Entries - Entry Type: Thing - Starting with C

Cossatot Community College of the University of Arkansas (CCCUA)

Cossatot Community College of the University of Arkansas (CCCUA) offers technical certifications and associate’s degrees, collaborating with other colleges and universities to offer bachelor’s and master’s degrees on its campuses at De Queen (Sevier County), Nashville (Howard County), and Ashdown (Little River County). It also offers four associate’s degree programs completely online. In the 1970s, many Arkansas counties benefited from legislation of the Arkansas General Assembly allowing the establishment of two-year colleges, then called junior colleges. CCCUA was established in 1975 as Cossatot Vocational-Technical School, with a service area that included Sevier and Little River counties and shared Howard and Pike counties with what are now the University of Arkansas Community College at Hope (UACCH) and Rich Mountain Community College …

Cossatot River

The Cossatot River rises in the Ouachita Mountains southeast of Mena (Polk County) and flows southward through Howard County and Sevier County before emptying into the Little River north of Ashdown (Little River County). The upper portion of the river is well known as a whitewater stream and is popular among canoeists and kayakers. The Cossatot River is dammed in Howard County by Gillham Dam. The area around the Cossatot River has been the site of human habitation since approximately 10,000 BC, and there have been Indian mounds located along the course of the river. In the historic period, the Caddo Indians lived in the corner of Arkansas through which the Cossatot flows, though they were coerced into signing away …

Cotham’s Mercantile

Cotham’s is a Little Rock (Pulaski County) restaurant that began as a country store in Scott (Pulaski and Lonoke counties). That mercantile became a restaurant in the 1980s, and the owners eventually opened a second location in downtown Little Rock. Known for its large “hubcap” burgers, catfish, Mississippi Mud pie, and other southern comfort food, it has been visited by well-known politicians and celebrities. The original location in Scott, which had become a landmark, burned down in 2017, but the Little Rock Cotham’s continued operating. Cotham’s mercantile was built in either 1912 or 1917, depending upon the source. For decades, it was a place where farmers and plantation owners could buy supplies. It also served for a time as a …

Cotter Bridge

aka: R. M. Ruthven Bridge

Completed in 1930, the R. M. Ruthven Bridge, originally named and often still called the Cotter Bridge, is located near Cotter (Baxter County) on the business route of U.S. Highway 62 and crosses the White River between Baxter and Marion counties. Recognizable for its Rainbow Arches, it was the first landmark in Arkansas to become a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark and is one of only a small number of bridges designated as such. East-west travelers through northern Arkansas often encountered problems crossing the White River. Although ferries operated at several places along the river, the river had a tendency to flood rapidly, grounding the ferries and hindering traffic sometimes for several days. The fastest detour was to cross 100 …

Cotter Water Tower

The Cotter Water Tower, located near the junction of U.S. Highway 62B and State Street, was constructed in 1935 and installed with assistance from the Public Works Administration (PWA), a New Deal public relief agency. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on January 24, 2007. As the United States struggled with the Great Depression of the 1930s, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration enacted the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) to ease the effects of businesses closing. The act included an organization called the Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works (the Public Works Administration), which was created on June 16, 1933, to help finance federal construction projects and create jobs. The City of Cotter (Baxter County) decided …

Cotton Belt Railroad Depot

Located in Fordyce (Dallas County), the Cotton Belt Depot is a historic railroad building constructed in 1925. Added to the National Register of Historic Places on June 11, 1992, it is located south of the Fordyce Commercial Historic District. The Fordyce Rock Island Depot is located to the northeast of the Cotton Belt Depot, while the Tennessee, Alabama & Georgia Railway Steam Locomotive No. 101 is located just to the west of the building. Both are also listed on the National Register. The Cotton Belt, officially known as the St. Louis Southwestern Railway, constructed a line in Dallas County in the early 1880s. The town of Fordyce—named for Samuel Wesley Fordyce, who was vice president of the railroad—was established as …

Cotton Gins

The cotton gin (from the word “engine”) is a device that separates cotton fibers or lint from the seeds and other impurities (called gin trash) of harvested cotton. The “ginned” cotton is compressed into bales that are then sent to mills that spin it into yarn or thread. The building that houses the ginning and baling equipment is sometimes referred to as a ginnery. Cotton gins are an essential component of the cotton industry in Arkansas. There are two types of gin: roller and saw. The roller or churka gin has been in use for centuries and employs counter-rotating rollers to expel seeds while allowing the fiber to pass through the rollers. Roller gins are used primarily on long-staple (or …

Cotton in My Sack

Cotton in My Sack is a juvenile novel published in 1949, written and illustrated by popular children’s author Lois Lenski. It tells the story of a sharecropping family in eastern Arkansas that grows cotton. Though no years are mentioned, the book seems to be set in the late 1940s. Each chapter represents a narrative episode involving the family as related from the viewpoint of Joanda, the oldest child. Other family members include Joanda’s father and mother, along with Joanda’s siblings: brother Ricky and baby sister Lolly. Chapter titles indicate the key element in the chapter, such as “School,” “Saturday in Town,” “A Merry Christmas,” “The Library Book,” “The Bridge,” and “A New Year.” Lenski’s depiction of the family and its …

Cotton Industry

Cotton is a shrub known technically as gossypium. Although modest looking and usually no higher than a medium-sized man’s shoulders, its fruit helped to spin off an industrial revolution in 1700s England and foment the Civil War in the 1800s United States. The possibility of riches spun from cotton in the early days helped populate what became the state of Arkansas, with people coming by the hundreds and thousands on a trip that might last two years. Several visitors to Arkansas in the early 1800s made note in their journals and writings of cotton being grown. The crop remained a Southern staple because it needed hot summer days and warm summer nights to bear abundant fruit. It also needed lots …

Cotton Plant Water Tower

The Cotton Plant Water Tower, located at the corner of North Main and North Vine streets in Cotton Plant (Woodruff County), was constructed in 1935 and installed with assistance from the Public Works Administration (PWA), a New Deal public relief agency. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on June 4, 2008. As the United States struggled with the effects of the Depression of the 1930s, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration enacted the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) to ease the effects of businesses closing. The act included an organization called the Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works (or Public Works Administration), which was created on June 16, 1933, to help finance federal construction projects and create …

Country Music

While the precise origins of country and western music are not entirely clear, it is thought to have its roots in traditional folk music of the British Isles. Once this particular sound was brought by British immigrants to the United States, country music began to change as it was blended with the music of immigrants from other places, as well as with traditional religious hymns and the music of African slaves predominantly residing in the southern United States. Arkansas has had a firm place in the history of country music from its very beginnings in the United States, and the state has been the birthplace of many well-known country artists, as well as particular style variations of country music. While …

County Judge, Office of

Each county in Arkansas has a county judge, who is the chief executive officer of the county, as well as several other countywide office holders including a quorum court (legislative body) made up of justices of the peace elected from single-member districts. The county judge is custodian of county property and public buildings. Counties are essentially subdivisions of the state government. The Arkansas General Assembly controls them to the extent it desires, except as forbidden by state constitutional law. According to the Arkansas Supreme Court, a county is a political subdivision of the state established for a more convenient administration of justice and for purposes of providing services for the state. The highest county executive office is that of county judge. …

Courier-Index (Marianna)

The Courier-Index, a newspaper based in Marianna (Lee County), is the oldest continuous business operation in Lee County. The newspaper was the result of the consolidation of two older newspapers, the Marianna Index and the Lee County Courier. L. M. Benham published the first issue of the Marianna Index, the older of the two papers, on a Saturday in August 1874, using hand-set type and a hand-fed press. The debut issue stated, “We intend to have a paper that the people of our county will not be ashamed of, and that all, someday, may feel proud of it.” J. M. Thomas was the first editor. After only a few months of publication, Benham sold the paper to Hutton, Anderson & …

Courting Miss Hattie

Courting Miss Hattie is a 1992 romance novel by award-winning author Pamela Morsi. The novel is set in Arkansas around 1911. The time frame is established by a reference in the book to the New Madrid earthquakes (1811–1812) having occurred 100 years prior. Although no exact location is named in the book, the most likely setting for the novel is northeastern Arkansas based on references to the New Madrid earthquakes, descriptions of the topography, mentions of crops raised (cotton and the new crop, rice, whose introduction to the area is a subplot of the novel), and proximity to the Mississippi River. The county where the story takes place is also depicted as being significantly north of Helena (Phillips County). The …

Cove Creek Bridge

The Cove Creek Bridge is a stone masonry, closed-spandrel arch bridge crossing Cove Creek on Arkansas Highway 309 south of Paris (Logan County). It was built in 1936 under the auspices of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a Depression-era federal relief agency, as part of a project to develop Mount Magazine. In 1935, the U.S. Resettlement Administration (USRA) acquired 110,000 acres on Mount Magazine in an effort to relocate farmers from the poor land available on the mountain and to develop the mountain for other uses. By 1935, the project was designated as the “Magazine Mountain Forestry, grazing, game and recreational project” in WPA records, and an effort began to improve the road from Paris and Havana (Yell County) to …

Cove Creek Tributary Bridge

The Cove Creek Tributary Bridge is a filled-spandrel cut-stone masonry arch bridge crossing a tributary of Cove Creek on Arkansas Highway 309 about 8.5 miles southeast of Paris (Logan County). It was built in 1936 under the auspices of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a Depression-era federal relief agency, as part of a project to develop Mount Magazine. In 1935, the U.S. Resettlement Administration (USRA) acquired 110,000 acres on Mount Magazine in an effort to relocate farmers from the poor land available on the mountain and to develop the mountain for other uses. By 1935, the project was designated as the “Magazine Mountain Forestry, grazing, game and recreational project” in WPA records, and an effort began to improve the road …

Cove Lake Bathhouse

The Cove Lake Bathhouse, part of the Cove Lake Recreation Area on Arkansas Highway 309 near Corley (Logan County), is a stone-masonry structure exhibiting an unusual interpretation of the Rustic style of architecture. It was built in 1938 under the auspices of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a Depression-era federal relief agency, as part of a project to develop Mount Magazine. In 1935, the U.S. Resettlement Administration (USRA) acquired 110,000 acres on Mount Magazine in an effort to relocate farmers from the poor land available on the mountain and to develop the mountain for other uses. By 1935, the project was designated as the “Magazine Mountain Forestry, grazing, game and recreational project” in WPA records, and an effort began to …

Cove Lake Spillway Dam/Bridge

aka: Cove Creek Spillway Bridge

The Cove Lake Spillway Dam/Bridge is a five-span, reinforced-concrete, deck-arch bridge above the dam and spillway that created Cove Lake on Arkansas Highway 309 south of Paris (Logan County) at Mount Magazine. It was built in 1937–1938 under the auspices of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a Depression-era federal relief agency, as part of a project to develop Mount Magazine. In 1934, the U.S. Resettlement Administration (USRA) acquired 110,000 acres on Mount Magazine in an effort to relocate farmers from the poor land available on the mountain and to develop the mountain for other uses. By 1935, the project was designated as the “Magazine Mountain Forestry, grazing, game and recreational project” in WPA records, and an effort began to improve …

Cove Tourist Court

The Cove Tourist Court is located on the corner of Park Avenue and Cove Street in Hot Springs (Garland County). Constructed in 1937, the court is designed in the International style with Craftsman-style details. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on February 11, 2004. The thermal waters found in Hot Springs have made the area an attractive destination for visitors for centuries. The widespread adoption of automobiles in the early twentieth-century, coupled with the improvements made to highways in Arkansas, made it easier than ever for tourists to reach Hot Springs in the 1930s. In response to the growing demand for lodging in the area, numerous tourist courts and other amenities were built along Park Avenue. …

Cowie Wine Cellars

On August 17, 1967, Cowie Wine Cellars was established as a federal and state bonded winery in Paris (Logan County), fulfilling the lifelong passion of founder Robert Cowie, who had begun making wine as a hobby at age fifteen. Cowie Wine Cellars remained, by choice of its founder, the smallest winery in the state, though it won a number of state and national awards, in particular for its Cynthiana and Robert’s Port. Robert Cowie built his winery, originally a small metal building, on the former property of St. Ann’s School, just west of Paris at Carbon City, in 1969. Three years later, his family was able to build a house on the property and move to the winery site, and …

Craighead County Courthouse, Western District

The Craighead County Courthouse is a Depression-era, Art Deco–style building situated on the courthouse square in Jonesboro (Craighead County). It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on September 11, 1998. During the first year after the establishment of Craighead County and the city of Jonesboro in 1859, there was no courthouse for carrying out the official business of the western part of the county. (Along with Jonesboro, Lake City also acts as a county seat, serving the eastern part of the county.) The Arkansas General Assembly designated the home of William Puryear in Jonesboro as a temporary county seat. The first permanent courthouse was a two-story frame building erected on the town square in Jonesboro in 1862. The building …

Craighead County Jonesboro Public Library

The Craighead County Jonesboro Public Library (CCJPL) serves the people of northeastern Arkansas, with a main facility in downtown Jonesboro (Craighead County). It also has branches in the Craighead County towns of Brookland, Caraway, Lake City, and Monette along with a cooperative agreement with the neighboring Poinsett County library system. Established in 1917, the Craighead County Jonesboro Public Library was incorporated in 1941. Over the years, it moved to several different locations in downtown Jonesboro, with its current building opening in 1964. Since that time, several additions have expanded the library structure, including a 1978 addition to accommodate facilities for patrons with visual impairments and physical disabilities. In 1978, the library’s popular Arkansas Genealogy Room was created. It holds an …

Crazyhorse

aka: Crazy Horse
aka: swamp pink

Crazyhorse was a literary journal, published twice yearly, containing short stories, poetry, and essays. It was based in Arkansas for nearly two decades and has, during its lifespan, published work by many award-winning writers, including John Updike, Raymond Carver, John Ashbery, Robert Bly, National Book Award winners Ha Jin and Charles Wright, Pulitzer Prize winner Charles Simic, and former Poet Laureate Billy Collins. Other writers have been Guggenheim fellows, received National Endowment of the Arts fellowships, or have had work selected for the Best American anthologies. The journal was renamed swamp pink in 2022. Poet Tom McGrath founded the journal in 1960 in Los Angeles, California, calling it Crazy Horse after the rebel Native American leader. In the turbulent 1960s, …

Crescent College and Conservatory

The Crescent College and Conservatory for Young Women operated out of the Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs (Carroll County). It was opened on September 23, 1908, and operated from September through June, with the summer months being devoted to hotel operations. The college remained open until 1924, when it was forced to close due to lack of funding. It reopened as Crescent Junior College in 1930 and remained open until 1934. Founded by the Eureka Springs Investment Company, specifically A. S. Maddox and J. H. Phillips, Crescent College was established as an exclusive boarding school for young women.  Maddox had previously operated a successful female seminary, known as Maddox Seminary, in Little Rock (Pulaski County) and was seeking a new …

Crisis at Central High

The book Crisis at Central High, based on the events surrounding the 1957 desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock (Pulaski County), was a memoir written by school administrator Elizabeth Huckaby (1905–1999) and published in 1980. A prestigious television movie based on the book, also titled Crisis at Central High, was filmed at Central and starred Academy Award–winning actress Joanne Woodward. For her portrayal of Huckaby in the 1981 film, Woodward was nominated for both an Emmy and a Golden Globe Award. In September 1957, nine African-American students attempted to attend the all-white Central High. After they were prevented from entering by members of the state’s National Guard, the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division was ordered by President Dwight …

Crisis Pregnancy Centers

Often affiliated with anti-abortion Christian organizations such as Care Net and Heartbeat International, crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs), which are also known as pregnancy resource centers, target women facing decisions about unintended pregnancies. In many states, including Arkansas, the centers offer free informational and assistive services designed to dissuade women from choosing abortion. In the late 1960s, before the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Roe v. Wade (1973) legalizing first-trimester abortion, CPCs originated in response to the liberalization of state abortion laws. Beginning in the 1980s, during anti-abortion Republican Ronald Reagan’s presidency, CPCs began to receive public funding and increase in number. By 2016, CPCs existed in more than 3,500 locations in the United States, outnumbering abortion clinics. By 2021, according …

Crittenden County Courthouse

The Crittenden County Courthouse is a two-story brick building erected on the courthouse square in Marion (Crittenden County). Construction of the building was completed in 1911 in the Classical Revival style of architecture. The courthouse was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on August 3, 1977. The first Crittenden County seat was established in the town of Greenock. The first court was held in the home of William Lloyd in June 1826. In 1836, the county seat moved from Greenock to Marion. The present-day courthouse is one of three structures that have been built in Marion to serve as the county’s seat of government. The original courthouse in Marion was a frame building, which was destroyed by a cyclone …

Cromwell Architects Engineers, Inc.

Cromwell Architects Engineers is one of the oldest architectural firms in the nation and is clearly the oldest in Arkansas. Begun in 1885 with one architect and his draftsman son, by the twenty-first century, the firm had more than 100 employees offering a variety of services and could show an enormous body of completed work around the world. Most notably, the firm employed Charles Louis Thompson (1868–1959) and his son-in-law, Edwin Boykin Cromwell (1909–2001), both of whom were well known in their profession. The firm’s history begins with the arrival in Little Rock (Pulaski County) of Benjamin J. Bartlett. It is likely that both he and his son came to the state because they had been selected in 1885 to …

Crop Circles

Crop circles are a relatively recent phenomenon in Arkansas, appearing in northeastern Arkansas wheat fields in 2003. Crop circles are geometric patterns, sometimes simple and other times astonishingly complex, that appear in fields of wheat, barley, rye, and other crops. The formations are created by a flattening of the stalks of grain; in the more refined crop circles, the grain is bent rather than broken. Crop circles have been reported as far back as the late seventeenth century in England, but it was an outbreak in England in the 1970s which brought the phenomenon worldwide attention. Thousands of formations were subsequently reported across the globe, leading to speculation that they were created by extraterrestrials or other paranormal entities, given the …

Cross Hollow (Camp)

Cross Hollow (or Cross Hollows), located along the Telegraph Road eighteen miles south of the Missouri-Arkansas border near modern-day Rogers (Benton County), was the site of Confederate winter quarters during the winter of 1861–62. A Civil War skirmish was fought near Cross Hollow in 1864. Following the August 10, 1861, Confederate victory at Wilson’s Creek in Missouri, General Benjamin McCulloch’s army fell back into Arkansas. Feeling that the troops would be close enough to Missouri to march there readily if circumstances demanded, commanders chose Cross Hollow, a long, narrow valley at the intersection of an east-west road and the Telegraph Road, which was the major north-south road into Missouri. Abundant springs and forage and the presence of two mills nearby, …

Crossett Light

Outside of Crossett (Ashley County), where the old railroad tracks once lay, an unexplained light has become a local legend. It has reportedly been seen consistently since the early 1900s by multitudes of people. The light is typically seen floating two to three feet above the ground but also is said to move into the treetops and sometimes side to side. The light reportedly disappears as one walks toward it and then reappears the same distance away, so that one can never get a close look at it. The Crossett Light’s color reportedly ranges from yellow or orange to blue or green. The Crossett Light is one of many similar phenomena commonly known as “spooklights” in the South. There are …

Crossett Lumber Company

The Crossett Lumber Company (CLC) was Arkansas’s largest and most influential lumber company from its founding in 1899 until its merger with the Georgia-Pacific Company in 1962. It is notable for its growth alongside the company town of Crossett (Ashley County) and its early use of sustained-yield forestry in collaboration with Yale University’s School of Forestry. On May 16, 1899, Charles W. Gates, Edward Savage Crossett, and Dr. John W. Watzek—all from Davenport, Iowa—founded the Crossett Lumber Company in Ashley County in southeast Arkansas and Morehouse Parish in northern Louisiana. Stockholders named them president, vice president, and treasurer of the board of directors, respectively. Their first action was the purchase of 47,000 acres of land from the Michigan investment firm …

Crushed Stone Mining

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

Crustaceans

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

Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art

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

Crystal Springs Dam and Camp Shelter

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

CSS Arkansas

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

CSS General Earl Van Dorn

aka: CSS Van Dorn
aka: CSS Earl Van Dorn
aka: CSS General Van Dorn
aka: Junius Beebe

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

CSS General M. Jeff Thompson

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

CSS General Sterling Price

aka: CSS General Price
aka: CSS Price
aka: Laurent Millaudon
aka: L. Millandon
aka: Milledon

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

CSS Maurepas

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

CSS Pontchartrain

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

Cultured Pearl Industry

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

Curran Hall

aka: Little Rock Visitor Information Center
aka: Walters-Curran-Bell House

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

Current River

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

Cyprinids

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