Photos of the Day - Starting with O

In recent years, Arkansas officials have eagerly recruited foreign industries to locate in the state, many times ending in failure. One success was announced in 2003. The Japanese-owned Denso Manufacturing Arkansas, Inc., (DMAR) plant would be built in Osceola (Mississippi County). The grand opening of the plant in 2005 was attended by dignitaries from both Japan and Arkansas. By 2008, the heating, air conditioning, and heavy equipment radiator manufacturing plant is expected to employ approximately 500 local residents.

A visitor to many of the small towns of Arkansas will discover that one of the oldest buildings in the community is often the railroad depot, such as the depot shown here in 1954 in Bono (Craighead County). In the days of passenger trains, any town of modest size was usually home to such a structure. Over the years, as passenger service declined, many of the buildings were closed and left to decay. Fortunately, a number of them have survived. Some have been restored and house museums, city offices, or private businesses.

Since the early days of the airplane, aerial photographs of major cities have been popular. The first aerial photography in central Arkansas is believed to have arrived with the establishment of Eberts Training Field near Lonoke (Lonoke County) in 1917. This photograph of Little Rock (Pulaski County) is believed to have been taken by an Eberts Field pilot in 1918.

In 1927, members of the Concatenated Order of Hoo-Hoo dedicated a monument in Gurdon (Clark County) to commemorate the 1892 founding of this somewhat comical forest industry fraternity. This 1950 photograph shows a group of Hoo-Hoo members making a pilgrimage to the monument. In 2008, there were approximately 3,500 members of the fraternity worldwide.

Fay Jones was an internationally known architect from Arkansas who won the American Institute of Architects’ highest honor, the AIA Gold Medal, in 1990. From his small studio in Fayetteville (Washington County), he practiced architecture from 1954 to 1998, designing 218 projects, encompassing residential buildings, educational and commercial buildings, chapels, pavilions, and intricate metal structures. The most acclaimed of Jones’s buildings is Thorncrown Chapel in Eureka Springs (Carroll County). Eighty-four of his projects were built in Arkansas.

Artist and teacher Olin Herman Travis periodically taught in, and made sketching trips to, Arkansas, mainly Franklin County, for approximately twenty years. While in Dallas, Texas, in 1924, Travis started the first major art school in the South to offer instruction in a variety of fields. In 1927, he opened the Travis Ozark Summer Art School in Franklin County. The school, which enrolled up to fifty students, operated for approximately three years. An award-winning artist, Travis remained an active artist up to his death in 1975.

Fort Smith (Sebastian County) native Alphonso Trent, a jazz pianist who studied music at Shorter College in Little Rock (Pulaski County), led a band in the 1920s that became one of the most respected of the pre-swing era. In 1923, during the days of segregation, his group became the first all-black band to play at a prominent white hotel, the Adolphus in Dallas, Texas, and the first to be broadcast over regional radio.

In 1974, the Little Rock (Pulaski County) chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW) was organized as an advocacy group for women’s rights. Additional chapters were soon formed throughout the state. Under the organization’s leadership in the 1970s, Little Rock’s first Rape Crisis, Incorporated, was founded. In the 1980s, the group worked diligently for the passage of the doomed Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). NOW continues to promote equal rights, reproductive freedom, and economic security for women.

Bill Moran Jr. sold his first knife around 1939 at age fourteen. By the time of his death in 2006, his knives had become some of the most valuable modern handmade custom knives, appraising for tens of thousands of dollars. Two of the most common features of his knives, an example of which is shown here, are a long slender bowie blade shape and a silver wire inlay in the handle. Moran made knives for all types of people: outdoorsmen, collectors, soldiers, actors, statesmen, and even royalty.

Arkansas is home to many local history museums. Most are small facilities with the purpose of collecting, preserving, and exhibiting the physical objects associated with the history of the local area. Unfortunately, many of those museums have been short lived, such as Penrod’s Museum, which in the 1950s was located at Lakeview (Baxter County).

In 1967, the Arkansas General Assembly passed legislation to create a two-year technical college in Camden (Ouachita County) called the Southwest Technical Institute. Now known as Southern Arkansas University Tech, the doors opened in 1968 with the institute’s first class of 144 students beginning study. In 1977, the operation of the school was transferred to Southern Arkansas University (SAU) in Magnolia. Since then, enrollment has steadily increased, topping 2,000 in 2007. Shown here is the school’s administration building.

Arkansas’s most well-known white supremacist group, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), did not appear in the state until April 1868, a few months after African Americans voted in their first elections. Klan fliers appeared on the street corners of Little Rock (Pulaski County) that month, and KKK activity quickly spread throughout the state. This 1872 Harper’s Weekly engraving shows an African-American family being threatened by a Klan member.

Veteran stage and screen actress Mary Katherine (Kay) Linaker (known later as Kate Phillips) was born in Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) in 1913. She appeared in more than fifty feature films, including the Lum and Abner film Two Weeks to Live, starring fellow Arkansas natives Chester Lauck and Norris Goff. In 1958, she wrote the screenplay for the science fiction cult classic The Blob. Until her death in 2008, she passed on her knowledge by teaching young aspiring thespians and writers.

Grif Stockley was an author, historian, and attorney known for his lifelong commitment to the cause of civil rights. Although Stockley was honored over the years for his legal achievements, his books garnered him the widest recognition. His five Gideon Page novels became popular in the 1990s. Stockley also produced a number of nonfiction books on Arkansas, particularly in the area of race relations.

In 1995, Crossett (Ashley County) native and celebrated mezzo-soprano Gretha Boston won a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for her portrayal of Queenie in the Broadway revival of Showboat. She is the first Arkansan to be so honored. Boston has appeared in many productions and, in 1997, was inducted into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame.

Montgomery County native Violet Brumley Hensley received state and national acclaim for her fiddle-making and -playing talents. She made her first fiddle by hand at age fifteen and made dozens of instruments throughout her life. To some, she simply became known as “the Fiddle Maker.” She demonstrated her work at festivals throughout the nation and made several television appearances, including a 1970 appearance on The Art Linkletter Show.

Women Ordnance Workers (WOWs) during World War II, wearing the trademark WOW bandanna, pose with an American flag at the Arkansas Ordnance Plant in Jacksonville (Pulaski County). Approximately 8,300 women were employed at the plant, representing sixty-five percent of its 12,700 workers.

The John E. Miller Educational Complex on the campus of Ozarka College in Melbourne (Izard County) is the school’s largest building. The structure, built in 1996, was named in honor of John E. Miller, a state representative. It consists of an 800-seat auditorium, a lecture hall, an industry training room, classrooms, a boardroom, and faculty offices. Additional space was added in 1999.

The amusement park known as Dogpatch USA was the brainchild of Harrison (Boone County) real estate broker O. J. Snow, who convinced Al Capp to allow him to build a theme park around the town and characters that appeared in Capp’s popular comic strip Li’l Abner. Opening in 1968, the park remained in operation approximately twenty-five years before closing in 1993. Among the many popular rides at the theme park was the stagecoach; a ticket to ride is shown here.

In 1976, Mary Shipley opened the Book Rack in Blytheville (Mississippi County). That simple bookstore, the name of which was changed to That Bookstore in Blytheville in 1994, has become one of the major stops of world-renowned authors who travel to the northeast Arkansas town to participate in weekly book programs. Author John Grisham is shown here participating in the tradition of signing one of the several wooden chairs located in the back room where programs and book signings take place.

Shown here is an aerial view of the Walnut Ridge Army Flying School. As one of seven U.S. Army Air Forces pilot-training schools located in Arkansas, it was activated on August 15, 1942. Training for the cadets began in October. By the time the last class graduated in 1944, a total of 4,641 cadets had completed the program.

In 1920, Mississippi native Floyd Brown opened the Fargo Agricultural School near Brinkley (Monroe County). The school, modeled on Brown’s alma mater, Booker T. Washington’s Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, was one of the few educational institutions for African Americans in Arkansas. After many years of success, Brown sold the property to the state in 1949, and it became the Fargo Training School for Negro Girls. Brown remained as principal until his retirement in 1954. The school is commemorated by the Fargo Agricultural School Museum in Brinkley.

In 1997, journalist Roy Reed published his insightful biography of Governor Orval Faubus, Faubus: The Life and Times of an American Prodigal. Reed concluded that Faubus, once a liberal on race, attempted to block desegregation of Little Rock Central High School because he was afraid that failure to do otherwise would end his political career. The book was a New York Times Notable Book for 1997.

Yarnell Ice Cream Company was founded in 1932 after Ray Yarnell purchased the Grisham Ice Cream Company. In more than seventy-five years of business, Yarnell went through many expansions to its physical plant, with the first being in 1951. Shown here is part of the company’s state-of-the-art ice cream–producing equipment during the 1960s. The company closed for a time in 2011. In November 2011, Schulze and Burch Biscuit Company of Chicago, Illinois, acquired the Yarnell’s plant and most of the recipes at auction for a reported sum of $1.3 million. The company relaunched the Yarnell’s brand in April 2012.

In 1974, Johnson County sheriff Donald Meeks served as secretary of the Arkansas Sheriffs’ Boys Ranch Committee, which was organized to explore the possibility of establishing a ranch for underprivileged boys. Approximately two years later, the Arkansas Sheriffs’ Boys Ranch was incorporated. By 2005, the organization administered four ranches located throughout the state. In 1977, a camp was established for girls, and in 1998, the name was changed to Arkansas Sheriffs’ Boys and Girls Ranches.

Robert Ward Johnson, a prominent pre-Civil War politician who served in both the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate during the 1850s and 1860s, attempted to return to the Senate in 1878. After his defeat, it was discovered that a supporter had offered bribes to two African-American legislators for their votes. (U.S. senators were not then directly elected.) The embarrassing discovery ended Johnson’s public service. He died only a few months later.

Scottish stonemason Robert Brownlee (seated in center) learned his trade while apprenticed to his brother as a young man. While cutting stone for the new state capitol building in North Carolina, he learned of the need for stone cutters in Arkansas. He and three friends moved to Little Rock (Pulaski County) in 1836 and formed McVicar and Company. Soon, they were working on the new Arkansas Capitol, setting the foundation for the east and west wings of the building known today as the Old State House. During his career, Brownlee helped build several other historic Pulaski County structures.

Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) native Freeman Harrison Owens, a pioneer cinematographer and inventor of cinematic technology, made this moving-picture camera over a period from 1908 to 1909. Over his lifetime, Owens developed 11,812 inventions and obtained 200 patents.

Jeff Davis, whose 1901–1907 governorship was one of the most tumultuous in Arkansas history, is shown here in a 1908 photo. Davis was born near Rocky Comfort (Little River County) in 1862 and was named after Confederate president Jeff Davis. His tenure in office proved extremely divisive, creating for him many enemies. However, Davis dominated Democratic politics in the state in the early years of the twentieth century, being elected to the office of governor three times and going on to become a U.S. senator.

In 2005, the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) declared that the use of a Native American mascot was “hostile and abusive” and thus inappropriate. Arkansas State University (ASU) in Jonesboro (Craighead County), which used an Indian mascot starting in 1931, was identified as one of eighteen schools that needed to change. The school began use of a cartoon character called Jumpin’ Joe in 1937. In the 1990s, the symbol was modified to Runnin’ Joe, shown on this 1982 football game ticket. In 2003, such cartoon characters were completely dropped from use by the university. In 2008, under threats of being banned from the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) champion competition, the school became one of the last in the nation to retire the Indian mascot and adopted the name the Red Wolves.

The Titan II Missile program was a Cold War weapons system featuring fifty-four launch complexes located in three states and capable of delivering a nine-megaton nuclear warhead 5,500 miles away. Construction began in 1961 on the first of eighteen complexes located in five Arkansas counties (Faulkner, Conway, White, Van Buren, and Cleburne). This photo shows a test launch of a Titan II missile.

Since the introduction of rice in the late nineteenth century, the state has been a leader in rice cultivation. Arkansas has consistently led the nation in production since the 1970s, with approximately 1.5 million acres (fifty percent of the national acreage) under cultivation today. Rice production, as shown in this 1920s photo taken near Weiner (Poinsett County), has been a major agricultural activity in that area for many years. Each year, the town celebrates the crop with a festival held in October.

The Wild Cave Tour, the most strenuous tour offered at Blanchard Springs Caverns in Stone County, was designed to take visitors to some of the cave’s undeveloped middle-level sections. The tour organizers stated that the tour is limited to twelve people and is by reservation only. Participants must be of good physical condition and be ready to climb, crawl, and get dirty. Hardhats and kneepads are provided. The tour ends at the Titans, a group of spectacular tall columns.

Arkansas County native Douglas A. Blackmon is an American writer and journalist who won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction and an American Book Award for Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II (2008). The Pulitzer committee called Blackmon’s book “a precise and eloquent work that examines a deliberate system of racial suppression and that rescues a multitude of atrocities from virtual obscurity.”

Joseph W. Bocage was a prominent businessman and community leader in Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) during the nineteenth century. He was a farmer, lumber milll owner, judge, and mayor of Pine Bluff. When the Civil War broke out in 1861, he raised one of the county’s two Confederate companies. Later, he served as an officer in the Second Arkansas Infantry. In 1886, he used lumber from his own mill to construct a Greek Revival home which, in 1974, was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Major General Patrick R. Cleburne of Helena (Phillips County) was considered by many to be one of the top combat officers of the Army of Tennessee. An early proponent of the arming of slaves in defense of the Confederacy, he was killed at the Battle of Franklin, Tennessee, on November 30, 1864. After the war, his body was returned to Helena for reburial.

Italian priest Pietro Bandini spent a lifetime working for the betterment of Italian immigrants in Arkansas. He first came to Arkansas to assist with the Sunnyside (Chicot County) settlement in the Delta. After its failure, many of the Sunnyside settlers moved to land acquired by Father Bandini in northwest Arkansas, where they founded Tontitown on land similar to that in their home country. Tontitown became known nationally and internationally as a model immigrant settlement.

The Parade of Outhouses and the race that follows are two of the major attractions of the annual Bean Fest in Mountain View (Stone County). The wheeled outhouses, which are powered by two pushers, are fitted with a steering device for the driver, who is seated on a potty seat. Teams compete for the much-sought-after gold, silver, and bronze potty seats and cash prizes.

Glen Campbell, from the Billstown community in Pike County, was a commercially successful and critically acclaimed entertainer. As a guitarist, Campbell appeared on recordings by a diverse range of artists, including Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra. As a singer and solo artist, Campbell sold millions of recordings and earned many awards. He also starred in films and hosted his own television programs.

In 1938, the U.S. Congress passed the Flood Control Act, which authorized the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to build dams on most of the nation’s free-flowing streams. Several dams were built in Arkansas, including Greers Ferry Dam on the Little Red River in Cleburne County. A negative effect of these projects was the displacement of many families due to the destruction of towns that would be covered by water. Cove Creek Valley, shown here on the edge of the rising waters, was one of at least four communities flooded by the damming of the Little Red River.

Folklorist Vance Randolph, who studied people and culture of the Ozarks, lived in a small Missouri town when this late 1930s photo was taken. According to Robert Cochran in Vance Randolph: An Ozark Life, he maintained the dress and appearance of “a man of the world,” as he was described in 1936. Randolph later moved to Carroll County and to Washington County. He is shown here visiting with a group of local musicians recording traditional music.

Samuel Dellinger (left) was eager to prevent what he believed was the pillaging of Arkansas’s archaeological sites by out-of-state museums. As the curator of the University of Arkansas Museum in Fayetteville (Washington County) for thirty years, beginning in 1926, he actively pursued the collecting of artifacts from sites in Arkansas. As a result, he and his staff were able to build the museum’s archaeology collection into one of the finest in the nation. Unfortunately, public access to the collection became very limited when the museum closed in 2003.

The Walnut Ridge Army Flying School, one of seven U.S. Army Air Forces pilot training schools located in Arkansas, was activated on August 15, 1942. Training for the cadets, such as the ones shown here with their instructor, began in October. By the time the last class graduated in 1944, a total of 4,641 cadets had completed the program.

Evening Shade, located on U.S. Highway 167 in northern Arkansas, served as the seat of Sharp County for approximately ninety-five years. The once thriving community saw a slow decline in importance after the seat of government was removed in 1963. Today, it is best known as the setting for the 1990s sitcom Evening Shade. Many of the exterior shots for the show were filmed in the town.

Albert Purdue was the first geology student to graduate from Stanford University in California. Sometime in the mid-1890s, he accepted a teaching position at Arkansas Industrial University, now the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County). The state legislature appointed him the ex officio state geologist from 1907 to 1912. In this position, he oversaw the publication of many informational reports on the state’s geology. When the state cut off support for his position in 1912, he left Arkansas to accept a similar position in Tennessee.

James P. Eagle was one of five candidates at the 1888 state Democratic Convention, winning the party’s nomination on the 126th ballot. In the general election, he defeated opponent C. M. Norwood by only 15,000 votes, though he likely won by fraud. Regardless of Eagle’s close calls during his initial campaign, he was reelected two years later.

The Quapaw leader Sarasin (also spelled Saracen, Sarasen, or Sarrasin), whose tombstone is pictured here, became a legend in Arkansas when, in the late eighteenth century, he rescued two children from their Chickasaw captors. When Sarasin learned of the children’s kidnapping, he is said to have gone to the mother and vowed that he would return them unharmed. Journeying down the Arkansas River by canoe, he surprised the Chickasaw with a Quapaw war cry. Frightened, the Chickasaw captors abandoned the children, and Sarasin returned them safely to their mother. For his actions, he was presented a presidential medal by Governor James Miller. He is buried in St. Joseph’s Cemetery in Pine Bluff (Jefferson County).

The Montgomery County Courthouse located in Mount Ida was the last of three Arkansas courthouses designed by architect Clyde Ferrell. Commissioned in 1923, the building is of the Neoclassical design common to government buildings. This two-story building, however, was executed in rough fieldstone. This blending of rustic fieldstone and classical design elements makes it unique among Arkansas courthouses. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.

Samuel Lee Kountz Jr., a native of Phillips County, was a physician and pioneer in organ transplantation. In 1961, he performed the first kidney transplant between a recipient and a donor who were not identical twins. Four years later, he performed the first renal transplant in Egypt. During his medical career, he performed more than 500 kidney transplants. Kountz died on December 23, 1981.

In the early 1950s, this house was the home of the Carmelite Monastery of St. Teresa of Jesus, an order of the Discalced Carmelite Nuns in Little Rock (Pulaski County). By 1959, the order, having outgrown its Louisiana Street location, was looking for a new home. But the immediate reason for relocation was the monastery’s proximity to the Little Rock School Board Headquarters. In 1959, the headquarters was one of three Little Rock sites bombed by members of the segregationist White Citizens’ Council. Damage to the monastery precipitated a relocation of the order.