Entry Type: Thing

Harps Food Stores Inc.

Harps Food Stores Inc. is a regional chain of employee-owned grocery stores based in Springdale (Washington and Benton counties). The corporation has grown to eighty stores in Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Missouri since its founding in 1930. Founder Harvard Harp had spent years picking produce in California before returning home to Arkansas. In 1930, during the Great Depression, he took his $500 life savings (approximately $7,100 in 2015 dollars) and with his wife, Floy, opened Harps (or Harp’s) Cash Grocery in Springdale. The store slowly became popular in the community. The store was a family business. All four of Harvard and Floy Harp’s children (Donald, Reland, Gerald, and Judy Harp) worked at the store as they grew up. After Donald Harp’s …

Harry K. Dupree Stuttgart National Aquaculture Research Center

The U.S. Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS) actively supports aquaculture through research conducted at the Harry K. Dupree Stuttgart National Aquaculture Research Center (HKDSNARC) in Stuttgart (Arkansas County). The mission of the HKDSNARC is to conduct cutting-edge research that addresses the highest priorities of the U.S. aquaculture industry, as well as serving as a global leader in aquaculture research. The research conducted addresses vital issues that are national in scope and result in new knowledge that informs scientists, farmers, feed mills, pharmaceutical companies, processors, teachers, governmental agencies, and consumers. The HKDSNARC collaborates with universities, international research institutions, government agencies, and private industry. Since the 1970s, aquaculture has been the fastest-growing sector of global food production. Global aquaculture production in …

Hartford Music Company and Hartford Music Institute

The Hartford Music Company, located in Hartford (Sebastian County), was founded in 1918 by Eugene Monroe (E. M.) Bartlett, a businessman from Waynesville, Missouri, who wanted to publish gospel music. Specifically, he was interested in teaching people how to sight read a song, using shape notes, which would enable them to read music and sing with or without an instrument. Hartford was the perfect location for a gospel music company; the railroad ran east and west through town, with connecting rails all over the United States, thus allowing the easy transport of paper and supplies as well as students. Bartlett, president of the Hartford Music Company, printed from electrotype plates for his songbooks, published semiannually. The books were shipped all …

Hartford Water Tower

The Hartford Water Tower, located at the corner of Pine and First streets in Hartford (Sebastian County), was constructed in 1936 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, 2008. As the United States struggled with the effects of 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 (or Public Works Administration), which was created on June 16, 1933, to help finance federal construction projects and create jobs. Hartford had …

Harvestmen

aka: Daddy Long-Legs
aka: Granddaddy Long-Legs
Harvestmen belong to the Phylum Arthropoda, Subphylum Chelicerata, Class Arachnida, and Order Opiliones. They represent the third most diverse order in Arachnida. The order Opiliones includes five suborders as follows: Cyphophthalmi, Eupnoi, Dyspnoi, Laniatores, and Tetrophthalmi. They are often referred to as “daddy long-legs.” They are found throughout the world (except Antarctica), and there are over 6,650 species. Their common name is derived from the fact that they are common during the harvesting season. They are traditionally akin with the Order Acari (ticks and mites) or the Novogenuata (the Scorpiones, Pseudoscorpiones, and Solifugae); however, others suggest the Opiliones forms a clade with the scorpions and two smaller orders. As such, they are considered the sister group of scorpions. In addition, …

Harvey’s Grocery and Texaco Station

Harvey’s Grocery and Texaco Station is a historic business building located about three miles west of the Camden (Ouachita County) city limits. It was constructed in 1948 to replace an earlier building. The combined grocery store and gas station was added to the National Register of Historic Places on May 25, 2001. Henry Harvey moved to a plot of land located on Arkansas Highway 24 in December 1941 after selling a farm in nearby Chidester (Ouachita County). The community around the Harvey home became known as Harveyville. Harvey constructed a log cabin that was approximately twenty by thirty feet to house his combined grocery store and gas station. The business soon outgrew the small structure, and a larger building was …

Head Pots

Head pots are a very rare and unique form of pre-historic Native American pottery found almost exclusively in northeast Arkansas and the adjacent bootheel region of Missouri. They are distinguished from other native North American pottery in that the entire vessel is molded into the general shape of a human head, as opposed to facial features such as eyes, nose, and mouth simply being applied to the surface of a bottle or jar form. Artistically, head pots vary from crude to remarkably lifelike representations. Most are somewhat smaller than the head of a normal adult, averaging about five to six inches in height. Head pots are associated with the Late Mississippian Period to the time of European contact, dating about …

Heber Springs Water Panther

The Heber Springs Water Panther is a creature described as a cross between a Sasquatch (or “bigfoot”) and a puma that is rumored to haunt the waters of Greers Ferry Lake in Heber Springs (Cleburne County), though its origins appear to lie in a 2007 book. The myth of the Water Panther begins with the Ojibwe, Algonquin, Cree, Ottawa, Menominee, and Shawnee tribes, and the legend may have been brought to Arkansas with the Shawnee, who were invited into the area by the Western Cherokee in the early nineteenth century. The beast was described as a malevolent spirit with features of a big cat or dragon that would drag people underwater to their deaths. In his 2007 book Ozark Tales …

Heifer International

Headquartered in Little Rock (Pulaski County), Heifer International is a non-profit organization whose mission is to work with communities to end hunger and poverty and to care for the earth. Since its founding in 1944, Heifer International has, through gifts of livestock and training, assisted eight and a half million families in more than 125 countries and thirty-eight U.S. states, including Arkansas. Heifer International was founded by Dan West, an Indiana farmer and peacemaker. As a relief worker in an effort organized by three peace churches—the Society of Friends (Quakers), the Mennonites, and the Brethren—during the Spanish Civil War, West doled out cups of powdered milk to children displaced by the war. Each day, he saw the same faces in …

Helena Depot

The Helena Depot was constructed in 1912 for the Missouri Pacific Railroad. Located at 95 Missouri Street in Helena-West Helena (Phillips County), it was added to the National Register of Historic Places on November 5, 1987. Established as a river port, Helena was connected by rail to the outside world in the 1870s. Helena was a popular destination for many businesses, as the transfer fees charged in the nearby city of Memphis, Tennessee, were much higher than those charged in the Arkansas town. By the turn of the century, five lines passed through or terminated in the town. A depot belonging to the Arkansas Midland Railroad was located on the site when that line was purchased in 1901 by Jay …

Helena National Guard Armory

Located at 511 Miller Street in Helena-West Helena (Phillips County), the Helena National Guard Armory is a one-story, brick-masonry structure constructed in 1937 and designed in the Art Deco style of architecture. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on January 24, 2007. Citizen-soldier militias have had a constant presence in the United States since the colonial era, but it was not until Congress passed the Dick Act—sponsored by Senator Charles W. F. Dick, chairman of the Committee on the Militia—in 1903 that the National Guard became an official partner in the nation’s armed services, receiving federal support for training, equipment, and pay. Arkansas’s state militia was organized into the Arkansas National Guard as a result of …

Hell on the Border

The book Hell on the Border: He Hanged Eighty-Eight Men by S. W. Harman was published in 1898. It gives a history of the United States District Court for the Western District of Arkansas, located in Fort Smith (Sebastian County), and focuses primarily on the tenure of Judge Isaac C. Parker. It is considered one of the most important sources in telling the history of Judge Parker’s court and the formation of the early district court in this area. The United States District Court for the Western District of Arkansas was created on March 3, 1851, and originally centered in Van Buren (Crawford County). In addition to Arkansas, the district also included the Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma). On March 3, …

Hemipterans

aka: True Bugs
Hemipterans, or true bugs, belong to the Phylum Arthropoda, Superclass Hexapoda, Class Insecta, Order Hemiptera, and four suborders: Auchenorrhyncha, Coleorrhyncha, Sternorrhyncha, and Heteroptera. Hemiptera is the largest order of hemimetabolous insects (those not undergoing complete metamorphosis), although male scale insects (Coccoidea) do undergo a form of complete metamorphosis. The number of species in the order is about 75,000, with a great diversity of forms, including aphids, cicadas, leafhoppers, planthoppers, and shield bugs. The three largest families of Heteroptera are Miridae (plant bugs), Lygaeidae (seed bugs), and Pentatomidae (stink bugs). The largest family, Miridae, contains major insect pests and predatory groups that can be used as biological control agents. Although hemipterans inhabit a wide variety of habitats, most are generally terrestrial, …

Henry Atchley House

The Henry Atchley House is located in Dalark (Dallas County). Constructed in 1908, the house is notable for its Colonial Revival details. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on October 28, 1983. Henry Adolphus Atchley was born on January 22, 1878, in Princeton (Dallas County) to Robert and Cornelia Atchley. He married Edna Hernsberger in 1908, and the couple had three daughters and one son. Atchley moved with his parents to the Dalark area around 1900. Dalark was founded to provide timber to the Ultima Thule, Arkadelphia and Mississippi Railway. As it is located in extreme western Dallas County near Clark County, the town got its name from combining Dallas and Clark. Atchley owned a general …

Henry McKenzie House

The Henry McKenzie House is a transitional Queen Anne/Colonial Revival home located in Prescott (Nevada County). Constructed in 1902 at 324 East Main Street, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places on September 3, 1998. Prescott was founded as a railroad town in 1874 and became the seat of Nevada County in 1877. The growing town attracted many professionals, including attorney Henry McKenzie. McKenzie purchased the lot from the nieces of former Arkansas governor Thomas C. McRae. Local oral tradition suggests that the house was designed by Charles Thompson, although no evidence has been found to support this claim. McKenzie sold the home to fellow attorney William V. Tompkins, who was McRae’s law partner, and his wife …