Entry Type: Thing

Hudson-Grace-Borreson House

aka: Hudson-Grace-Pearson House
The Hudson-Grace-Borreson House, also known as the Hudson-Grace-Pearson House, is located on Barraque Street near historic downtown Pine Bluff (Jefferson County). The house was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on June 24, 1971, due to its architectural significance, as it is a unique blend of Greek Revival, Victorian, and New Orleans French styles. Its occupants over the years were also of historical significance to both the community of Pine Bluff and the state of Arkansas. The original house was built by William and Jane Woodruff around 1830. The home was designed as having one story, but it was remodeled and expanded to two stories in 1860 by Marion and Emily Hudson. It was purchased at a tax …

Hudson-Jones House

The Hudson-Jones House is an antebellum home located in the Manchester community east of Arkadelphia (Clark County). It was constructed around 1840, and six outbuildings from the period also exist on the property. The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places on September 30, 1982. The land around Manchester was purchased by the Somerville Land Company in 1836, the same year that Arkansas became a state. The next year, Thomas Hudson, a member of the company, moved to the area. He built a two-story log cabin and began to operate a farm. In 1840, Hudson began construction on a new home. A carpenter known only as Mr. Pryor was hired to lead the construction project. The house …

Hughes Cemetery

aka: Potter's Field
aka: County Cemetery
Hughes Cemetery, located at the end of South Richards Street in Benton (Saline County), is the final resting place of former state representative, and co-founder of Benton, Green B. Hughes. The cemetery is located between Depot Creek, which is a tributary of the Saline River, and the Union Pacific tracks near the Christy Acres neighborhood in Benton. Left largely ignored by the City of Benton, the area continued to become overgrown until 2004, when the Hughes Cemetery Association was founded to help take care of cemetery. Hughes Cemetery was added to the Arkansas Register of Historic Places in 2019. Hughes Cemetery takes its name from former merchant, judge, and state representative–turned-farmer Green B. Hughes, who died on June 24, 1858. …

Hughes Hall (Arkansas Tech University)

aka: Rock Armory
Hughes Hall, located at 514 West M Street on the Arkansas Tech University campus in Russellville (Pope County), is a two-story, U-shaped stone masonry building constructed with assistance from the WPA (the Works Progress Administration, renamed the Works Projects Administration in 1939), a Depression-era federal relief program. Constructed in 1940, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on September 18, 1992. The campus of Arkansas Polytechnic College (now Arkansas Tech University) comprised seventeen major buildings, including several dormitories that the U.S. Office of Education deemed “unfit for human habitation,” when Joseph W. Hull became the college’s eighth president in January 1932 and embarked on a major building campaign. After receiving assistance from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation and …

Hughes Water Tower

The Hughes Water Tower is located on Church Street in Hughes (St. Francis County). The metal water tower was built by the Chicago Bridge and Iron Works for the Public Works Administration (PWA) in 1936. It is a good example of a 1930s water tower and the only surviving example of a PWA-built water tower in the county. Hughes was founded in 1913 as the Iron Mountain Railroad built its expensive “mud line” from West Memphis (Crittenden County) to Marianna (Lee County) through the swamps and scrub prairies of the Arkansas Delta. It was named for Robert Hughes, who donated land to the railroad. By the time the Great Depression struck, the small town of Hughes served the vast agricultural …

Human Development Centers

From 1888 to 1959—prior to the creation of human development centers (HDCs)—the Arkansas State Hospital provided long-term care to individuals with intellectual disabilities as well as to individuals with severe mental illness. Arkansas lagged behind other states in development of facilities specializing in the care of the intellectually disabled. In the mid-1950s, plans were set in motion to develop a facility that would specialize in the treatment and education of children with intellectual disabilities. Within one year of the opening of the Arkansas Children’s Colony (later renamed the Conway Human Development Center) in 1959, the facility received accolades for its physical construction as well as for its progressive curriculum for residents. Soon after, several other Southern states were following in …

Human Dissection Monument

The first human dissection performed in Arkansas is commemorated by an obelisk located at the edge of MacArthur Park in Little Rock (Pulaski County). In 1927, the Arkansas Medical Society unveiled the marker, whose inscription states that the dissection was held on that spot in November 1874. To clarify: the monument honors the state’s first such legal event, and the unveiling took place on May 13, despite the marker being dated May 12. Following appeals by doctors, in April 1873 the Arkansas General Assembly passed Act 45 authorizing “dissection in certain cases for the advancement of science.” This paved the way for the establishment of a medical school, as the new law gave both doctors and medical students the right …

Humphreys’ Dairy Farm

Humphreys’ Dairy Farm started in 1911 in Hot Springs (Garland County) with two cows and several acres. As the farm and family grew, so did the importance of the dairy farm to Hot Springs and surrounding towns. As an early adopter of homogenization and pasteurization, the dairy led in innovations that transformed the dairy industry. Humphreys’ Dairy Farm, which closed in the 1990s, was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2012. Harris Humphreys founded Humphreys’ Dairy Farm in 1911. He was born in Arkadelphia (Clark County) in 1878 and attended Ouachita College (now Ouachita Baptist University). After moving to Hot Springs in 1909, he began buying land and clearing it for farming. The extant farmhouse was built …

Hunting of the President, The

The Hunting of the President: The Ten-Year Campaign to Destroy Bill and Hillary Clinton by Joe Conason and Gene Lyons was published in 2000. The book formed the basis for a documentary film titled The Hunting of the President first shown on January 23, 2004, at the Sundance Film Festival. The ninety-minute film, narrated by Morgan Freeman, was directed by Nickolas Perry and Harry Thomason. The book examines the motives behind the investigation into what has been termed the “Whitewater Scandal,” as well as the news organizations and advocacy groups that tried to mire President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Clinton (along with several of their associates) in scandal. Initial book sales were brisk, and the book was extensively …

Hurricane Lake

Hurricane Lake is a 332-acre manmade lake located in Benton (Saline County) at the confluence of Hurricane Creek and the Little Hurricane Creek. Construction of the lake began in 1942 with the Hurricane Creek Dam built by Alcoa Mining Company to flood the area. Hurricane Lake’s primary function was to provide water for Alcoa’s Hurricane Creek aluminum plant. Hurricane Lake was also used for recreational activities by company employees and their families. In the twenty-first century, the lake and its surroundings are owned by the Hurricane Lake Estates Development Company. In 1891, bauxite ore, an essential material used in the production of aluminum, was discovered four miles southwest of Hurricane Creek near Benton. Because of the need for aluminum during …

Hydroelectricity

Hydroelectric power is the electricity generated by the gravitational force of falling or flowing water through a turbine connected to a power generator. The three major types of hydropower facilities include reservoirs (high dams), in-stream (low dams), and pumped-storage. The most common type is the high dam, which creates significant reservoirs behind the dam (e.g., Hoover Dam). In 1882, the world’s first hydroelectric power station, located in Appleton, Wisconsin, produced 12.5 kilowatts of electrical power. Also in the early 1880s, a similar facility opened in New York City. Since these early facilities, hydroelectric power from the nation’s waterways has proliferated. Hydroelectric development in Arkansas can generally be grouped into three time periods—1924–1930; 1944–1973; and 1988–1999—and under three sponsoring agencies: Arkansas …

Hymenoptera

aka: Ants
aka: Bees
aka: Wasps
Hymenopterans belong to the Phylum Arthropoda, Subphylum Labiata, Superclass Hexapoda, Class Insecta, and Order Hymenoptera. It is a large order of insects with over 150,000 described species comprising the sawflies, woodwasps, ichneumonids, chalcids, wasps, bees, and ants. In addition, there are over 2,000 extinct taxa. The order ranks third in the top five orders of insects in terms of total number of species. Many examples of this order are found in Arkansas, including the invasive fire ant. The Hymenoptera are divided into two suborders: the Symphyta (which have no waist) and the Apocrita (which have a narrow waist). Symphytans include the horntails, sawflies, and parasitic wood wasps. They have an unconstricted junction between the thorax and abdomen and a serrated …

I Go [Steamboat]

aka: Igo
aka: New Igo
aka: New Iago
The I Go was a small steamboat often chartered by the Union military during the Civil War. It was attacked by guerrillas and ultimately captured and destroyed on the Arkansas River by Confederate cavalry on June 12, 1864. The I Go was a 104-ton sternwheel paddleboat built at Antiquity, Ohio, in 1861; the vessel was rebuilt after a boiler explosion at Parkersburg, West Virginia. Union forces first chartered the I Go in August 1862 and used it again in October 1863. The vessel was chartered from December 12, 1863, to March 19, 1864, then from April 10 to April 25, 1864 “for operations on the Arkansas River.” The I Go was again chartered from April 25 to May 8, 1864, …

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Detailing her childhood in Stamps (Lafayette County), as well as in St. Louis, and San Francisco, Maya Angelou’s autobiographical novel I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings was first published in 1970 by Random House and nominated for a National Book Award. It was the first of a series of eight autobiographical novels that cemented her place as one of the great voices of African-American literature. The title of the book comes from the poem “Sympathy” by Paul Laurence Dunbar, which describes perseverance in the face of oppression. The book chronicles the racism Maya, a young incarnation of Angelou, encountered in the segregated town of Stamps and other places she lived, along with the sexual abuse she faced at the …

I-30 Speedway

The I-30 Speedway is a high-banked, quarter-mile, red clay, oval auto racing track located in Little Rock (Pulaski County) on Interstate 30 near the border with Saline County. As the heart of central Arkansas auto racing, the I-30 Speedway hosts Weekly Racing Series Events on Saturday nights from the second week in March through the last week in October, with special events held throughout the season. The track is open for sprint, mini-sprint, stock, modified, and other forms of dirt track racing. Events include races affiliated with the American Sprint Car Series (ASCS), Southern United Professional Racing (SUPR), and the Mid-South Racing Association (MSRA). The track’s signature event, the Short Track Nationals for Sprint Cars in October, pays $15,000 to …

I. F. Anderson Farms

aka: I. F. Anderson Minnow Farms
aka: Anderson Minnow Farm
aka: Anderson’s Minnow Farm
I. F. Anderson’s Farms, Inc., is located just west of Lonoke (Lonoke County). The farm includes about 322 kilometers (200 miles) of levees that impound 3,400 acres of ponds accessed via a “checkerboard” pattern of levee roads. It boasts as the world’s largest minnow (baitfish) farm, providing a bounty of golden shiners (Notemigonus crysoleucus). As the premier fish farm in the nation, it produces over one billion shiners each year. The I. F. (Fay) Anderson family initially dug and stocked its first farm ponds in Lonoke in 1949. James Neal Anderson and his son Jamie Anderson are fourth-generation owners. The 11,000-square-foot hatchery facility is capable of producing over one billion fry per season and can accommodate five million pounds of …

I’m from Arkansas

With a screenplay by Marcy Klauber and Joseph Carole (based on a story by Klauber), director Lew Landers attempted to blend romance, rustic Ozark comedy, and country music into the 1944 film I’m from Arkansas. Unfortunately, some of the Arkansas characters are portrayed as ignorant hillbillies, and the numerous musical numbers tend to muddle the story line. The plot centers upon Esmeralda, a sow, who has excited the tiny town of Pitchfork, Arkansas, by giving birth to yet another massive litter of piglets. The news quickly spreads and draws a number of visitors to the town for myriad reasons. Bob Hamlin (Bruce Bennett), a citizen of Pitchfork who has become a country music star on the radio, takes his orchestra—including …