Entry Type: Thing - Starting with D

Dexter B. Florence Memorial Field

The Dexter B. Florence Memorial Field is an airport located in Arkadelphia (Clark County). Owned by the City of Arkadelphia, the facility serves both local general aviation and as the location for Henderson State University (HSU) flight operations. The first airplane to visit the city landed on May 25, 1918. Other planes infrequently appeared in the city over the next two decades until the first airport was constructed in 1933–34, located across the Ouachita River from Arkadelphia. The first plane landed at that facility on April 24, 1934. The land was leased for only three years, and after the expiration of the lease, the airport closed. It was reopened in 1939 when students from Henderson State Teachers College (which later …

Dialects

The classification of dialects is an inexact science, as it is often difficult to track the minute differences in grammar, vocabulary, phonetics, and intonation that distinguish one from the next, and more importantly, track how those changes occurred. Migratory routes provide a basic framework for identifying dialects across the country. Informed by this framework, linguists identify two umbrella dialects in the state of Arkansas: Midland, sometimes called South Midland or Mountain Speech, and Southern, which refers to east-coastal Southern speech. Geography also plays a decisive role in the distribution of dialects. The Ouachita Mountains, for example, form a natural barrier for language and culture. John Gould Fletcher observed as much in his historical study, Arkansas (1947): “One may say that there are …

Diamond Bear Brewery

Diamond Bear Brewery in North Little Rock (Pulaski County) revived beer brewing in the state of Arkansas. Its name is derived from two previous monikers used by Arkansas: the “Diamond State” and the “Bear State.” Russ Melton, president and chief executive officer of Diamond Bear, served in the military in Germany for four years, where he acquired a taste for fine beers. He and his wife, Sue Melton, came up with the concept of a local brewery in 1999 and, along with seven other owners, started production in the fall of 2000 at a Little Rock (Pulaski County) facility. The mission statement of the company is: “To provide the people of Arkansas and the surrounding region with their own local brewery, which produces great …

Diamond Mining

Almost 100 million years ago, in what is now Pike County, nature created one of the world’s most unusual diamond-bearing formations, the big volcanic “pipe” that now serves as the centerpiece of Crater of Diamonds State Park. Famous today for recreational mining, the eroded old crater once inspired generations of diamond hunters to dream of commercial success. The history of that long quest—the expectations, the contention, and the repeated frustration—is, in itself, an invaluable legacy of the Arkansas diamond field. Unlike the typical diamond pipe, the formation in Pike County accumulated in various stages as molten rock deep within the earth’s mantle swept up through a shallower zone where diamonds had crystallized long before and then worked its way to …

Dickey-Stephens Park

Dickey-Stephens Park in North Little Rock (Pulaski County) is the home of the Arkansas Travelers baseball team. It has seating for more than 7,000, including 5,800 in fixed seats, with additional room for approximately 1,500 on the berm. Previously, the team played at Ray Winder Field in Little Rock (Pulaski County), which opened in 1932. On August 9, 2005, North Little Rock voters approved a temporary one-percent sales tax providing $28 million for the new ballpark. The land was donated by Warren Stephens, the CEO of Stephens, Inc., who also donated $440,494 for the project. Park revenue brought in $5.6 million for construction, and $15,000 was given by the North Little Rock City Beautiful Commission. The ballpark features a plaque …

Dickinson-Moore House

Constructed circa 1915, the Dickinson-Moore House in Arkansas City (Desha County) has experienced the ebb and flow of the city’s history, as well as its floodwaters. Like many buildings in Arkansas City, it was built upon a tall foundation to protect it from the high water that frequently inundated the area. This practical adaptation makes the Dickinson-Moore House a unique example of Craftsman architecture in Arkansas City. It is believed that a member of the Dickinson family had the house built. The Dickinson family patriarch in the town was planter and attorney Colonel J. W. Dickinson, of whom the Goodspeed history of the area speaks rather glowingly: “No name is entitled to a more enviable place in the history of Desha County …

Die Goldsucher von Arkansas

aka: Massacre at Marble City
aka: Conquerors of Arkansas
Die Goldsucher von Arkansas (literally, The Gold Seekers of Arkansas), produced in the Federal Republic of Germany in 1964, is based loosely on Friedrich Gerstäcker’s novel Die Regulatoren in Arkansas, which is set in Arkansas. Fitting into the genre of the spaghetti western, the film was released in Germany, Italy, France, the United Kingdom, Spain (under two separate titles), Sweden, Finland, and the United States. The title in the United States was Massacre at Marble City, while in the United Kingdom, it was released as Conquerors of Arkansas. Directors were Paul Martin in Germany and Alberto Cardone in Italy. Although both the novel and movie take place in Arkansas, considerable license was taken in adapting the novel, and in the …

Dill School

aka: Ida School
The Dill School at Ida (Cleburne County), located on Highway 25 and Center Ridge Road, was built in 1937–1938 with assistance from the National Youth Administration (NYA), a Depression-era federal relief program. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on August 16, 1994. The first schools in the Ida area were established in the late 1800s and included a one-room log building called the Dill School. This school served the community until it was destroyed by fire in the early twentieth century. It was replaced by a one-room, wood-frame structure that was used until 1938, when the community sought funding from the National Youth Administration, one of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal agencies, which employed young …

Dillard’s, Inc.

Dillard’s, Inc., based in Little Rock (Pulaski County), is ranked among the nation’s largest fashion apparel, cosmetics, and home furnishings retailers, employing more than 53,000 people across the country. The mid-range-to-upscale department store chain consists of approximately 300 stores throughout twenty-nine states in the South, Southwest, West, and Midwest. In the twenty-first century, Dillard’s stores serve as retail anchors in many suburban shopping malls and continue to evolve with the changing landscape of American consumerism. Born in 1914, Dillard’s founder William T. Dillard grew up in the retail business of his father’s mercantile store in Mineral Springs (Howard County). After his graduation from the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County) in 1935, followed by a graduate degree from the School …

Dimension Stone Mining

Dimension stone is defined as rock that is removed from its original site to be used with minor alteration (rough stone) and rock that is broken, sawn, and/or ground and polished (cut or dressed stone) for use as building and/or ornamental stone. While most of the high-quality dimension stone produced in Arkansas is used in state, some is shipped to markets worldwide. Limestone and sandstone are used as dimension stone in Arkansas. Historically, much nepheline syenite was used as hand-worked building stone in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in the Little Rock (Pulaski County) area, but beginning in the middle 1940s, those labor-intensive activities gave way to the use of crushed stone for syenite. A small market exists, …

Diphtheria

Diphtheria is a serious contagious disease caused by toxin-producing strains of the bacteria Corynebacterium diphtheriae. Typically occurring in childhood, diphtheria is transmitted from person to person through respiratory droplets or contaminated surfaces. The symptoms appear following an incubation period of two to five days and include fever, chills, sore throat, fatigue, and swollen lymph glands in the neck. The formation of an adherent, thick, grayish pseudomembrane in the throat distinguishes the disease. Respiratory diphtheria can be fatal due to either respiratory obstruction or heart and kidney failure. Cutaneous diphtheria is a skin infection that rarely causes serious systemic illness. Recovery does not confer lifelong immunity. In 400 BC, the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates provided an early description of diphtheria. It …

Diplurans

aka: Two-Pronged Bristletails
The primitive insects known as diplurans belong to the phylum Arthropoda, subphylum Hexapoda, class Insecta and order Diplura. They are considered to have three lineages: the Campodeoidea, Japygoidea, and Projapygoidea. These superfamilies are defined morphologically by three different types of cerci (paired appendages) found across all the dipluran families. There are ten families in this cosmopolitan order distributed from the tropics to the temperate zones. Diplurans belong to one of the four groups of Hexapoda, with other primitive apterygote insects, including springtails (Collembola) and coneheads (Protura). There are about 800 described species, of which around seventy (9%) occur in North America, twelve (2%) in the United Kingdom, and two (0.3%) in Australia. In 2016, species of diplurans were reported from …

Dipteran Parasites

aka: Parasitic Dipterans
aka: flies
aka: mosquitos
aka: gnats
The order Diptera belongs to the Phylum Arthropoda and Class Insecta. The order ranks number two among all insect orders—only behind beetles (Coleoptera)—with about 125,000 described species (there are an estimated 1,000,000 total species), many of which are considered parasitic or serve as vectors for diseases. There are two main groups (suborders): the Nematocera with seven infraorders and Brachycera with six infraorders. Dipterans—including the sixty species of mosquitoes that occur in Arkansas and Missouri—can be irritating to humans and harmful to livestock and other animals. A major repository of voucher specimens of dipterans in Arkansas is the Entomology Arthropod Museum at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville (Washington County). It houses the largest research and reference collection of insects and …

Dipterans

aka: True Flies
The order Diptera belongs to the Phylum Arthropoda, Subphylum Labiata, Superclass Hexapoda, and Class Insecta. Among all insect orders, the order is number two in total number of species, ranked only behind beetles (Coleoptera), with about 125,000 described species (and an estimated 1,000,000 total species). They include house flies, blow flies, mosquitoes, gnats, black flies, midges, crane flies, horseflies, fruit flies, and others. Arkansas is home to many of these species. The first true fossil dipterans are known from the Middle Triassic Period (about 240 million years ago [mya]), and became more widespread during the Middle to Late Triassic. Although modern flowering plants did not appear until the Cretaceous (around 140 mya), the original dipterans may have had a different …

Disease during the Civil War

Disease was a major problem among the armies serving in Arkansas during the Civil War. Large numbers of men living in close confines made the spread of illness likely. As many as 700,000 members of the military across the country lost their lives during the war, and approximately two-thirds of them died from disease. Outbreaks of disease were common in the state even before the beginning of the war. In 1855, a yellow fever epidemic struck Helena (Phillips County), and minor outbreaks of other diseases such as cholera and typhoid were common. The lack of major centers of population and difficulty of travel, however, prevented many large-scale epidemics before the Civil War. The state had a number of doctors in …

Distilleries

In nineteenth-century Arkansas, the distilling of spirits was done mostly for home consumption. Some small-scale distillers set up taverns in their homes or supplied nearby drinking establishments, and several larger operations emerged by the late 1800s. Distilleries at that time were plentiful and could be found all throughout the state, although prohibition efforts in the early twentieth century put an end to legal distilling in the state for many years. In the twenty-first century, the state’s handful of distilleries focus mostly on small-batch specialty spirits. Newspapers of the 1800s frequently advertised distilleries that were opening, closing, or up for sale. One such example was a steam distillery located on Mine Creek in Hempstead County that was listed for sale in …

Division of Arkansas Heritage

DAH was created in 1975 to preserve and promote Arkansas’s natural and cultural heritage as a source of pride and enjoyment for all. The original legislation named the agency the Department of Arkansas Natural and Cultural Heritage and grouped together culturally oriented agencies in one department. The agency’s name was changed to the Department of Arkansas Heritage in 1985, and then to the Division of Arkansas Heritage in 2019. DAH consists of a number of agencies, each with its own special contributions, and a director’s office, which manages general administrative and marketing operations. The agencies are the Arkansas Arts Council (AAC), which seeks to advance the arts in Arkansas; the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program (AHPP), which manages the state’s historic …

Division of Elementary and Secondary Education

Through the Transformation and Efficiencies Act of 2019 (Act 910), the Arkansas Department of Education (originally established by Act 169 of 1931 as the State Department of Education) was renamed the Division of Elementary and Secondary Education and absorbed alongside a number of other education-related agencies into the Arkansas Department of Education (ADE), a new cabinet-level department. The Division of Elementary and Secondary Education  is administered by the State Board of Education and oversees the 244 public school districts in the state. The Division of Elementary and Secondary Education assists schools in developing curriculum, accredits schools, approves textbooks used in state public schools, licenses teachers, provides continuing education programs, and much more. In general, the Division of Elementary and Secondary …

Dixie Association, The

Donald S. “Skip” Hays, who was born in Florida and reared in western Arkansas, developed an early interest in literature and, after a vagabond career that included years of semiprofessional baseball, settled on writing and teaching. He turned out two ribald Southern novels, the more celebrated of which was The Dixie Association, published in 1984, about a wild band of misfits who made up a fictional professional baseball team at Little Rock (Pulaski County) in the late 1960s. The Dixie Association is about Hog Durham’s single season as a professional ballplayer; he is furloughed early from an Oklahoma prison so that he can join the team. Hog then engages in endless maneuvers with his manager, “Lefty,” and a Little Rock …

Dixie Cafe

The Dixie Cafe was a chain of home-cooking restaurants based in Little Rock (Pulaski County) that grew into twenty-three locations in three states before abruptly closing in late 2017. In August 1980, Little Rock businessman Dan Lasater, who had founded the Ponderosa steakhouse chain, and partners Garland Streett and Allan Roberts bought a building at 1220 Rebsamen Park Road in Little Rock and announced they were going to convert it into a new restaurant as part of the Black-eyed Pea chain (based in Dallas, Texas), which offered home-style cooking in a casual dining atmosphere. The new restaurant opened in late October 1980. “The food comes close to rivaling that of smaller, well-established restaurants,” an Arkansas Gazette reviewer wrote in November …

Dodson v. Arkansas Activities Association

Dodson v. Arkansas Activities Association (1979) was a federal court decision concerning the rules for girls’ junior high and high school basketball in Arkansas. Diana Lee Dodson, then a fourteen-year-old student in the Arkadelphia (Clark County) public school system, filed a lawsuit against the Arkansas Activities Association (AAA), the governing body of public and private school athletic programs, asking that girls in Arkansas be permitted to play under the same full-court basketball rules as Arkansas boys played. Arkansas schools at that time required that basketball for girls be played under “half-court” rules. In this version of the game, which had been played in Arkansas and other states since at least the World War II era, girls’ teams had six players. …

Dog Heartworms

aka: Dirofilaria immitis
The canine heartworm (Dirofilaria immitis) is a filarial parasite that belongs to the Phylum Nematoda, Class Secertenea, Order Spirurida, and Family Onchocercidae. There are two subgenera: Dirofilaria and Nochtiella. This parasite is often found in wild and domestic canids throughout the world, especially in the United States where it is endemic from the East to the Midwest, the southeastern Atlantic seaboard, and the southern Gulf Coast. Transmission of the parasite occurs throughout the United States (even Alaska) and in the warmer regions of Canada. In the United States, the highest infection rates are found within 241 km (150 mi.) of the coast from Texas northeast to New Jersey, and along the Mississippi River Valley and its major tributaries. The parasite …