Photos of the Day - Starting with J

Born in 1948 in Stephens (Ouachita County), Barbara Hendricks is an internationally recognized leading lyric soprano. After graduating from the University of Nebraska in 1969, she accepted an invitation to New York to study at the renowned Juilliard School. She graduated with a BM degree in voice in 1973 and quickly embarked upon a career that made her one of the world’s leading lyric sopranos. Still an active performer, Hendricks is also recognized for her work for human rights and world peace.

Greers Ferry Dam, located on the Little Red River approximately three miles north of Heber Springs (Cleburne County), was constructed between 1959 and 1962. At a cost of almost $47 million, the dam was built mainly for flood control but also provides hydroelectric power. The structure is 1,704 feet long and stands 243 feet above the Little Red River stream bed. The dam, which created a highly popular 30,000- to 40,000-acre reservoir, was dedicated on October 3, 1963, by President John F. Kennedy and is shown here circa 1970.

Arkansas-born General Douglas MacArthur, General of the Army during the Korean War, was born in Little Rock (Pulaski County) on January 26, 1880, and baptized at Christ Episcopal Church. Though he returned to Little Rock in 1952 and acknowledged his birth site, the war hero had little other contact with his native state. He is shown here inspecting troops of the all-African-American Twenty-fourth Infantry on his arrival at Kimpo Airfield, Korea, in 1951.

In 1929, the government of the state of Arkansas adopted House Concurrent Resolution Number 22 recognizing the mockingbird as the state bird of Arkansas. The non-migrating bird is one of the most recognized birds in the South. Arkansas is one of five Southern states to have designated it as the official state bird.

The All American Red Heads, an all-women basketball team, was formed in Cassville, Missouri, in 1936. Over the next sixty years, members of the team, such as the ones shown here in this 1937 photo, won more than seventy percent of their games competing against men. The home base for the team was moved to Caraway (Craighead County) in 1955, where it remained until July 26, 1996. On that day, the team was retired after playing its last game in the local Caraway gym.

Hope (Hempstead County) celebrates its claim of being the home of the world’s largest watermelons with one of the state’s most well-attended festivals, the Hope Watermelon Festival. Originating in 1926, the festival, with its many activities including a parade (as seen in this 1920s photo), was discontinued after four years due to a number of factors, such as the difficulty of the small town dealing with the large crowd. The parade-less festival was revived in 1977 and celebrates its thirtieth anniversary in August 2007.

Until the early twentieth century, much of eastern Arkansas was covered by swampland. Government-funded drainage projects were successful in draining much of the swamp water, opening up thousands of acres of land for farming. The Clay County crew shown here in 1911 is surrounded by mud and swampland as it attempts to clear a drainage ditch.

For approximately fifty years, Parnell Springs, located in Bradley County, was a thriving community and health resort. By the 1880s, the waters of the springs had brought large numbers of people to the area seeking a cure for their ailments. A hotel, shown here in 1906, and other overnight accommodations were constructed. Ownership of the springs changed several times over the years, and hard times and declining patronage resulted in the closing of the resort in the 1930s. Only the springs remain today.

Two of the buildings central to the comedy routines of the 1930s team of Lum and Abner are preserved in Pine Ridge (Montgomery County) as a museum. The Lum and Abner Jot ‘Em Down Store and Museum is located in the 1909 Dick Huddleston General Store and the 1904 A. A. McKenzie Store. The McKenzie Store, shown here, was the model for the show’s Jot ‘Em Down Store. Both buildings were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.

Postal service has been provided in Arkansas since the first post office was established within the future state’s boundaries at Davidsonville (Randolph County) in 1817. For many years, towns did not have a separate facility serving as the post office. It was very common for a local store to serve as both a business and a post office. One such example is shown here in the circa 1890s photograph of J. R. Chambers’s store and post office located at Sassafras Prairie (Arkansas County).

The river port town of Jacksonport (Jackson County) was settled in the 1820s and, in 1854, was designated the county seat. The Civil War delayed construction of a courthouse until 1869. The brick Second Empire-style structure, completed in 1872, served as the seat of government for only twenty years. When the railroad bypassed the town in 1892, the county government was moved to Newport. The Jackson County Historical Society, which saved the courthouse in the 1960s, turned it over to the state in 1965, when it was opened as the Jacksonport Courthouse State Park. Today, the restored building serves as a museum of local history.

Confederate general John S. Marmaduke commanded troops in several Arkansas fights but is perhaps best known for a personal battle. In 1863, Marmaduke became involved in a dispute over the actions taken by fellow general Lucius Walker at the Battle of Helena. A displeased Marmaduke implied that Walker had been a coward. Walker challenged Marmaduke to a duel, and on September 6, 1863, near present-day North Little Rock (Pulaski County), the two met. After a first shot drew no blood, a second was fired, and Walker was mortally wounded, dying shortly afterwards.

For approximately forty years beginning in the late 1800s, Joseph Booker was, among other things, a prominent leader in African-American education in the state. The Ashley County native, who was born a slave in 1859, became the first president of what is now Arkansas Baptist College in Little Rock (Pulaski County). He guided the development of the school until his sudden death in 1926. He is shown here circa 1886.

The monument shown here commemorates the War of 1812 Battle of Lundy’s Lane at Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada. During this battle on July 25, 1814, the future first territorial governor of Arkansas, James Miller, distinguished himself in combat, ultimately gaining the recognition that led to his Arkansas appointment some five years later.

There are many scorpion species in the genus Centruroides. The most common species in the United States, the striped bark scorpion (Centruroides vitattus), is the only scorpion known to inhabit Arkansas. Measuring about 2 3/8 inches, it is small, agile, fast, and a very good climber. Though having a normal life expectancy of three to eight years, some have been known to live up to twenty-five years.

Fort Smith was an important center for outfitting forty-niners during the gold rush in late 1848 and early 1849, as well as soldiers in the Mexican War from 1846 to 1848. Although more forty-niners probably disembarked from Missouri for California seeking to stake claims to sources of gold, one of the first wagon trains of those journeying by land left from Fort Smith. At that time, the town looked much like this early 1850s drawing executed from the opposite bank of the Arkansas River.

Even before its designation as the nation’s first national river in 1972, the Buffalo River was a popular river for floating, especially in a canoe. While canoeing the Buffalo is still the most common way to float the scenic river, a growing number of nature lovers are kayaking the waterway, as shown here.

After the marriage of Sam Houston, Tennessee governor, to eighteen-year-old Eliza Allen fell apart under mysterious circumstances, he resigned his office on April 16, 1829, and shortly afterward left for “the wigwam of his adopted father, the chief of the Cherokees, in Arkansas.” Houston lived among his adopted Cherokee and called the Arkansas Territory his home from May 1829 to November 1832. After leaving Arkansas, he went on to greater fame as the president of the Republic of Texas, as well as U.S. senator, and governor of the state of Texas.

In 1987, Lottie Shackelford, a graduate of Philander Smith College in Little Rock (Pulaski County), became the first woman and the first African American elected mayor of Little Rock. Active in local and national politics, she has served on the Little Rock Board of Directors; is a former secretary, vice chair, and chair of the Arkansas State Democratic Committee; and was appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1993 to the board of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation. For many years, she served as a vice chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

New Jersey native Harris Flanagin was elected the seventh governor of Arkansas in 1862. At the time of his election, he held the rank of colonel of the 2nd Arkansas Mounted Rifles serving east of the Mississippi River with the Confederate Army of Tennessee. Sworn in on November 15, 1862, Flanagin served as the state’s chief executive until the end of the war in 1865.

In 1947, a national effort was initiated in the United States to collect much-needed supplies for postwar Europe. The participation of Arkansas resulted in the donation of three and a half boxcars of rice, half of a boxcar of wheat, and one boxcar of canned goods. Seen here is one of the Arkansas cars. When completed in 1948, the “American Friendship Train” contained 700 boxcars of supplies. It was estimated that the train contained approximately $40 million worth of supplies.

C. F. Obermeyer, shown here circa 1888, was pastor of First Lutheran Church in Little Rock (Pulaski County) from November 1877 to May 1889. Obermeyer began the first English services at First Lutheran (which were previously carried out only in German) and oversaw the construction of the new building, which was completed in 1888.

Horses and mules remained a major factor in labor and transportation well into the first half of the twentieth century in Arkansas. Many people moved from place to place by horse, and no farm was without horses and mules for hauling and plowing. While many shod their own animals, some preferred the convenience of a local blacksmith, such as J. S. Wilson’s Livery Feed and Sale Stable in Arkadelphia (Clark County), shown here in the 1890s.

Aerial photography did not become common in central Arkansas until the establishment of Eberts Field, a World War I pilots’ school located in Lonoke (Lonoke County). This photo of the Arkansas State Capitol and surrounding area is believed to have been shot from a plane in the base’s Aerial Photography Section No. 32. The photo clearly shows how Capitol Street (center) does not properly line up with the entrance to the building, as had been intended.

Magnolia (Columbia County) was incorporated in 1855 as the county seat. The next year, a log courthouse was replaced by a larger frame structure that served the county until the early twentieth century. In 1905, construction began on a new courthouse, shown here in the later stages of construction. The building was completed in 1906 and still remains in use today. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.

The national Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) was formed in 1874 in Ohio in an effort to combat the effects of alcohol on the family and society. The members chose abstinence as their solution. The first Arkansas chapter was formed in Monticello (Drew County) in 1876, and the state chapter was recognized in 1878. Seen here is a float from a Little Rock (Pulaski County) WCTU 1930s parade. The organization remained active in the state until the 1980s.

In 1995, Andree Roaf became the first African-American woman to serve on the Arkansas Supreme Court. In 1996, Governor Mike Huckabee appointed her to the Arkansas Court of Appeals, a position she was elected to four years later; she served there until 2006. Among her many awards and honors was her 1996 induction into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame.

Benjamin Bogard was one of the leading fundamentalist Christians in the first half of the twentieth century. Coming to Arkansas in 1899, he served as the pastor of several churches before settling at Antioch Missionary Baptist Church in Little Rock (Pulaski County), where he stayed for almost thirty years. As a member of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and several fundamentalist organizations, he led the movement for the passage of a law to ban the teaching of evolution in public schools. Passed in 1928, the law stayed in effect until 1968.

This building located in Winslow (Washington County) once housed the publishing office of the Winslow American newspaper. Maud Duncan and her husband started publishing the paper in 1908. She continued the paper after his death in 1918. The paper was moved to this building after its first location burned in 1935. Since the demise of the paper in 1953, the building has been moved from its original location and, at various times, has served as a museum and a private residence.

Elected public officials are known to do just about anything, no matter how strange it may seem, to maintain a popular image with the voting public. First-term governor Bill Clinton is shown here riding in a “paddy wagon” in the October 13, 1979, Ozark Frontier Trail Festival parade in Heber Springs (Cleburne County).

Ouachita Baptist College (now Ouachita Baptist University), a private liberal arts college located in Arkadelphia (Clark County) and named after the Quachita River that borders the campus on the south, opened its doors in 1886 with 235 students. The campus, which occupies the former site of the Arkansas School for the Deaf, was first included in the budget of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention in 1925, about the same time this photo was taken of the science building. Over the years, the school has grown and in 2006 had a student body of about 1,500.

Fort Chaffee, located near Fort Smith (Sebastian County), was officially opened as Camp Chaffee in 1941 as an infantry training base. Redesignated a fort in 1956, the base continued to serve as a major training area until the 1990s. As of 2008, some 66,000 acres of the base are utilized as a training area for the Arkansas National Guard. Shown here are officers and enlisted men during a National Guard training exercise in 1965.

Chateau Aux Arc Vineyards and Winery in Altus (Franklin County) is just one of several vineyards located in Arkansas. The vineyard promotes itself as the largest planter of Cynthiana grapes in the world and the largest planter of Chardonnay grapes in the United States outside of California. The vineyard was first planted in 1998, with the winery opening in 2001. Since that time, it has prospered, winning numerous awards for its wines.

The Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862 provided 30,000 acres of land to each state to be used for the establishment of a college of agriculture, the “mechanical arts,” or engineering. Few are aware that the act also mandated the teaching of “military tactics.” Arkansas Industrial University, now the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County), fulfilled this requirement with the creation of a uniformed cadet corps. Shown here is early 1890s student and future president of the university, John C. Futrall, outfitted in his cadet uniform.

This illustration shows the “Thach Weave,” one of the most significant tactical advances in the history of aerial combat, developed by John Smith Thach of Pine Bluff (Jefferson County). Thach was one of the most influential naval aviators of the mid-twentieth century, being awarded the Navy Cross and Distinguished Service Medal for developing this tactical maneuver, which remains a standard of military aviation.

Lake Dick, a U-shaped oxbow lake located in Jefferson County, was the site of a Depression-era New Deal program designed to resettle struggling urban and farm families. At one time, the 3,457-acre area was home to eighty families. Each family held an equal share in the enterprise. With the end of the Great Depression, there seemed to be little justification for the program, so it was dissolved and the land sold to the public. The area was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.

Oklahoma native Albert Brumley was one of the most successful gospel song composers of the first half of the twentieth century. In the 1920s and 1930s, he worked for the Sebastian County-based Hartford Music Company, a company he purchased in 1948. “I’ll Fly Away” and “Turn the Radio On” are two of his most recognized compositions. Brumley, who during his lifetime composed 600 to 800 songs, died in 1977. The Brumley Music Company continued to operate in Powell, Missouri, in the twenty-first century.

Pastor Robert Graham of the Disciples of Christ founded Arkansas College in Fayetteville (Washington County) in the 1850s. It was the first degree-conferring institution chartered by the state to open. The college awarded its first bachelor’s degrees in 1854 and, at its height, enrolled about 200 students. In March 1862, the school buildings were burned by Confederate forces, closing the school’s doors forever.

Hope (Hempstead County) native Claud Garner was a multitalented singer, entertainer, and labor organizer. However, he is best known for writing four novels and one work of nonfiction. His award-winning efforts began with the 1947 publication of his novel Wetback and concluded with the well-received 1969 nonfiction volume Sam Houston: Texas Giant. He is shown here shortly before his death in 1978.

In June 1914, noted decorative painter Paul Heerwagen, who worked from his studio near Fayetteville (Washington County), received the design contract for the new state capitol. Shown here is his mural titled War, one of the four he designed for the Arkansas State Capitol.

This historic marker designates the area in Van Buren (Crawford County) where coaches passed along part of the 2,812-mile route of the Butterfield Overland Express, which was established in 1857. The route from St. Louis, Missouri, to San Francisco, California, went down Van Buren’s Main Street and crossed the Arkansas River near this marker.

With the coming of the railroad in the 1880s and the production of hydroelectric power by local dams, Mammoth Spring (Fulton County) became a center of industrial growth in northern Arkansas. The town’s Main Street is shown here on September 4, 1968.

James Black, an early cutler and blacksmith in Washington (Hempstead County), claimed to have made the knife later made famous by Jim Bowie. This claim was first documented in print in a local newspaper in 1841. As a result, Black became well known, and his knife was widely copied. Black lived in the house shown here when, in 1835, shortly after the death of his wife, his father-in-law broke in and nearly beat him to death with a club. Black, left almost blind, lived the rest of his life in Washington, dying in 1872.

The Flood of 1927 was the most destructive and costly flood in Arkansas history and one of the worst in the history of the nation. It afflicted Arkansas with a greater amount of devastation, both human and monetary, than the other affected states in the Mississippi River Valley. Many areas of the state were hard hit including the town of Fulton (Hempstead County) located along the Red River.

Frederick Steele, who rose to the rank of Union major general during the Civil War, saw much of his considerable military service in Arkansas. He led Union troops that captured Arkansas Post (Arkansas County) and Little Rock (Pulaski County), all in 1863. He is perhaps best known for his leadership in the failed 1864 Red River Campaign in southern Arkansas and northern Louisiana. Steele remained in the military after the war, dying in 1868.

In 1913, Alan Ladd was born in Hot Springs (Garland County); he spent the first four years of his life in the spa city. Though standing only 5’6″ tall, Ladd excelled in an acting career, starring in forty-seven films in the 1940s, 1950s, and early 1960s. Stories abound of how, in many films, he stood on a prop to make himself taller than his female co-star. He is perhaps best known for his starring role in the 1953 classic film Shane. He is shown here with Veronica Lake in the film Saigon.

For many years, Sharp County was one of a small number of the state’s counties that had two county seats. One seat was located in this one-time three-story stone courthouse in Hardy. The structure served as the seat of government until 1967, when the county government was consolidated in Ash Flat. The old courthouse was remodeled after a 1974 fire, resulting in the removal of the top two floors. Today, the remodeled structure serves as a private business.

A Face in the Crowd was a 1957 movie drama based on the short story “Your Arkansas Traveler,” written by Budd Schulberg. The story concerns a fictional Arkansas native, and the movie’s opening scenes were set in northeast Arkansas. It was filmed on location in Piggott (Clay County) using local residents as extras. A Face in the Crowd marked the screen debut of Andy Griffith and Lee Remick. The poster for the film is shown here.

In 1914, the body of a teenage girl who had been shot in the head was found in a Logan County well. A brief manhunt resulted in the arrest of a boyfriend, Arthur Tillman. Tillman was charged, tried, convicted, and sentenced to hang. A gallows, shown in this photo, was built outside the Logan County Jail in Paris for the July 14, 1914, execution. The military personnel also seen in the photo may be a result of rumors that the convicted murderer, who professed his innocence, would be rescued by his family. Tillman was the last man to be executed by hanging in the state.

The town square area was always the business center of early Arkansas towns. When the downtown business area of Mountain Home, the county seat of Baxter County, was photographed in 1910, the growing community numbered 446 citizens. By 2010, with its growing tourist industry, Mountain Home had a population of more than 12,000.