s house. The movie stars Ashley Judd as a working-class woman who spends her weekends getting drunk in bars before going to a motel for one-night-stands, after which she quickly leaves “come early morning.” In the New York Times, reviewer Stephen Holden said that Adams, in her filmmaking debut, “knows how these people speak and has a finely tuned awareness of their relationship to an environment where beer flows like …

Come Next Spring

Come Next Spring was a 1956 dramatic feature film produced and distributed by Republic Pictures Corporation. The film is about the reconciliation of a rural, Prohibition-era Arkansas family split apart by alcohol abuse. Both the original story and screenplay were written by Montgomery Pittman, whose family connections, and possibly childhood experiences, in Independence County, Arkansas, are referenced obliquely throughout the film. The film premiered at the Center Theater in downtown Little Rock (Pulaski County) on February 1, 1956. The premiere included a personal appearance by one of the film’s stars, Steve Cochran. Released nationally in the United States the following month and internationally afterward, the film played in U.S. theaters well into 1957 and, in subsequent years, was broadcast many …

Comet [Steamboat]

The Comet was the first steamboat to go up the Arkansas River, arriving at Arkansas Post on March 31, 1820. The Comet was built 1817, the second steamboat constructed at Cincinnati, Ohio. The 154-ton vessel featured a high-pressure, stern-wheel vibrating cylinder engine that had been patented by inventor Daniel French in 1809. The Comet, under the command of a Captain Byrne, left New Orleans, Louisiana, on March 23, 1820, and headed toward Arkansas’s territorial capital at Arkansas Post. The journey of 149 running hours took eight days, and the vessel entered the mouth of the Arkansas River at noon on March 31. As night descended, the Comet ran aground on the bank of the river, which delayed its progress for …

Command and Control

Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety is a 2013 book by investigative journalist Eric Schlossser that explores the history of the United States’ nuclear weapons, efforts to control them, and accidents involving them, focusing particularly on the September 1980 Titan II Missile explosion in Arkansas. The book was the basis for a 2016 documentary film directed by Robert Kenner. Author Eric Schlosser previously wrote the New York Times bestsellers Fast Food Nation (2001) and Reefer Madness (2003). The 632-page Command and Control, published by Penguin Press, explored the United States’ development of nuclear weapons and national policy regarding them from their origins in World War II into the twenty-first century. It also documented …

Command-Aire

In 1926, the Arkansas Aircraft Company was founded in Little Rock (Pulaski County) to build small personal airplanes. The company represented the first and one of the few aircraft companies that have existed in Arkansas. The Arkansas Aircraft Company, which later became known as Command-Aire, was nationally known for its aircraft, and it was one of the country’s leading airplane manufacturers in the late 1920s. Robert B. Snowden Jr. was the company’s president, and John Carroll Cone was in charge of sales. Albert Voellmecke—a graduate of the University of Braunschweigaud in Germany and an employee of the Heinkel firm, a noted German aircraft builder—was sent to America by the Heinkel firm in 1927 to advise the company. He later became …

Commercial [Steamboat]

As part of the Union’s Mississippi River Squadron, the steamer Commercial served as an auxiliary vessel 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. Specific details about its construction and acquisition by Union forces are not known, but the Commercial displaced between 295 and 500 tons and may have served at Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee, after the Battle of Shiloh in April 1862 and regularly served under charter on the western rivers. Between March and May 1863, the Commercial served in conjunction with the steamer Tycoon transporting refugees from Memphis, Tennessee, to Cairo, Illinois, and St. Louis, Missouri. …

Commissioner of State Lands, Office of

aka: Office of Land Commissioner

The commissioner of state lands (or land commissioner) is one of seven constitutional officers serving the state of Arkansas. Primarily, the land commissioner oversees the disposition of tax-delinquent property, but the office is also responsible for certain historic preservation initiatives and the leasing of natural resources on state-owned lands. The office of the commissioner of state lands was created in 1868 by the Arkansas General Assembly as the commissioner of immigration and state lands. This title was given to the commissioner of public works and internal improvements until such time as the offices were separated by the legislature. The constitution of 1874 allowed the Arkansas General Assembly to “provide by law for the establishment of the office of commissioner of …

Community Mental Health Centers

Community mental health centers (CMHCs) are designed for those with mental health concerns but inadequate resources to pay for services. They vary regarding the range of services provided. Some centers offer individual and group psychotherapy and medication management, while others include partial hospitalization programs; psychological, personality, forensic, and intellectual evaluations; emergency/crisis treatment; and consultation/education programs. Most CMHCs determine clients’ fees from a “sliding scale,” meaning that the fee is based upon the person’s income level and ability to pay. Fees can be as low as $5 or $10 per session. The costs of providing services are funded by federal, state, and local grants. As of 2011, fifteen community mental health centers in Arkansas serve more than 141,000 individuals throughout the …

Confederate Battle Flags

Confederate battle flags were carried by soldiers to represent the Confederate States of America during the Civil War. Many of those flags possessed unique designs incorporating regimental designation numbers. There were basically five pattern types: the Stars and Bars, the Second National, the St. Andrew’s Cross, the Hardee design, and the Van Dorn design. The Stars and Bars The Stars and Bars, known as the First National Flag of the Confederacy, consisted of a blue canton in the upper left staff corner with a circle of seven through thirteen white stars, representing each Confederate state. The canton bordered two horizontal red bars separated by a white bar. Among the several Arkansas regiments that used this pattern were the Sixth Regiment …

Confederate Soldiers Monument

aka: "Defending the Flag," Arkansas Sons of the Confederacy Memorial

The Confederate Soldiers Monument is a commemorative sculpture erected in 1905 on the grounds of the Arkansas State Capitol in Little Rock (Pulaski County) to honor the Arkansas men who served in the Confederate army during the Civil War. It took nearly twenty years for the Confederate Soldiers Monument to go from concept to reality. The Ladies Memorial Association in Little Rock began the effort in 1886 and continued it ten years later when the association became the Memorial Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC). Fundraising got a big boost in 1897 when Arkansas Gazette president J. N. Smithee, a Confederate veteran, became involved and brought the newspaper’s resources to bear on the project. The Arkansas General …

Conscription

Conscription is a term used to describe involuntary enlistment into military service. Conscription has been used on numerous occasions in Arkansas, most notably during the Civil War, World War I, World War II, and the Vietnam War. Conscription is also known as the draft. Conscription was first used in Arkansas during the Civil War. After the Battle of Pea Ridge in March 1862, most Confederate forces in the state moved east of the Mississippi River. Major General Thomas Hindman took command of the Trans-Mississippi in May and faced the possibility of a Federal army under Major General Samuel Curtis capturing Little Rock (Pulaski County). Hindman implemented the Confederate Conscription Act that was passed on April 16, 1862. It called for …

Consensual Guardianship

The legal matter of consensual guardianship deals with a parent who consents to allow another person to be the guardian of a child and later revokes that consent. This situation usually arises when a parent is temporarily unable to raise a child (perhaps because of illness, financial problems, or criminal issues) and allows a family member or friend to be guardian. Over the years, the legal system in Arkansas first favored the guardian in these situations, then came to favor the parent, then slightly turned back to favoring the guardian. Although the Uniform Probate Code (adopted in whole or in part by many states) expressly states that a parent may consent to a guardianship (§ 5-204), the Arkansas guardianship statutes …

Consolidated White River Academy

The Consolidated White River Academy arose in the late 1800s when several African-American church groups in the Brinkley (Monroe County) area wanted to create an academy offering African-American students the opportunity for a full high school education, rather than the mere tenth-grade education available to them in the area. The goal was to provide a top-notch Christian education in a boarding school environment following a modified version of Alabama’s Tuskegee Institute. The educational opportunities and convenient residential facilities attracted students from across the state and nation for over fifty years. The district academy project originated during the late nineteenth century with black Baptist churches in the Brinkley area. These churches worked to establish a high school, the original name of …

Constitutional Immunity

aka: State Sovereign Immunity

The principle of sovereign immunity is the concept, brought into American jurisprudence from English common law, that a government may not be a defendant in its own courts. While not mentioned in the original U.S. Constitution, it was added in the Eleventh Amendment. In the twenty-first century, the U.S. Supreme Court controversially expanded the Eleventh Amendment to serve also as a protection against individual American state governments being sued in federal courts against their will. Most states, including Arkansas, also have embraced protections against being sued in state courts. The concept was first introduced in the Arkansas Constitution of 1868, but in a manner that gave the legislature wide power to control the breadth of the immunity, stating: “The general …

Constitutional Union

The Constitutional Union was a short-lived newspaper published in 1860–1861 in Des Arc (Prairie County) to rival the secessionist viewpoints espoused by the local Des Arc Citizen with the Civil War on the horizon. The Des Arc Citizen (1854–186?) was the first newspaper in Prairie County, established in September 1854 by John C. Morrill. Published weekly, issues were four pages long and focused on state politics, the Methodist Episcopal Church, agriculture, development projects for railroads and river levees, and news from nearby Memphis, Tennessee. In 1861, a new twice-weekly edition, the Des Arc Semi-Weekly Citizen, was published simultaneously. The new edition was published only briefly, and later that same year the newspaper returned to a singular weekly edition called the …

Convent Inspection Act of 1915

aka: Act 130 of 1915
aka: Posey Act

The Convent Inspection Act was passed by the Arkansas General Assembly and signed by Governor George Washington Hays in March 1915. The act was not unique to Arkansas, as states such as Georgia and Florida had similar laws. The Arkansas law allowed for sheriffs and constables to inspect convents, hospitals, asylums, seminaries, and rectories on a regular basis. The purpose, as stated in one section, was “to afford every person within the confines of said institutions, the fullest opportunity to divulge the truth to their detention therein.” If twelve citizens petitioned local authorities, law enforcement could enter these facilities day or night without notice. Whatever the stated intention of the legislation, one writer in the Arkansas Gazette on February 17, …

Convict Lease System

The convict lease system was a way of operating state prisons adopted by Arkansas in the mid-nineteenth century. The Arkansas system mirrored that of other Southern states during this period and reflected the desire to reduce the cost and administrative problems of the state’s prisons. While the system achieved its economic goals, it was typified by corruption and the abuse of prisoners, problems that ultimately brought about its abolition. In Arkansas, the convict lease system originated during the Reconstruction era when, in 1867, the state contracted with the firm of Hodges, Peay, and Ayliff to provide work for prisoners in the penitentiary at Little Rock (Pulaski County). The state agreed to pay the company thirty-five cents a day for the …

Conway Confederate Monument

The Conway Confederate Monument, located on the grounds of the Faulkner County Courthouse in Conway, is a commemorative obelisk that was raised in 1925 to honor the county’s men who had served in the Confederate army during the Civil War. While Faulkner County was not created until April 12, 1873, men from east of Cadron Creek in what was then Conway County served in the Tenth Arkansas Infantry Regiment and later in Colonel A. R. Witt’s Tenth Arkansas Cavalry Regiment. As part of the postwar effort by descendant organizations to recognize the service of their ancestors, an effort was made to memorialize Faulkner County’s Confederate servicemen. Dozens of Confederate memorials were erected in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, …

Conway County Courthouse

The Conway County Courthouse in Morrilton (Conway County) was designed in 1929 by Frank W. Gibb in a fusion of Greek, Roman, and Italian Renaissance architectural styles, exhibiting the diminishing popularity of the Classical Revival style during the early twentieth century. The Conway County Courthouse was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on November 13, 1989. Before the Morrilton site was chosen for the county seat, court proceedings had been held in four previous locations. In 1825, when Conway County was created, the town of Cadron was selected as the first established seat of county government. In 1829, the county seat was moved from Cadron to Harrisburg (then the house of Stephen Harris in Welbourne Township). An election ordered by …

Conway Regional Health System

Founded in 1921, Conway Regional Health System (CRHS), anchored by Conway Regional Medical Center (CRMC) in Conway (Faulkner County), serves Faulkner, Cleburne, Conway, Perry, Pope, Van Buren, and Yell counties. CRHS’s mission is to provide high-quality healthcare services for the region. During a meeting of the Conway Rotary Club in 1921, Dr. Cecil H. Dickerson, a local physician and club member, proposed building a hospital in the town. (The Rotary Club is an international community service organization for business and professional leaders.) During 1922 and 1923, Dickerson, joined by community leaders and activists, launched a bond drive to fund the new hospital’s construction. Local women organized the Faulkner County Hospital Auxiliary to raise funds. John E. Little, a Conway banker …

Cook-Morrow House

When the Cook-Morrow house in Batesville (Independence County) was added to the National Register of Historic Places on July 29, 1977, it was described as “a handsome example of American Eclectic architecture, blending various styles.” Completed in 1909, the house was cited for its historical and architectural significance. That historical significance is tied to its builder, Colonel Virgil Y. Cook, and to the three generations of his family who occupied the house for almost 100 years. Born in Boydsville, Kentucky, in 1848, Cook moved to Grand Glaise (Jackson County) in 1866, where he entered the mercantile business. He married Mildred Ophelia Lamb in 1871; they had six children. A veteran of the Civil War and the Spanish-American War, Cook was …

Coolidge House

The Coolidge House, built in Helena-West Helena (Phillips County) in 1880, is an example of a Queen Anne–style cottage. Decorative details typical of the period were applied to the irregular floorplan and elevations, resulting in a decorative yet restrained dwelling of modest proportions. At the time of the house’s construction, two railroads ran through the town, and packet boats served the adjacent Mississippi River. The house was built for S. C. Moore as a gift for his daughter, Anna Leslie Moore, on the occasion of her marriage to Charles Coolidge Jr. Located at 820 Perry Street, at the corner of Perry and Poplar streets, it was built in the section of Helena referred to on the city plat map as …

Coop Creek Bridge

The Coop Creek Bridge, located on Sebastian County Road 236 where it crosses Coop Creek near Mansfield (Sebastian and Scott counties), is an open masonry substructure bridge constructed in 1940 through the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a Depression-era public relief agency. Sebastian County leaders in 1939 decided to undertake an ambitious and widespread effort to improve rural roads throughout the county with assistance from President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal agencies. They applied for funding from the WPA and on December 11, 1939, that organization approved $1,226,362 for a county-wide project to “improve roads, including clearing; grubbing; excavating and grading; constructing curbs, gutters and bridges; draining; laying pipe; surfacing; and performing incidental and appurtenant work.” The Coop Creek Bridge was …

Cornish House

In 1917, Little Rock (Pulaski County) architect Theo Sanders designed the Cornish House at 1800 Arch Street in Little Rock for Edward and Hilda Cornish. The Cornish House exemplifies traditional Craftsman style with the usage of many natural materials in its construction, such as brick, granite, stucco, wood, and clay tile. Edward Cornish was one of Little Rock’s most prominent and affluent bankers of the early twentieth century until his death in 1928, while his wife was instrumental in founding the organization that became the Planned Parenthood Association of Arkansas. The Cornish House was built on land covering four different lots in Little Rock’s historic Quapaw Quarter, formerly known as the Arkansas School for the Blind Neighborhood. The home was reportedly built …

Coronado Coal Co. v. United Mine Workers of America

aka: United Mine Workers of America v. Coronado Coal Co.

Coronado Coal Co. v. United Mine Workers of America refers here to two separate cases heard by the U.S. Supreme Court during the tenure of Chief Justice William Howard Taft. Both arose from Arkansas’s Sebastian County Union War of 1914 and featured the same parties: the Coronado Coal Company and District No. 21, a local Arkansas branch of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA). The first case, United Mine Workers of America v. Coronado Coal Co. (1922), was an appeal that ruled in favor of the union. It overturned a lower court decision by the Court of Appeals that found the union in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act during the strike. The Supreme Court, however, found little evidence that …