Photos of the Day - Starting with F

The Arkansas Community Foundation (ARCF) is a statewide nonprofit organization dedicated to helping generous individuals, families, civic groups, and businesses financially support charitable causes throughout Arkansas. ARCF is the only foundation in Arkansas through which individuals and corporations can create endowment funds for the public benefit of the entire state and its communities. For many years, the headquarters of the foundation were housed in the building shown here at 700 South Rock Street in Little Rock (Pulaski County). The building is now owned by First Lutheran Church and is occasionally used for church functions.

Born in Louisiana and raised in Huttig (Union County), piano player Floyd Cramer is credited with being one of the creators of the country music style known as the Nashville Sound. During his career, Cramer released fifty solo albums of instrumental music but is probably best known for his 1960 hit “Last Date.” Cramer, who died in 1997, is considered by many to be the most important pianist in the history of country music. He was posthumously inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2003.

Orval Thomas, a Saline County native, began a career in photography and film at an early age in Hot Springs (Garland County). That introduction led him into a lifelong career in both television and film. At various times during his career, he worked at all three television stations in Little Rock (Pulaski County). He also assisted in producing films for political campaigns and such Arkansas-based motion picture productions as The Legend of Boggy Creek.

With the state legislature’s passage of Act 476 of 2001, the Dutch oven became the state’s Official State Historic Cooking Vessel. The oven was brought to Arkansas in early territorial days and, by the mid-1800s, was in widespread use. Expert John Ragsdale demonstrates Dutch oven cooking at Scott (Pulaski County) in 2000.

Since the discovery of diamonds in the fields of Pike County in 1906, there have been many unprofitable attempts at commercial mining in the area. One early twentieth-century attempt was made by the Kimberlite Diamond Mining and Washing Company owned by Austin Millar and his son Howard. Shown here are employees engaged in the company’s Pike County operation. The company stayed in business until around 1911. The last serious attempts at commercial mining ended in the late 1990s, after which the state legislature issued a permanent ban on testing in the area.

The Dalton Period extends from 10,500 to 9,900 years ago (circa 8500 to 7900 BC), during which there existed a culture of ancient Native American hunter-gatherers (referred to as the Dalton people) who made a distinctive set of stone tools that are today found at sites across the middle of the United States. The name Dalton was first used in 1948 to refer to a style of chipped-stone projectile point/knife.

The Pulaski County Pedestrian and Bicycle Bridge, more commonly known as the Big Dam Bridge, across Murray Lock and Dam No. 7 on the Arkansas River near Little Rock (Pulaski County) connects approximately fifteen miles of riverside trails and parks. The structure, which measures some 4,226 feet in length, officially opened on September 30, 2006, and has become a popular local attraction.

Moses Aaron Clark rose from slavery to become one of the most successful black Arkansans of his time. Elected as a Helena (Phillips County) alderman during Reconstruction, Clark became a lawyer and was one of Arkansas’s first black justices of the peace. After Reconstruction, Clark became arguably the most important black Masonic leader in Arkansas. For more than a quarter of a century, he led the Arkansas Prince Hall Free and Accepted Masons, one of the oldest and most prestigious African-American fraternal orders. Clark died on April 10, 1924, in Marianna (Lee County). His grave is in the Magnolia Cemetery in Helena.

This structure located in Tontitown Cemetery in Washington County serves as a memorial to Father Pietro Bandini, the founder of the Italian settlement established in 1898. From its humble beginnings, the colony, which is a thriving community in the twenty-first century, became one of the most successful communities of its kind in the United States. The memorial is also dedicated to Bandini’s nephew, the Reverend Tito Bandini.

The Arkansas History Commission and State Archives, which today houses the state’s largest collection of documents, photographs, and other Arkansas history materials, was created in 1905 by the Arkansas General Assembly. In this 1978 photo, commission members and the public discuss the status of the collection of documents housed at Powhatan Historic State Park.

Charles Finger moved to Fayetteville (Washington County) in 1920, where he continued a distinguished career as a writer. In 1925, one of the thirty-six books he published after moving to Fayetteville, Tales from Silver Lands, won the Newbery Prize. During the Great Depression, he served as an editor for the well-known Federal Writers’ Project publication Arkansas: A Guide to the State. Finger, seen in this late-nineteenth-century photograph, died in 1941 and had a Fayetteville park named in his honor.

In 1905, Hugh Dinsmore, a native of Benton County and a six-term U.S. congressman, became involved in an altercation with Governor Jeff Davis, who was running for the U.S. Senate. Approaching Dinsmore in the lobby of a Fayetteville (Washington County) hotel, Davis struck him with a cane. The ex-congressman subsequently pistol-whipped Davis. While the incident gathered statewide coverage, neither man was arrested. Shown here is a monument erected to Dinsmore by the Washington County Historical Society in 1955.

The Marion County Courthouse, located in Yellville, has been the site of one of the most controversial activities to occur during the annual Turkey Trot Festival. The festival, which started in the 1940s, gained national attention with an activity called the Turkey Drop, in which a live turkey was tossed from the courthouse roof. Over time, the drop changed to involve dropping the fowl from a low-flying plane. Negative publicity eventually put an end to the “official” drop, though some still carry out the drops unofficially.

Of the seventy-five counties in the state of Arkansas, ten have been named in honor of presidents of the United States. On November 11, 1833, the territorial legislature named the then-newest county in honor of Martin Van Buren. At the time of the creation of the county named in his honor, he was serving as vice president, though he was elected president in 1836.

In 1930, Effiegene Locke Wingo became the second of only four women from Arkansas to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, where she served from November 4, 1930, to March 3, 1933. Wingo introduced eighteen bills and served on three House committees during her congressional service. She died on September 19, 1962, and is buried in Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington DC.

The White County town of Beebe, named in honor of railroad president Roswell Beebe, was incorporated in 1875. In 1891, Jim Smith, the man who surveyed the town’s first streets and boundaries and one of the richest men in town, built the two-story red brick building seen to the right in this 1942 photo. Over the years, the building, which bears his initials, J. S. S., has been occupied by many businesses still stands in the twenty-first century.

With the passage of Act 255 by the Arkansas General Assembly of 1987, the South Arkansas Vine Ripe Pink Tomato became the official state fruit and vegetable. The legislation deemed the designation appropriate since the tomato, though technically a fruit, is consumed as a vegetable. The measure was introduced by Representative John Lipton, whose district included Bradley County, an area long associated with the cultivation of tomatoes.

The folklore-collecting career of Mary Celestia Parler is often overshadowed by the work of her more famous husband, Vance Randolph. Parler, a professor of English and folklore at the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County), was a founder of the Arkansas Folklore Society. In 1949, she developed the university’s first folklore course and became director of the UA Folklore Research Project. Under her direction, 442 reels of recorded songs and many other materials were collected. She retired from her professorship in 1975.

The Arkansas Farm Bureau Federation, a private agricultural advocacy group formed in 1931, was a segregated organization until the mid-1960s. Shown here is a group of 1940s members of the Negro Division of the Federation, which was formed in 1948. The Negro Division, which pursued a similar platform as its white counterpart, was organized by John Gammon Jr. of Crittenden County. Gammon remained president of the segregated group until its dissolution and merger with the parent group in 1966.

Methodism came into what is now Arkansas at least two decades before statehood, just as it had been brought to North America at least two decades before the American Revolution. Led by John Wesley, an Anglican priest; his brother Charles; and a few others, Methodism had begun as a movement within the Church of England in the 1720s. By the mid-nineteenth century Methodism was well established in Arkansas, with churches, such as the one in Jasper (Newton County) shown here, constructed throughout the state.

In 1923, Dentler Rowland of Jonesboro (Craighead County) sold part of a collection of approximately eighty stone objects, the largest of which was a statue dubbed King Crowley. Rowland claimed to have discovered the objects on Crowley’s Ridge. Though he presented them as Native American in origin, and though many prominent Arkansans (including Bernie Babcock) accepted them as legitimate, representatives of the Smithsonian doubted their authenticity. Today, the “fakes” are identified by most modern researchers as folk art. King Crowley is in a private collection, but the Arkansas State University Museum in Jonesboro owns a collection of thirty-six objects made by Rowland.

The Tucker Telephone was a torture device invented in Arkansas and used at the Tucker State Prison Farm (now the Tucker Unit of the Arkansas Department of Correction) until the 1970s. The device consisted of a crank telephone wired with two batteries and electrodes. Once the electrodes were attached to the torture victim, the device was cranked, delivering a painful electrical shock. Similar devices have reportedly been used by U.S. forces during interrogation of Iraqi prisoners.

The two-and-half-story house known as Marlsgate, located near Scott in Lonoke County, served as the primary residence of three generations of the Dortch family. Designed by Arkansas architect Charles L. Thompson, the house, which faces Bearskin Lake, was completed in 1904. The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. It was sold by the Dortch family early in the twenty-first century and today is available to the public as a rental property available for gatherings.

The Eastport, originally a civilian side-wheeler armed by Confederates for river duty, was captured by Union forces in Tennessee. Towed to Cairo, Illinois, in 1863, it was iron plated and commissioned into Union service. It is shown here in 1864 docked at Helena (Phillips County) shortly before participation in the ill-fated Red River Campaign. Suffering major damage, it was blown up in April 1864 to prevent capture.

This 1940s photograph clearly shows the winding streets of Eureka Springs. The town, which was incorporated in the 1880s, was a major attraction for the many visitors seeking relief in the waters of the healing springs. Today, its unique setting makes it a popular northwest Arkansas tourist attraction. Among the historic structures shown in this photo is the famous Crescent Hotel (top center).

Powell Clayton was the first Republican elected as governor of Arkansas. Serving during the controversial period of Reconstruction, he was been referred to as “the most hated governor of Arkansas.” Clayton left the office of governor to serve as one of the state’s U.S. senators in 1871. Far from his adopted state, he still exerted considerable power within state Republican politics. Upon his death in 1914, he was buried in Arlington National Cemetery, becoming the only Arkansas governor whose remains do not rest in the state.

Ex-slave Wiley Jones of Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) was the richest African American in the state at the time of his death in 1904. Shortly after the Civil War, he operated a saloon and invested the profits in real estate, eventually owning large tracts of land in several states. Jones, shown here in the 1880s, died of a heart attack and is buried in Jefferson County.

Melinda Dillon, an actress born in Hope (Hempstead County), appeared in dozens of movies, plays, and television shows. Her honors included Academy Award nominations for Best Supporting Actress for her roles in Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and Absence of Malice (1981). She may be best known for her role as the mother in the popular movie A Christmas Story (1983). She died in 2023.

After the 1870s gubernatorial dispute known as the Brooks-Baxter War, Joseph Brooks, though not being seated as governor, remained in Arkansas. During the same month that the dispute was settled, Brooks was appointed by President Ulysses S. Grant as postmaster of Little Rock (Pulaski County). Reconciling with his Republican opposition, he even participated in the party’s state convention in 1876. He died approximately a year later.

House Concurrent Resolution No. 2 of 1939 designated the pine tree as Arkansas’s official state tree. The resolution, introduced by State Representative Boyd Tackett of Pike County, cited the state’s timber resources as one of its greatest sources of wealth. The measure was introduced on January 11 and met no opposition, winning final approval on January 20. The resolution did not specify a particular native pine species, but reference is often made to either the southern shortleaf pine (Pinus echinata) or the loblolly pine (Pinus taeda).

New Hampshire native James Miller was appointed Arkansas’s first territorial governor in 1819. A veteran of the War of 1812, he distinguished himself at the Battle of Lundy’s Lane and was a brigadier general by war’s end. He arrived at Arkansas Post (Arkansas County) in 1819 aboard a boat decorated with flags emblazoned with “Arkansaw” and “I’ll Try Sir,” the latter being a slogan he made famous during the War of 1812. Never happy in Arkansas, he resigned his post and accepted an appointment as collector of the port of Salem, Massachusetts, a post he held until two years before his death in 1851.

Perry County’s Camp Ouachita, a Girl Scout camp constructed over a four-year period starting in 1936, was closed in 1979 after having provided outdoor activities for thousands of young scouts over the years. In 1992, the area was added to the National Register of Historic Places, and it is being restored as the Camp Ouachita National Historic District. Shown here is the camp entrance sign in 1959.

The Community Theatre in Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) is one of the oldest one-screen, nickelodeon-type theaters in Arkansas. It first opened in 1922 and is unique in that the screen is to the back as one enters the auditorium. The theater closed its doors in 1963, reopening in 1995 as the Community Theatre Museum. The Pine Bluff Film Festival, an annual silent movie festival, began in the fall of 1995 in the Community and Saenger theaters in Pine Bluff but ceased operations by 2008. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2004, and renovations on the building were completed in 2013.

Long before the Arkansas River was channelized by the McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System in the mid-twentieth century, it was not uncommon for the slow-moving river to freeze enough to hamper trade and travel on the stream. This group of unidentified men is shown attempting to navigate the frozen stream at Little Rock (Pulaski County) in the winter of 1876.

Congress established the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands in March 1865 to help four million African Americans in the South make the transition from slavery to freedom and to help destitute white people obtain food and medical supplies in the dire days at the end of the Civil War. The bureau attempted to help Arkansas’s estimated 110,000 slaves become truly free, working out of offices such as the one shown here in Arkadelphia (Clark County).

Traditional folk singer Emma Dusenbury, shown on the right, moved from Georgia to Arkansas at the age of ten in 1873. She committed to memory untold numbers of songs during her lifetime. Her vast knowledge of traditional music was discovered while she was living near Mena (Polk County) in the late 1920s. Soon, she was visited by a number of folk music collectors. In 1936, the now-blind singer recorded over 100 songs for the Library of Congress Archive of American Folk Songs. Though she died in 1941, her recordings can still be appreciated today.

William Kirby, a leading state Democrat, was also an aggressive agrarian populist in the late 1800s. He represented Miller County in the state legislature and served as the state attorney general and associate justice of the state Supreme Court. In 1914, he was defeated in a run for the U.S. Senate in the first election under the Seventeenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which allowed people to vote at large for senators. Kirby gained the seat approximately two years later when Senator James Paul Clarke died.

In 1937, the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County) offered Henry Alexander a position as professor of government. He founded UA’s Department of Government, which was renamed the Department of Political Science in 1966. He taught classes on, among other subjects, the city manager plan. As the state’s chief advocate of the city manager form of government, he drafted legislation to provide city manager as a choice of government for Arkansas towns. As a result, several Arkansas cities adopted this system.

Long before the strict separation of church and state, public schools in Arkansas displayed many religious symbols. It was very common to see copies of the Ten Commandments prominently displayed, and school days opened with a daily prayer. In 1930, the state legislature passed a law requiring the reading of a daily Bible verse in the public schools. Shown here is a sheet listing the daily verses required to be read in Arkansas public schools in 1939.

George W. Hays was elected as the twenty-fourth governor of Arkansas after a 1913 special election to fill the vacancy created when Governor Joe T. Robinson assumed his U.S. Senate seat. He was easily victorious in the general election held the next year. As governor, Hays was a leading figure in dealing with the issues of prohibition and women’s rights. After leaving the governor’s office in 1917, he returned to his law practice in Camden (Ouachita County).

In 1929, the struggling Lion Oil Company purchased several leases in the Smackover (Union County) oil field. Less than ten years later, the company exploited the development of an oil field that ranked second only to the Smackover discovery of the early twentieth century. By 1955, Lion employed over 3,000 people, with its products being sold in approximately 2,000 outlets. Shown here in this 1940s photograph is one of the company’s many southeast Arkansas drilling rigs.

By the late 1800s, lumbering was a major business in Arkansas. To reach the timber, large companies generally constructed shortline railroads that were connected to the major sawmills. Felled trees were loaded onto cars, such as the ones shown here at the Belton (Hempstead County) depot, and transported to the mills for processing. Processed logs were usually sent north to factories.

In 1911, the third battleship christened with the name Arkansas was launched. The USS Arkansas (BB33), shown in this 1912 photograph, saw service in both world wars. Among its duties in World War I was serving as part of the fleet that escorted President Woodrow Wilson to France for the negotiations that led to the Treaty of Versailles. In World War II, the battleship and its crew participated in the Normandy invasion and saw extensive combat service during the Pacific campaign. It was awarded four battle stars for its World War II service. Shortly after the war ended, it was sunk in the atomic testing at the Bikini Atoll.

Lee County native and educator James A. Banks is considered by many to be the “father of multicultural education” in the United States. Growing up in rural Arkansas, Banks earned a PhD from Michigan State University in 1969 and became the first African-American professor in the College of Education at the University of Washington in Seattle. In 1992, he founded the Center for Multicultural Education at the university. Scholarship generated during his more than forty years of research has greatly advanced the field of multicultural studies.

After its occupation in 1862, Helena (Phillips County) became a major base of operations for Federal forces, with occupying troops remaining there throughout the remainder of the war. This period photograph shows Confederate general James Tappan’s home in the distance with rows of huts (above and to the right) built and occupied by many Federal soldiers.

On May 28, 1875, Pompey Factor, a part Seminole and part African-American army scout, became one of the twenty-five Arkansas soldiers to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor. Factor, who enlisted as a scout in 1870, was awarded the medal due to his efforts in assisting his comrades in saving the life of their commanding officer while engaged in heavy fire with the Comanche and Kiowa at Eagle’s Nest Crossing in Texas. Factor left the scouts about two years later, returning briefly in 1879.

The Consolidated White River Academy was founded in Brinkley (Monroe County) in the late 1800s when several African-American church groups decided to create an academy to offer young black students an opportunity to obtain a full high school education. After more than fifty years of operation, the academy closed in 1950 when many of the same opportunities emerged in the public schools. Sports have almost always played a role in educational institutions, and the academy was no different. Shown here is a 1930s girls’ basketball team.

In 1900, Betty Blake met entertainer Will Rogers at her sister’s home in Oolagah in Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). In 1908, the couple was married in a ceremony at her family’s home in Rogers (Benton County). During their marriage, Betty Rogers served as her husband’s financial advisor. After his death in a plane crash in 1935, she concentrated on furthering his reputation, writing Will Rogers: His Wife’s Story in 1941. She is shown here with her husband and children in about 1921. 

One of the most anticipated events in 2004 in Little Rock (Pulaski County) was the official dedication and opening of the William J. Clinton Presidential Center and Park on November 18. Attendance at the rain-soaked event was by ticket only. Most of the approximately 30,000 ticket holders stood in long lines before entering the dedication area. A ticket such as the one shown here entitled the holder to a seat in a large area of temporary bleachers.

Melbourne became the county seat of Izard County in 1875. Since the county’s founding, its government has occupied three courthouses. From 1938 to 1940, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) from Camp Sage built the current courthouse. It is the only courthouse in the country partly heated by a wood-burning furnace. The structure was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1993.