Entries - Gender: Does not Apply

Antitrust Laws and Lawsuits (Progressive Era)

Antitrust laws and lawsuits against monopolistic corporations were major features of both state and national politics before World War I during the Progressive Era. Popular concern in Arkansas about corporate wrongdoing became part of third-party agrarian political agendas in the 1880s. The state’s Agricultural Wheel president, Lewis P. Featherstone, introduced an antitrust bill in the 1887 session of the Arkansas General Assembly aimed at the American Cotton Oil Trust. Antitrust measures in other states, especially in the Midwest, led the U.S. Congress to enact the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 to catch up with state lawmaking. However, an effective antitrust law was not adopted in Arkansas until 1899, only after agrarian concerns became shared by urban, middle-class citizens. During the …

Arkansas Civil Rights Heritage Trail

The Arkansas Civil Rights Heritage Trail is a walking tour in Little Rock (Pulaski County) that commemorates people and places that have played important roles in the state’s journey toward equal rights for all. A part of the United States Civil Rights Trail, the Arkansas trail was created by University of Arkansas at Little Rock’s Anderson Institute on Race and Ethnicity to recognize “the sacrifices and achievements made by those who fought for racial and ethnic justice in Arkansas.” The trail also serves to raise awareness both for tourists and Arkansas residents of the important place of the civil rights legacy in the state’s history, the full extent of which is often overlooked. The several-blocks-long trail begins just outside the …

Arkansas Historical Quarterly

The Arkansas Historical Quarterly is the official publication of the Arkansas Historical Association (AHA), offering original research on Arkansas history subjects as well as relevant secondary resources. It is housed in the AHA offices in the history department of the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County). The Arkansas Historical Association was organized in Little Rock (Pulaski County) on February 22, 1941. Its first project was “publication of a journal of state history.” David Yancey Thomas, one of the main proponents of creating the AHA, was its first editor. The first issue of the Arkansas Historical Quarterly was published in March 1942 and featured “a ‘Salutory,’ a ‘List of Charter Members,’ four leading articles, ten pages of ‘Documents,’ twelve …

Bentonville Schools, Desegregation of

Bentonville (Benton County) was one of the earliest school districts in Arkansas to admit African American students after the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its 1954 Brown v. Board of Education school desegregation decision. As Benton County was located in an area of low Black population, in practice this meant admitting the sole Black student living in the district to Bentonville High School. Even so, desegregation took place under a veil of secrecy. At the time of the Brown decision, Arkansas had a total of 423 school districts. Of these, 184 served only white students, eleven served only Black students, and 228 had both white and Black students. Many of the early moves toward school desegregation were in northwestern Arkansas, …

Camden Expedition Sites National Historic Landmark

The Camden Expedition Sites National Historic Landmark (NHL) consists of nine battlefields, fortifications, and buildings that collectively embody a significant moment in American history. They were designated as NHLs on April 19, 1994—the first time an entire military campaign was so recognized. Following an expensive purchase of property to forestall private development of a portion of the Second Manassas battlefield in Virginia, U.S. Senator Dale Bumpers led an effort through which Congress created the Civil War Sites Advisory Commission in 1990 with a goal of identifying and assessing the conditions of 384 battlefields around the country. The Arkansas Historic Preservation Program (AHPP) conducted the fieldwork in Arkansas, examining a total of seventeen battlefields, including five that were associated with the …

Chewaukla Mineral Springs Co.

The cold-water springs below the site of the bottling factory of Chewaukla Mineral Springs Co. (later the Sleepy Hollow Water Co.) outside Hot Springs (Garland County) became a national sensation, with backers from Chicago and an “expert” touting their “radioactive medicinal value.” Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians wrote a song dedicated to this “Sleepy Water of Hot Springs, Arkansas.” Radio programs and newspapers such as the Chicago Tribune disseminated testimonials of what the water could cure. The bottling factory was located on what is now Sleepy Valley Road off of Highway 7 South just north of Hot Springs proper and within Hot Springs National Park. In the twenty-first century, the remains of the facility are not marked by any …

Chicken War of 1962–1963

The Chicken War of 1962–1963 was a trade dispute between poultry producers in Arkansas and other states and the European Economic Community (EEC). In the late 1950s, Arkansas poultry producers began to market U.S. chicken in western Europe. In collaboration with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, M. H. “Bill” Simmons of Plus Poultry in Siloam Springs (Benton County) and other business leaders helped post–World War II Europeans develop their own poultry industry. Noting that Arkansas’s Benton County produced more chicken than some European nations, Simmons assumed it would be decades before European producers could compete with their American mentors. “There is a considerable movement of poultry from Northwest Arkansas into the export channels almost weekly,” Simmons wrote to U.S. Senator …

City of Fort Smith v. Wade

The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), one of the most significant governmental reform laws ever enacted by the Arkansas General Assembly, withstood many efforts in the state legislature and the courts to curtail the public’s right to know what state and local governments were doing. The efforts multiplied in the second and third decades of the twenty-first century. One such tactic that did succeed was a lawsuit, cited as City of Fort Smith v. Wade, in which the Arkansas Supreme Court altered the meaning of a public meeting so that private emails among city officials about an issue before the city board of directors did not violate the FOIA because the emails probably did not directly affect the city board’s …

Congressional Districts

The Arkansas delegation to the U.S. House of Representatives has been made up of four members since redistricting took place in the early 1960s. Since statehood in 1836, the total number of seats allotted to the state has fluctuated from one to seven. The boundaries of the districts continue to shift based on population growth or decline in certain portions of the state. The Arkansas Territory gained representation in the House in 1819 when delegate James Woodson Bates of Batesville (Independence County) took his seat in the Sixteenth Congress. Previously, what is now the state of Arkansas received representation from the delegates of the Louisiana Territory and later the Missouri Territory. With the Missouri Territory on schedule to enter the …

Couch-Marshall House

Located in Magnolia (Columbia County), the Couch-Marshall House is an example of what has become known as the Plain Traditional style of architecture, which in this instance took on characteristics of the Queen Anne Revival style. The “high style” of the Queen Anne Revival type of residence had become the preferred style of design and construction in Arkansas by 1880 and was to remain so until the beginning of the twentieth century. The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places on July 24, 1992. The house takes part of its name from Thomas G. Couch, who was born in Columbia County on February 28, 1852, not long after his parents had relocated from their ancestral home in …

Delta Civil Rights Legacy Trail

The Delta Civil Rights Legacy Trail is a website-centered project that shines a spotlight on the important role that Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) played in the civil rights movement in Arkansas. With most of the commonly remembered history centered in Little Rock (Pulaski County), especially the desegregation of Central High School in 1957, other important efforts have sometimes been overshadowed. The Delta Legacy Trail is an effort to address that oversight. The Delta Civil Rights Legacy Trail is prominently featured by Pine Bluff in civic and tourist materials, and it has received favorable coverage in some travel-focused media (although the headline in one complimentary article touted “Pine Bluff, Arizona”). The website asserts that, in its fight for equal rights for …

Des Arc Schools, Desegregation of

The 1966 desegregation of schools at Des Arc (Prairie County) was accomplished under the leadership of Arkansas native James (Jim) “Doc” H. Ford, who later went on to work with school districts across Arkansas and into northern Louisiana, implementing desegregation in those districts as well. James Ford was born on September 25, 1933, in Prairie County to Howard G. Ford, who was a store owner and later a soybean and rice farmer, and Mary Lodean Guess Ford. After graduating from Des Arc High School in 1951, he attended Arkansas A&M College in Monticello (now the University of Arkansas at Monticello), earning his BS in 1955, after which he taught science and biology, coached senior boys’ basketball, and drove a school …

DeWitt Commercial Historic District

Centered on Courthouse Square in DeWitt, the southern seat of Arkansas County, the DeWitt Commercial Historic District includes a variety of public and commercial buildings. Including both the 1931 courthouse and 1939 post office, the district preserves a historic Arkansas town square. Initially plotted in 1854 after Arkansas Post was deemed to be too far from the center of Arkansas County to serve as the county seat, DeWitt remained a small, isolated community until a rail line connected it with Stuttgart (Arkansas County) in 1891. Few businesses operated in the community until after the railroad was established, but the new transportation link increased the population of the town. The early buildings that stood in what is now the historic district …

Dr. E. P. McGehee Infirmary

Located in Lake Village (Chicot County), the Dr. E. P. McGehee Infirmary served as a healthcare facility for both white and African American residents of the surrounding area. After the facility’s service as a medical infirmary ended, the Museum of Chicot County operated there for a period. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on June 1, 2005. Born in Alabama in 1869, Edward Pelham (E. P.) McGehee studied at Southern University in Greensboro, Alabama, as well as Vanderbilt University and the University of Mobile. After opening a practice in Alabama, he moved to Lake Village in 1899 and set up an office in the John Tushek Building. He married Sue Gordon McMurray in 1904, and the …

Duckett (Howard County)

Duckett, in the Ouachita Mountains in northern Howard County, was never a population center so much as a community defined by geography, relationships, a post office, and a school. The Cossatot River separates it from the rest of Howard County. With its post office and school long closed, the community in the twenty-first century comes together for Duckett Cemetery’s Decoration Day. Duckett coalesced into a community in the late 1800s. It was named for Allen Turner Duckett (1846–1907), who left Washburn (Sebastian County) with his family in 1876. The post office was created in 1887, around when Duckett first appeared on maps. Most people arrived in Duckett Township after the Civil War; only ten people bought federal land before the …

Duckett Ford (Howard County)

aka: Duckett Crossing (Howard County)

Duckett Ford (a.k.a. Duckett Crossing) was one of nearly a dozen places to cross, or ford, the Cossatot River in northern Howard County. According to a 1913 map, there were eleven fords in the twenty-plus-mile length of the river that separated Duckett Township from the rest of Howard County. Duckett Ford, however, had the advantage of being a straight shot between Wickes (Polk County)—and the Kansas City Southern Railway (KCS) that created it in 1897—and Galena (Howard County). Families who controlled low water crossings, such as Allen Turner Duckett’s family, could benefit financially. After the automobile and good roads came to the Ouachita Mountains, fords like this one became relics, and the Cossatot River became a whitewater tourist attraction. Little is …

Dumas Race Riot of 1920

In January 1920, federal troops were called out to quell a feared “race war” near Dumas (Desha County). The incident is indicative of the tensions in the area at the time. World War I had deepened racial animosity in Arkansas and across the nation. African American soldiers who had served their country in segregated units hoped they would increasingly be treated and paid as equals. The area around Dumas was heavily African American, and the area around the settlement where the incident occurred was estimated to be predominately Black at a ratio of 30–1. Many white residents of such areas saw such large Black populations as a threat. Farm organizations were increasingly attempting to organize Black farm laborers, increasing whites’ …

Ecumenical Catholic Communion (ECC)

The Ecumenical Catholic Communion (ECC) is an independent Catholic denomination, not in communion with the Roman Catholic Church, with congregations in the United States and Europe. The denomination remains comparatively small, especially in Arkansas, where it is represented by only one church. However, the Arkansas congregation was one of the earliest developed in the denomination’s history. The ECC grew out of the independent St. Matthew’s Church, founded in Orange County, California, in 1985. This church was started by Peter Hickman, who had originally been ordained as a Baptist minister but later found himself drawn to Roman Catholic liturgical practices. He eventually was ordained a priest in the Old Catholic tradition, which split from the Roman church following the First Vatican …

Fort Smith Schools, Desegregation of

At the time the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its 1954 Brown v. Board of Education school desegregation decision, the African American population of Fort Smith (Sebastian County) accounted for nine percent of the city’s 47,942 residents. The Black-to-white student ratio in the city was roughly the same, with 1,055 Black students and 10,297 white students. When the Court handed down its implementation order for school desegregation (which became known as Brown II) in May 1955, Fort Smith Superintendent of Schools Chris Corbin announced that school desegregation would begin in 1957 using a “stairstep” desegregation plan of one grade per year starting with the first grade. Pupil assignment to schools was based on geographical attendance zones that were clearly drawn …

Greenwood Tornado of 1968

On April 19, 1968, an F4 tornado touched down and caused immense damage to the city of Greenwood (Sebastian County) and the nearby area. Lasting only four minutes, the twister resulted in more than a dozen deaths, more than 250 people injured, and over a million dollars in storm damage. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) used data from the 1968 Greenwood tornado to better understand the weather phenomenon. Greenwood, one of the two seats of Sebastian County, had a population between 1,500 and 2,000 in 1968. It boasted general merchandise stores, grocers, multiple hotels, and medical professionals. On April 19, around 3:15 p.m., heavy rain began to fall in the area. Shortly thereafter, a tornado was sighted as …

Homestead Act of 1862

The Homestead Act of 1862 was a federal statute that regulated most federal transfers of land to Arkansans after the Civil War. It required two things of homesteaders: settlement and cultivation. In other words, homesteaders had to live on and farm their land, and, in exchange, they received land at a very low cost. These land transfers comprised more than eight million Arkansas acres, nearly a quarter of the state’s land, for nearly 75,000 applicants. Just about half (4,037,291 acres of 8,133,791 acres) was transferred in the twentieth century. As the railroads made more of Arkansas accessible, more and more Arkansans homesteaded land. In contrast to the Southern Homestead Act—which was in force during the Reconstruction years only from 1866 …

Long Line Rider [Song]

“Long Line Rider” is a 1968 rock song written by Bobby Darin based on the Arkansas prison scandals of that same year. While not a commercial success, the song garnered controversy for its subject matter when CBS executives prevented Darin from playing it on a taping of The Jackie Gleason Show in 1969. The song was also mentioned in congressional testimony concerning prison reform in 1971. In January 1968, Tom Murton, the superintendent of the Cummins Unit in the Arkansas prison system—with the help of an African American inmate informant—dug up several bodies on the prison grounds that he believed had been murder victims. The ensuing scandal became fodder for national and even international headlines, embarrassing Governor Winthrop Rockefeller, who …

Mona Lisa Mine (Polk County)

aka: Porter Ridge Mine
aka: McBride Mine
aka: Blue Bird Mine
aka: Newton Mine

The Mona Lisa Mine, located in Polk County on the ridge of Little Porter Mountain north of Gillham (Sevier County), was first opened in 1958 for the purpose of mining phosphate for agricultural fertilizers. Phosphate mining in other counties decreased the demand for mining from the Mona Lisa Mine, however, resulting in its closure sometime prior to 1963. In 1974, the property was discovered to contain turquoise. This discovery was made by property owner Jack McBride of Denver, Colorado (for this reason, it is sometimes referred to as the McBride Mine). Initial reports estimate that turquoise production of the McBride Mine totaled around 600 pounds. Much of the output of the McBride mine was dyed, stabilized, and compressed into cylinders …

National States Rights Party

Formed in late 1950s, the National States Rights Party was a white supremacist political party that operated until the mid-1980s. The party membership chose Arkansas governor Orval Faubus as the party’s nominee for president in 1960. Sources differ on the exact founding date and location of the party. Jeffersonville, Indiana; Knoxville, Tennessee; and Louisville, Kentucky, are all listed in various sources as the location, with various dates in 1957 and 1958 given as the founding date. Edward Fields served as the national director and Jesse Stoner served as the national chairman at the creation of the party. A report compiled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) stated that the beliefs of the party focused on racism and anti-Semitism. African …

Northwest Arkansas Council

The Northwest Arkansas Council is a private, nonprofit organization that works toward the development of the northwestern corner of the state. Its goal is to meet the needs of the community by advancing job opportunities, fostering affordable housing, and enhancing the area’s infrastructure, healthcare, and quality of life. Its influence encompasses Bentonville (Benton County), Fayetteville (Washington County), Rogers (Benton County), Siloam Springs (Benton County), Springdale (Washington and Benton counties), and smaller surrounding towns in Benton and Washington counties as well as adjacent rural areas of Madison County. The Northwest Arkansas Council was established in 1990 by business leaders including J. B. Hunt of J. B. Hunt Transport Services, Don Tyson of Tyson Foods, and Sam Walton of Walmart. The group …

Philip Pennywit [Steamboat]

The Philip Pennywit was a sidewheel paddleboat named for an esteemed Arkansas riverboat captain, plying a route between New Orleans, Louisiana, and Fort Gibson in the Indian Territory (modern-day Oklahoma). Philip Pennywit had established the first regular service on the Arkansas River in the early 1880s, expanding into the White River, where his Waverly steamboat was the first to ascend as far as Batesville (Independence County). By 1849, he had retired from the active river trade to become a merchant in Van Buren (Crawford County), though he remained involved in the steamboat business. In 1849, Pennywit and Captain Robert Beatty, described as “an enterprising, accommodating and a safe boatman,” had a steamboat built in Cincinnati, Ohio, that would be named …

Pine Log (Benton County)

The Pine Log community lies deep in the hills of the Lost Bridge area of Benton County. Union veteran Nathaniel Mattox Doke came to the area in about 1872. Families settled there at a time when northwestern Arkansas growth was starting to include post offices, churches, schools, and businesses. Railroad construction was moving westward, and farming was the livelihood for most people in the area. Nathaniel M. “Preacher” Doke owned 200 acres in Pine Log, and the White River ran through some of his acreage. (If it flooded, his crops were ruined.) He grew corn and developed orchards of peaches and apples, and had cows, hogs, and cashmere goats. Doke was a Civil War veteran, preacher, carpenter, blacksmith, and fiddler. …

Red Apple Inn

The Red Apple Inn is one of Arkansas’s best-known resorts. Part of a development along the shores of Greers Ferry Lake near Heber Springs (Cleburne County) known as Eden Isle, the inn was the creation of Little Rock (Pulaski County) insurance executive Herbert L. Thomas Sr. and his wife Ruby Thomas. The Red Apple Inn opened in 1963, burned in 1964 from a kitchen fire, and reopened in 1965. Herbert Thomas hired architects for the inn, while Ruby Thomas supplied recipes used in the dining room. She later wrote a book titled Feasts of Eden: Gracious Country Cooking from the Red Apple Inn. The inn still uses many of her recipes. Herbert Thomas was born on February 14, 1899, in …

Rock Island Argenta Depot

The Rock Island Argenta Depot at 1201 East 4th Street in North Little Rock (Pulaski County) is a single-story, Mediterranean-style brick passenger depot built in 1913 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places on September 21, 1989. Shorter College announced plans to convert the building into a technology hub. Though North Little Rock’s development was heavily influenced by railroads, it was not until 1913 that the Rock Island Railroad constructed the first depot to serve the community, possibly to ease local tensions after the Rock Island shops were moved across the Arkansas River to Little Rock (Pulaski County). The presence of a depot on the north side would pay off for the community when it made a successful …

Romance (White County)

Romance is an unincorporated community in White County. The area was settled around 1850 by pioneers from Kentucky before the Civil War. The families, who traveled in a caravan of about five or six wagons, included the Pruetts, the Owens, and the Hills. Looking for land suitable for building and farming, they settled in the fertile valley along the Des Arc Creek. Because the families had come from Kentucky, they called the area Kentucky Valley. In 1884, the residents petitioned for a post office, but the U.S. Post Office rejected the name of Kentucky Valley, wanting to avoid confusion. Local belief differs on how the current name was chosen. The most common story says that a schoolteacher named J. J. …

Simmons First National Bank Tower

Simmons First National Bank Tower is a forty-story skyscraper located at 425 West Capitol Avenue in downtown Little Rock (Pulaski County). It is the tallest skyscraper in Arkansas at a height of 546 feet and an area of 740,000 square feet. (The previous record was held by Regions Center, formerly known as the First National Building, at 454 feet.) Originally known as Capitol Tower (1986–1991), the skyscraper was subsequently renamed TCBY Tower (1991–2004) and Metropolitan National Bank Tower (2004–2014) before its acquisition by Simmons First National Bank. The project originally started when John Flake, a local real estate developer, and Jerry Maulden, president of the Arkansas Power and Light (AP&L), wanted to see a new skyscraper in the Little Rock …

Solar Eclipse of 1918

The second of two recorded total solar eclipses—in which the moon totally obscures the sun, leaving only the corona visible—that could be seen in Arkansas occurred on June 8, 1918. While the first, in 1834, was clearly observed as a “magnificent phenomenon of nature in all its sublimity,” the 1918 event was reported as “somewhat of a disappointment.” On January 3, 1918, the Arkansas Gazette announced that June 8, 1918, would be “a gala day for astronomers,” as a total solar eclipse would cross the United States, beginning in northern Oregon and traveling to northern Florida “at a speed of something like 1,000 miles an hour.” The Hot Springs New Era noted a few weeks later that Mount Ida (Montgomery …

South Side High School Sign

The South Side High School Sign, located on the grounds of the South Side Bee Branch School District complex in Van Buren County, consists of large stones that were placed by workers of the National Youth Administration (NYA) in 1937 to mark the location of the local high school. The South Side Bee Branch School District was established in the fall of 1929 to serve the students living south of the small, thriving town of Bee Branch (Van Buren County). The Great Depression began around the same time, and Van Buren County took advantage of the federal relief programs established to bring jobs to afflicted areas. The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) established a camp at Damascus (Faulkner and Van Buren …

St. Vincent (Conway County)

The community of St. Vincent sits on Pigeon Roost Mountain in Conway County. St. Vincent township had an estimated population of 520 in 2022. The area is home to many farms and the Wonderview School District. Pigeon Roost Mountain spans 11,000 acres, with an elevation of over 700 feet. The mountain runs east to west with the western boundary ending in steep drop-offs, while the eastern boundary is marked with creeks such as Prairie Creek and Point Remove Creek. The mountain gets its name from the flocks of passenger pigeons that used to roost on the cliffs and trees during the early settlement period. The land was part of a Cherokee reservation from 1817 to 1828. The reservation was bought …

USNS General William O. Darby (AP-127/T-AP-127)

aka: USS Admiral W. S. Sims (AP-127)
aka: USAT General William O. Darby (AP-127, IX-510)

The USNS General William O. Darby was an Admiral W. S. Benson–class transport vessel initially named after a naval leader but renamed after a Fort Smith (Sebastian County) war hero after it was turned over to the U.S. Army. The vessel was first named for William S. Sims, a Canadian-born sailor whose thirty-seven-year career after graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, culminated in commanding the U.S. Navy’s activities around Great Britain during World War I. He died in 1936. The keel for the USS Admiral W. S. Sims was laid down on June 15, 1944, at the Bethlehem-Alameda Shipbuilding Corporation at Alameda, California. The ship was christened by Anne Hitchcock Sims, the admiral’s widow. The 9,676-ton Sims …

Waverly [Steamboat]

The Waverly, under Captain Phillip Pennywit, was the first steamboat to ply the White River as far up as Batesville (Independence County), arriving there on January 4, 1831. Phillip Pennywit was a veteran river boat captain who, in 1828, had established the first regularly scheduled service on the Arkansas River, going as far west as Cantonment Gibson in the Indian Territory (modern-day Oklahoma) with his vessel the Facility. In addition to moving freight and passengers, the Facility in June 1829 “had a keel-boat in tow, containing several Cherokee families, who are emigrating from the old nation …to the new nation, on the west side, of the Mississippi.” In December 1829, Pennywit had a new boat, the Waverly, that was designed to …

Wilson History and Research Center

The Wilson History and Research Center (WHRC), operating in Little Rock (Pulaski County) from 2008 to 2012, was an organization committed to the preservation of helmets and other historic headwear. Founder Robert M. (Robby) Wilson Jr. was a lawyer and founding member of the Wilson Law Group in Little Rock. Wilson fostered a love for military headwear used across the world and aimed to collect individual samples of every iteration of military headgear produced during the twentieth century. He hoped that by understanding the nature of conflict, armor, and fashion, society would have a better understanding of what spurred young men to go to war. The WHRC was founded in 2008 as a nonprofit organization. Items were collected not for …

World War II Japanese American Internment Museum

During World War II, Arkansas was the site of two Japanese American internment camps. Jerome Relocation Center, located in Drew and Chicot counties, and Rohwer Relocation Center in Desha County incarcerated a combined total of some 17,000 people. Today, little physical evidence remains of either camp. In 2013, the World War II Japanese Internment Museum opened in McGehee (Desha County) to document the history of these nearby Arkansas centers. When the United States entered World War II after the bombing of Pearl Harbor by the empire of Japan on December 7, 1941, paranoia developed in the United States that the American mainland would be next. Many feared that Japanese American residents of the West Coast might in some way assist …