Gender: Male

Barclay, Richard L. (Dick)

Richard L. (Dick) Barclay was a major figure in state and Republican politics in the last part of the twentieth century. Serving in both the Arkansas General Assembly and the executive branch, he became an influential governmental figure while also playing a substantive role in the party’s growth during that period. Richard Barclay was born on June 5, 1937, in Oberlin, Kansas, to John Francis Barclay and Margaret Ellen Bobbitt Barclay. Barclay grew up in Kansas and graduated from Topeka High School, where he was a member of the school newspaper staff. He then earned a dual degree in both business administration and social services from Kansas State University, graduating in 1960. Barclay married Janice (Jan) Forbes in 1960. The …

Barker (Reported Lynching of)

According to stories circulating in state newspapers in July and August 1883, a Grant County man named Barker murdered his daughter with an axe and was subsequently lynched for his actions. However, later reports contradict this and insist that the whole story was a hoax. Early reporting on this subject appeared in several newspapers, including the Arkansas Gazette of July 27 and 28, 1883; the Fayetteville Weekly Democrat of August 2, 1883; and the Southern Standard of Arkadelphia (Clark County) of August 4, 1883. All of these printed a story, attributed to the Saline Courier, that begun thusly: “The most horrible crime that this paper has had to chronicle occurred on Hurricane Creek, in Grant county, about ten or twelve …

Barkman, Jacob

Jacob Barkman is known as the father of Clark County. An early settler along the Caddo River, Barkman eventually became a prominent landowner and planter. Jacob Barkman was born on December 20, 1784, in Kentucky. Little is known of his early life, but, by 1811, Barkman had married Rebecca Davis. Eventually, the couple had two sons and a daughter. Wishing to move west, the family joined Barkman’s brother John, John’s wife, and their several slaves at Bayou Sara in Louisiana in 1811. Joining another group organized by John Hemphill, the party moved up the Ouachita River. The Barkmans settled along the Caddo River, just a few miles from its merger with the Ouachita. This location was a few miles to …

Barnes, Bruce “Sunpie”

Bruce “Sunpie” Barnes is a musician, writer, naturalist, park ranger, ethnographic photographer, and actor from Saline County. He also played for National Football League (NFL) for a time. Along with his band, the Louisiana Sunspots, Barnes pioneered a unique mixture of zydeco (a créole musical style originating in Louisiana), blues, gospel, jazz, and African and Afro-Caribbean music into a musical gumbo that he dubbed “Afro-Louisiana” music. Barnes plays accordion, harmonica, piano, trombone, rub board, and various other instruments. Bruce Barnes was born on May 18, 1963, in Benton (Saline County). The tenth of eleventh children, (five whole and five half siblings), Barnes grew up in what is now Benton’s Ralph Bunche community. Barnes’s parents were sharecroppers who worked on various …

Barnes, Jim “Bad News”

Velvet James (Jim) “Bad News” Barnes was an American basketball player and Olympic gold medalist originally from Tuckerman (Jackson County). Barnes enjoyed great success in his collegiate career, which later led him to be the first pick in the 1964 National Basketball Association (NBA) draft. As a professional athlete, Barnes played for five different teams over seven seasons until an Achilles tendon injury largely forced his retirement. Regarding the nickname “Bad News,” Boston Celtics coach Red Auerbach said he was so named “for the damage he did to opposing teams and players.” Jim Barnes was born on April 13, 1941, in Tuckerman. As a child, Barnes picked and chopped cotton and played basketball wearing socks, since his family was too …

Barnes, Lee (Execution of)

Lee Barnes was hanged at Dover (Pope County) on May 21, 1886, for the murder and robbery of a Conway County gambler. Lee Barnes, twenty-three, who stood five feet nine inches tall and weighed around 130 pounds, moved from Blount County, Tennessee, to Plumerville (Conway County), where he worked for Charles Hollman, a gambler who ran a Wheel of Fortune gambling device at various events and gatherings. Barnes conspired with two men, John Cullens and Russell Watson, to kill and rob Hollman, who was also known as the Jewelry and Spindle Man, when he took the Wheel of Fortune to a “negro festival” about three miles from Plumerville. On the night of November 20, 1885, Barnes and Hollman bedded down …

Barnett, John (Lynching of)

On April 17, 1905, an African-American levee worker named John Barnett was hanged by a black mob near Askew (Lee County) for allegedly murdering a fellow worker. Barnett may have been the same John Barnett who, at the time of the 1900 census, was living in Independence Township (Lee County). He was a forty-nine-year-old widower and was working on a rented farm and raising six children between the ages of six and eighteen. Barnett’s alleged victim was Albert Wakefield. The only man by that name in the region was another African American living in Tunica County, Mississippi, just across the Mississippi River. He was also a widower and was working as a day laborer. According to newspaper accounts, in late …

Barnhill, John Henry “Barnie”

John Henry Barnhill was a successful head football coach both at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville and University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County) but left the most lasting imprint in Fayetteville as UA’s athletic director. John Henry Barnhill was born on February 23, 1903, to James Monroe Barnhill and Margaret Alice Bryan in Savannah, Tennessee. His parents were farmers. Barnhill’s services were so greatly required on the family farm that they caused an interruption in his attending high school. He graduated from Savannah High School in 1923. He was nineteen when he enrolled at Memphis State University (now the University of Memphis) in 1923. He transferred to the University of Tennessee in 1924 and excelled as a …

Barraque, Antoine

Antoine Barraque established the settlement called New Gascony, one of the earliest settlements in what is now Jefferson County. He also served as a government agent with the Quapaw, whom he guided to Louisiana in 1826 after the treaty of 1824, although his efforts to ease their transition to a new land were frustrated by other government officials. Antoine Barraque was born on April 15, 1773, in southwestern France. He was educated in Paris and served in the French army under Napoleon Bonaparte, fighting at the battles of Marengo, Austerlitz, Jena, Lodi, and Moscow. Following the end of Napoleon’s empire, Barraque relocated to Arkansas, arriving in 1816 at the age of forty-three. Living first at Arkansas Post, Barraque formed friendships …

Bartell, Fred Wallace

Frederick Wallace Bartell was a Siloam Springs (Benton County) merchant, church leader, and Circuit Chautauqua manager. He organized Associated Chautauquas, which was among the first “tent” or “traveling” Chautauqua circuits. Fred W. Bartell was born in Milford, Kansas, on October 12, 1872, to immigrant parents. His father, Edward Charles Bartell, was from Germany; his mother, Louesa (or Louise), Edward’s second wife, was from France. He was the fourth of their five children. There also were six children from Edward’s first marriage to Catharine Branscom, who died in 1860. Louesa died in 1878. Edward Bartell and other family members migrated to Siloam Springs sometime before May 1892, when Fred Bartell arrived. Bartell said of his arrival, “I came with the flood,” …

Bartlett, E. M.

aka: Eugene Monroe Bartlett Sr.
With the exception of his protégé, Albert E. Brumley, no other Arkansas figure contributed more to the development of the Southern gospel music genre than singer, songwriter, and publisher Eugene Monroe Bartlett Sr. E. M. Bartlett was born on December 24, 1883, in the small community of Waynesville, Missouri, according to Barlett’s World War I draft card, though historians have variously placed his year of birth in 1884 and 1885. He and his parents eventually relocated to Sebastian County, Arkansas. Educated at the Hall-Moody Institute in Martin, Tennessee, and William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri, Bartlett received training as a music teacher. In 1917, Bartlett married Joan Tatum; they had two children. As an aspiring songwriter, Bartlett became an employee …

Barton, Loy

Loy Edgar Barton was a prolific pioneer in the field of radio and television engineering. He was awarded a number of U.S. patents and was responsible for significant technical inventions in radio and television technology. Loy Barton was born on November 7, 1897, to Henry Barton and Mary Frances Barton in Washington County, Arkansas, and spent his early life there. He displayed an early interest in machinery and the relatively new fields of electricity and “wireless” transmission, leading to his enrollment in the engineering program at the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County). He received an undergraduate degree there and began teaching engineering courses at the school. During this period, Barton elected to pursue advanced engineering studies and, …

Barton, Thomas Harry

Colonel Thomas H. Barton, a pioneer El Dorado (Union County) oilman and philanthropist, launched his small Lion Oil Company into a major oil company that included exploration, production, marketing, distribution, refining, and research programs. Barton was born in Marlin, Texas, on September 20, 1881. His father, Thomas Killebrew Barton, was a merchant and farmer in Falls County. At age sixteen, he entered Texas A&M College, but limited funds forced him to leave school early in his second year. He entered the U.S. Army in 1901 and was discharged in 1904 with the rank of corporal. From 1905 to 1917, he worked in a variety of occupations that included banking and lumber in Dallas County. In 1906, he was commissioned with …

Bass, Raymond Henry

Raymond Henry Bass was an Olympic gold medalist, Gymnastics Hall of Fame honoree, and decorated World War II hero who rose to the rank of rear admiral in the U.S. Navy. Raymond Henry Bass was born on January 15, 1910, in Chambersville (Calhoun County) to Henry L. Bass and Maude Wise Bass. He entered the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, in 1927 and was recruited for the gymnastics team. He was coached by Lou Mang, who had developed an innovative rope-climbing technique stressing rhythm and balance. According to an Olympics biography of Bass, he was a boxer and wrestler at the Naval Academy before joining the gymnastics team and was nicknamed “Benny” by his classmates due to a resemblance …

Bates, James Woodson

James Woodson Bates was an early Arkansas settler who was elected as the first Arkansas territorial representative to the U.S. Congress. After leaving that office, he went on to help develop Arkansas’s legal system as a judge and lawyer. Batesville (Independence County) was named after him in 1824. James Bates was born on August 25, 1788, in Belmont, Virginia, to Thomas F. Bates and Caroline Woodson Bates. Little is known of his early life, but he attended Yale College (now Yale University). He eventually graduated from Princeton College (now Princeton University) in 1807 and began practicing law in Virginia. In 1816, he moved to St. Louis, Missouri, where his brother Frederick Bates had been appointed territorial secretary. In 1819, he, …

Bates, Joseph

Joseph (Joe) Henry Bates—a pulmonologist, epidemiologist, microbiologist, and public health official—pioneered safe and effective outpatient treatment for tuberculosis in the 1960s and 1970s. He subsequently was instrumental in directing tobacco settlement money to public health initiatives and developing the Fay W. Boozman College of Public Health at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS).  Joe Bates was born on September 19, 1933, and grew up in rural Pulaski County. He was an only child; his father, Henry E. Bates, was a farmer and businessman, and, Susan Wallis Bates, his mother, whom he credited with his interest in education, was briefly a schoolteacher.   Bates was educated in the Little Rock (Pulaski County) public school system. He attended Hendrix College in Conway (Faulkner County) and graduated from the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville (Washington County) with a BS in 1954. He received an MD from what is now …

Bates, Lucious Christopher

Lucious Christopher (L.C.) Bates was the founder of the Arkansas State Press newspaper. Under his direction, the State Press, published in Little Rock (Pulaski County), waged a weekly statewide battle against the constraints of the Jim Crow era of segregation until the paper’s demise in 1959. Bates was a member of the executive committee of the Little Rock chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and, along with his wife Daisy, helped lead the fight that resulted in the 1957 admittance of the Little Rock Nine, the first Black students to attend Little Rock’s Central High School. Born in Liberty, Mississippi, in 1904, L. C. Bates was the only child of Laura and Morris Bates, …

Batesville after Freeman’s Command, Expedition from

The Expedition from Batesville after Freeman’s Command was an attempt by the Union garrison at Batesville (Independence County) to attack Confederates led by Colonel Thomas R. Freeman, who had recently fought Federals from the garrison at Lunenburg in Izard County, Sylamore in Stone County, and Morgan’s Mill in Sharp County. Union troops under Colonel Robert R. Livingston’s First Nebraska Cavalry (US) occupied Batesville on December 25, 1863, and shortly afterward Confederate major general Sterling Price commissioned Colonel Freeman to maintain a regiment of Confederate cavalry in northern Arkansas, which Livingston described as “pestiferous hybrids who infest the swamps and mountains of the district.” On February 12, 1864, Lieutenant Colonel William Baumer led the First Nebraska Cavalry Regiment out from Batesville …

Batesville to Denmark, Fairview, Hitcher’s Ferry and Bush’s Ford, Scout from

The Scout from Batesville to Fairview, Denmark, Hilcher’s Ferry, and Bush’s Ford took place on June 16–17, 1862, as the Union’s Army of the Southwest sought to determine the location of Confederate troops in the uncertain days that followed the abandonment of its advance on Little Rock (Pulaski County) during the Pea Ridge Campaign. Following the Union victory at Pea Ridge on March 7–8, 1862, Major General Samuel R. Curtis pulled his Army of the Southwest back into Missouri to protect that border state from other possible incursions by Confederate troops. By late April, though, Curtis’s commander, Major General Henry Halleck, concluded correctly that Major General Earl Van Dorn had moved his Confederate Army of the West across the Mississippi …

Batesville to Devil’s Fork of the Little Red River, Expedition from

The Civil War expedition from Batesville (Independence County) to the Devil’s Fork of the Little Red River in late February 1864 was undertaken by Union forces to try to recover government property captured by Confederates in the Skirmish at Waugh’s Farm. Confederate captain George Rutherford’s forces attacked a detachment of the Eleventh Missouri Cavalry and Fourth Arkansas Mounted Infantry (US) at Waugh’s Farm west of Batesville on February 19, 1864, killing four soldiers, wounding ten, and capturing thirty-two. In addition, they captured a Union supply train and a considerable herd of mules. On February 25, Colonel Robert R. Livingston, commanding Union forces at Batesville, sent a force of 200 men of the Fourth Arkansas Mounted Infantry under Colonel Elisha Baxter …

Batesville to Elgin, Expedition from

The expedition from Batesville (Independence County) to Elgin (Jackson County) in mid-January 1864 was conducted primarily to round up cattle to help feed the Union garrison at Batesville. The First Nebraska Cavalry occupied Batesville on Christmas Day 1863, joined soon after by elements of the Eleventh Missouri Cavalry Regiment (US) and Fourth Arkansas Mounted Infantry (US). While much of the garrison’s time would be spent in anti-guerrilla patrolling, the troops also needed supplies for their remote outpost, leading to foraging expeditions through the region. Second Lieutenant Almeron N. Harris of Company K, Eleventh Missouri Cavalry, led forty troopers out of Batesville on such an expedition on January 15, 1864, seeking “possession of a herd of beef-cattle said to be grazing …

Batesville to near Searcy Landing, Expedition from

The Expedition from Batesville to near Searcy Landing was one of a series of operations conducted by Union forces based in Batesville (Independence County) to locate and fight Confederate troops and guerrillas in the region. After occupying Batesville on Christmas Day 1863, Union commander Colonel Robert Livingston began sending detachments of his troops on search-and-destroy operations throughout the region. On January 30, 1864, Captain Albert B. Kauffman of the Eleventh Missouri Cavalry (US) led a party of seventy-five troopers from his regiment out of Batesville in search of Confederate brigadier general Dandridge McRae, who was recruiting troops in the area. They took the Jacksonport Road east, turning south on Dupartee Creek and eventually reaching Grand Glaize (Jackson County) around sundown …

Batesville to West Point, Grand Glaize, Searcy Landing, etc., Scout from

The wide-ranging scouting expedition of the Eleventh Missouri Cavalry Regiment (US) that left the Union base at Batesville (Independence County) on March 15, 1864, was one of an almost continuous series of sorties seeking information on the location of Confederate troops and guerrillas in the region. Major Lewis C. Pace led 200 Eleventh Missouri troopers out of Batesville on March 15, sending half of them under Captain James A. Collier to head toward the Little Red River by way of Fair View (White County) and West Point (White County), while Pace took the remainder down the White River to Oil Trough Bottom (Independence County), where they made camp. On March 17, Pace’s column headed to Grand Glaise (Jackson County), then …

Battery E, Second U.S. Colored Artillery (Light)

Battery E, Second U.S. Colored Artillery (Light) was one of two artillery units raised in Arkansas during the Civil War that were manned by formerly enslaved men. The recruiting of African American military units to serve in the Union army was approved with the creation of the U.S. War Department’s Bureau of Colored Troops on May 22, 1863. At least seven regiments of Black troops were raised in Arkansas, but only two artillery batteries were recruited in the state: the Third Louisiana Light Artillery Battery (African Descent), recruited at Helena (Phillips County), and the First Arkansas Light Artillery Battery (African Descent), raised at Pine Bluff (Jefferson County). The Third Louisiana Light Artillery Battery (African Descent) was organized at Helena on …

Battle of the Ravine

The Battle of the Ravine is the name most frequently used for the annual football game at Arkadelphia (Clark County) between Henderson State University (HSU) and Ouachita Baptist University (OBU). The cross-town rivalry has received widespread national media coverage through the years due to the fact that the football stadiums of the two schools are just across U.S. Highway 67 from each other. The game is promoted as the only college football rivalry in the country for which the visiting team walks rather than flies or buses to a road contest. The first game in the series was played in 1895, with Ouachita winning by a score of 8–0 on Thanksgiving Day. (At the time, Henderson was known as Arkadelphia …

Battle, Burrill Bunn

Burrill Bunn Battle was a prominent Arkansas attorney and jurist in the latter decades of the nineteenth century and the early part of the twentieth century. Although he was born in Mississippi, his family moved to Arkansas when he was a child, and it was there that he embarked on a legal career that culminated in a twenty-five-year tenure on the Arkansas Supreme Court. Burrill B. Battle was born on October 24, 1838, in Hinds County in Mississippi. His parents, Joseph Battle and Nancy Stricklin Battle, were native North Carolinians, but when Battle was six, the family relocated to Arkansas, settling in Lafayette County, where he received his early education. From there, Battle attended Arkansas College in Fayetteville (Washington County), …