Photos of the Day

The Polk County town of Mena was founded in 1896 by railroad developer Arthur Stilwell. Due to his important role in founding the town, he was given the honor of naming the growing railroad community. He chose the name Mena, which was a pet name that he had for his wife, Jennie. Shown here in 1897 is the town’s first meat market, owned by M. E. Pumphrey.

St. Mary’s Church (Our Lady of Perpetual Help), constructed in 1879 on top of the mountains surrounding Altus (Franklin County), is known for its Sistine Chapel-style paintings and Roman basilica architecture. The church, whose inside walls are lined with ornate gold, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.

The Great River Road-Arkansas National Scenic Byway is part of a ten-state driving route along both sides of the Mississippi River, from its headwaters at Lake Itasca in Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico in Louisiana. In eastern Arkansas, the route travels through ten counties that are along the river or historically associated with the river.

Craighead County is one of a handful of counties in the state to have two county seats; they are Jonesboro and Lake City. The second county seat, Lake City, was created by legislative action in 1883. Approximately eighteen years later in 1901, the courthouse shown in this photo was constructed. The building continues to serve the residents of that part of the county.

In 1934, William Townsend established Camp Wycliffe in Benton County. Later called Wycliffe Bible Translators, it was a linguistic training program to promote Bible translation among minority language groups. Wycliffe Bible Translators, along with other organizations Townsend founded, is credited with the translation of the New Testament, and in some cases the entire Bible, into more than 600 languages. Townsend is shown here in 1917.

As early as 1912, students of the Yale University School of Forestry were making spring field trips to Ashley County to study southern forests. In 1946, the Crossett Lumber Company offered the university a site for a permanent camp. For the next twenty years, the camp served as an important site in the development and evolution of professional forestry management. Shown here is one of the camp’s students in the early 1960s examining a tree core sample.

Missouri native and Desha County resident Xenaphon Overton (X. O.) Pindall served as acting governor of the state when Governor John Little was disabled. An Arkansas City (Desha County) attorney, Pindall served in both the Arkansas House of Representatives and Senate in the early part of the twentieth century. He served as acting governor from 1907 to 1909, dealing mainly with administrative details. After leaving the governor’s office, he returned to the Senate until 1911. He died in 1935.

The Fort Smith Museum of History had its beginning in 1910, when a group of local women learned that the city was planning to tear down the Old Commissary, one of the town’s earliest military structures. The city leased the building to the Federation of Women’s Clubs, which began to operate the Old Commissary Museum. In 1979, the museum was relocated to the building shown here adjacent to Fort Smith National Historic Site. The name was changed from the Old Fort Museum to the Fort Smith Museum of History in 1999.

In 1892, the beetle known as the boll weevil (Anthonomus grandis) entered the United States from Mexico through Texas. By the 1920s, the insect, described as the most destructive cotton pest in North America, had entered all of the nation’s cotton-producing regions, including Arkansas. In 1996, the year before Arkansas joined in a national eradication program, the pest had caused over $29 million in damage. Since joining the program, the infestation is under control in many areas of the state and near extinction in others.

Tennessee native Lorenzo Gibson moved to Arkansas in the 1830s, becoming one of the area’s early physicians. In 1838, he served on the Little Rock (Pulaski County) town council, and he was in the Arkansas General Assembly from 1838 to 1841. In 1841, he ran an ultimately unsuccessful campaign as the Whig Party candidate for governor. The portrait shown here was painted by his granddaughter, Maria Gibson.

On March 3, 1937, Governor Carl E. Bailey signed Act 197 into law, making Arkansas the first state in the nation to pass a law creating soil conservation districts. Due to legal considerations imposed by the state constitution, the law did not become operative until June 20. By 1940, one-fourth of the state was covered by ten soil conservation districts. The district program continued to grow until total coverage of the state was attained on June 2, 1955. This made Arkansas the sixteenth state to obtain total coverage.

This church was one of the first buildings constructed by citizens of Tontitown (Washington County), a community settled by Italian Catholics in the late nineteenth century. A picture of St. Joseph had miraculously survived an 1898 fire in the building, resulting in the repaired church being named St. Joseph Catholic Church when it was dedicated in 1900. In 1934, a tornado swept through the area, destroying many buildings, including the church. A new church was built in 1942.

James Smith McDonnell Jr. was one of the most significant aerospace industrialists of the twentieth century, building McDonnell-Douglas into the second-largest military and commercial aviation corporation in the United States. McDonnell was raised in central Arkansas, graduating from Little Rock High School (later named Central High School). He spent his childhood in Altheimer (Jefferson County). After guiding his company to become one of the world’s largest aerospace corporations, McDonnell stepped down as CEO in 1972, but he remained chairman of the board until his death in 1980.

“The Fayetteville Polka” (1856) is the first published piece of sheet music written by an Arkansan. Austrian immigrant and composer Ferdinand Zellner, who became a resident of Fayetteville (Washington County) and a professor at the local Fayetteville Female Seminary in 1852, is said to have written the music to honor his adopted home. The polka was well received at the time and is often played by musicians in northwest Arkansas at area functions.

In the late 1850s, Lycurgus Johnson began construction on his plantation home, a two-story, seventeen-room, L-shaped Greek Revival house near the Mississippi River in Chicot County. The house, shown here from the side, has survived war, floods, and the ravages of time. In 1974, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places. It was donated to Arkansas State University in 2001, and the university’s Delta Heritage Initiative program oversaw its restoration. Lakeport Plantation house was opened to the public on September 29, 2007.

During World War II, thousands of Japanese Americans were incarcerated in relocation camps in the interior of the United States. Two such camps, Rohwer and Jerome, were located in Arkansas. Detainees at Rohwer were able to enjoy a bit of normal life when Mabel Rose Jamison (later Vogel) began teaching art at the camp. She became devoted to her students, and, when she left the camp in 1945, she took a large collection of student art and artifacts with her. Due to her efforts, much information about the life of the detainees has been preserved for the future.

Riverboat travel on the White River was a major contributor to the growth of the town of Newport (Jackson County) before and immediately following the Civil War. Many large vessels brought cargo and passengers up the river to the river port town, where they were transferred to smaller boats for further travel up the shallow stream. This 1893 engraving of the river activity at Newport shows one of those larger craft.

With more than one million acres of farmland used for rice production, Arkansas is the largest producer of rice in the United States. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Agricultural Research Service (ARS), supports this important industry through research conducted at the Dale Bumpers National Rice Research Center (DBNRRC), which opened in 1998 in Stuttgart (Arkansas County). The center is the largest such facility in the United States.

Founded as a farmers’ cooperative in 1921, Riceland Foods, Inc., headquartered in Stuttgart (Arkansas County), is the world’s largest rice miller and rice marketer. It also operates one of the world’s largest rice mills, shown here in Jonesboro (Craighead County).

In 1921, a group of Arkansas rice farmers organized a farming cooperative known today as Riceland Rice, Inc. From humble beginnings, the cooperative, headquartered in Stuttgart (Arkansas County), has grown into the world’s largest rice miller and marketer. The company also markets soybeans and wheat. Shown in this aerial photo is the rice and soybean storage and processing facility located near Stuttgart.

In 1872, a year after the military abandoned Fort Smith (Sebastian County), the old barracks building shown here became the home of the Federal Court for the Western District of Arkansas. One room served as the courtroom, with the remainder being used as court offices. The basement, formerly used as a mess hall, was converted into a two-cell jail. Jail conditions soon became so bad that prisoners referred to it as “Hell on the Border.”

By the mid-1950s, there was strong local support for the transformation of Little Rock Junior College into a four-year institution of higher learning. In 1956, local business leader Gus Ottenheimer chaired a task force instructed to study the feasibility of such a change. Within a few months, the committee recommended the move. In 1957, the four-year Little Rock University, which became the University of Arkansas at Little Rock in 1969, officially enrolled students.

The Ritz opened as an opera house on Main Street in Blytheville (Mississippi County) in the early 1900s. A popular entertainment venue, the building was renovated in 1951, about the time this photo was taken, giving it a modern appearance. Over the years, the building fell into disrepair but was restored to its 1950s look in the 1990s. Since 1981, it has served as the Ritz Civic Center and the home of the local arts council.

When Van Buren County was created in 1833, a one-room log courthouse was constructed at the first county seat of Mudtown. A second log building was constructed when the seat of government was removed to Clinton in 1842. When bushwhackers burned that building in 1865, it was replaced by the two-story frame structure shown here. This third county courthouse was replaced by the present structure in 1934.

In 1833, Aaron Lyon and his wife moved to the Independence County town of Batesville. Not long after arriving, he established the Batesville Academy, the first institution of its kind to be chartered by the Arkansas legislature. A leader in the Presbyterian Church, he served as one of the original board trustees for Arkansas College (now Lyon College). He served as the board’s vice president for approximately sixteen years.

On April 25, 1951, during the Korean War, Charles Gilliland of Baxter County, shown here seated second from the right, remained behind to cover the retreat of his unit even though he was suffering from a serious head wound. He was never seen again. In 1955, he was cited for “courage beyond the call of duty” and posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.

The red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis), a bird of prey, is one of approximately 350 species of birds commonly found within the boundaries of Arkansas. This common nesting bird of Arkansas’s deciduous woodlands, which is called a “chickenhawk” by many, can regularly be seen along the state’s roadways.

In 1934, Al Capp (right, ca. 1955) created Li’l Abner, one of the nation’s most popular comic strips for more than forty years. In the 1960s, he was approached by a group of northwest Arkansas businessmen asking if he would consent to the opening of a theme park based on the strip’s hillbilly characters and location. Having rejected previous offers, Capp agreed, and, on October 3, 1967, he spoke at the groundbreaking ceremonies of Dogpatch USA. The moderately successful theme park operated from 1968 to 1993.

Hot Springs National Park is famous for its Bathhouse Row, today an area consisting of eight bathhouses that extend along the foot of the mountain that gives rise to the thermal springs. As thermal bathing became less profitable by the mid-twentieth century, many of the bathhouses closed and were soon left vacant. One of the first actions to save the surviving structures was the designation of Bathhouse Row as a National Register of Historic Places property in 1974.

The most prominent veterans’ organization in Arkansas prior to the founding of the American Legion after World War I was the United Confederate Veterans (UCV), founded in the 1890s. Arkansas veterans were active members of the organization, which held yearly national reunions until the 1950s. Two of the national gatherings, in 1911 and 1928, were held in Little Rock (Pulaski County). Seen here is a photo of a group of UCV members while attending the 1911 gathering.

In 1982, Asa Hutchinson became the youngest district attorney in the United States as the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Arkansas. He later served as a U.S. representative, director of the Drug Enforcement Agency, and Under Secretary for Border and Transportation Security at the Department of Homeland Security. He resigned his Homeland Security post to run for the office of Arkansas governor in 2006. He lost the race to Democrat Mike Beebe but was elected governor in 2014, serving until the beginning of 2023.

Rocky Comfort (Little River County) native Jeff Davis, whose 1901–1907 governorship was one of the most tumultuous in Arkansas history, is shown here in 1904 on a visit to Chicago, Illinois. Davis railed against corporations in his campaigns and often resorted to race baiting. Named after Confederate president Jeff Davis, Davis had a divisive tenure in office, creating many enemies. However, Davis dominated Democratic politics in the state in the early years of the twentieth century, being thrice elected to the office of governor and going on to become a U.S. senator.

In the seventh inning of the first game of the 1968 World Series, El Dorado (Union County) native Lou Brock, a member of the defending world champion St. Louis Cardinals, hit the first of his two home runs of the series. The ticket shown here allowed a fan to witness Brock’s home run with no one on base in a game that also saw Cardinal pitcher Bob Gibson set a new series record with seventeen strikeouts. Though the Cardinals lost the series in seven games, Brock finished with an excellent series batting average of .464.

Spanning the Arkansas River in Little Rock (Pulaski County) is the Baring Cross Bridge, one of the six bridges in the downtown area. The first railroad bridge opened in 1873, named after the bridge finance company, Baring and Company, and a cross from the family coat of arms of the president of the Cairo and Fulton Railroad. In 1877, a wooden deck, which was lowered to the rail level in 1886, was built on top of the bridge for regular traffic. A portion of the bridge, as shown here, was washed away in the Flood of 1927.

An unidentified group examines the granite monument that marks the initial survey point for the lands included in the Louisiana Purchase. The monument was placed in present-day Monroe County near Brinkley by the Daughters of the American Revolution, L’Anguille Chapter, in 1926. The monument’s location is now a part of the Louisiana Purchase Historic State Park.

Long before the streams of Arkansas were spanned by bridges, the ferry was the most common way to cross deep bodies of water. Many early ferries were privately owned and generally were only large enough to carry one or two vehicles. Shown here in the 1960s is the Toad Suck Ferry crossing the Arkansas River near Conway (Faulkner County). It is said by some that, in territorial days, travelers would stop at a nearby tavern where they would drink until they swelled up like toads. Thus the colorful name, although other explanations of the name have been offered.

At the outbreak of the Civil War, Christopher Andrews enlisted as a private in the Third Minnesota. Quickly rising to the rank of colonel, he spent much of his military service in Arkansas, participating in the capture of Little Rock (Pulaski County) in 1863. In 1864, he led Union forces in victory at the Action at Fitzhugh’s Woods. Promoted to brigadier general shortly afterward, he expanded his efforts by helping organize Arkansas Unionists. After the war, he served as U.S. minister to Sweden and Norway and as consul general to Brazil. He died in 1922.

In the days before twenty-first-century campaigning, by way of television and the Internet, candidates distributed thousands of paper items championing their candidacy. One popular item was the palm card, small and easily handed to a potential voter. The card shown here was used in the unsuccessful 1978 bid by Douglas Brandon Jr. for U.S. Congress.

When the Arkansas Industrial University opened in Fayetteville (Washington County) on January 22, 1871, the entire student body consisted of just eight students, one of them female. Seen in this photo is Noah Gates, the first president of the university, who oversaw the remodeling of an old farmhouse to be used as the first classroom, the establishment of a library of twelve books, and a faculty of three instructors. Today, the school, now known as the University of Arkansas (UA), has grown into the state’s largest university.

When completed in 1973, the Ozark Folk Center State Park, located outside Mountain View (Stone County), consisted of sixteen craft demonstration areas, a welcome center, a sixty-unit lodge, a restaurant, food outlets in the craft area, a conference center, a gift shop, and a performance auditorium. This auditorium, shown here, originally seated 1,060 but has been reduced to a 1,000-seat capacity. Local talent performs there on a regular basis, in addition to occasional national and international stars.

Conway (Faulkner County) native Edith Irby Jones became the first African American to attend and graduate from the University of Arkansas Medical School, now the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS), in Little Rock (Pulaski County). A 1952 graduate, she not only was a pioneer in the desegregation of higher education in Arkansas and the South, but she also has served as a highly successful doctor, educator, and philanthropist in Arkansas, Texas, and overseas. She is shown here at her twenty-fifth UAMS class reunion in 1977.

In early October 1919, Governor Charles Brough, after receiving pleas from Phillips County citizens, requested that federal troops be sent to restore order to the area. Approximately 600 soldiers were sent from Camp Pike to stop the ongoing racial violence known today as the Elaine Massacre. Brough, shown here with a Camp Pike army officer, himself visited the area to “obtain correct information.” After returning to Little Rock (Pulaski County), he declared that the situation was well in hand. In truth, it is estimated that several hundred African Americans were killed before the violence ended.

Louisiana-born Bill Dickey, considered by many to be the greatest catcher in baseball, grew up in Kensett (White County) and Little Rock (Pulaski County). Dickey played and coached at a time (1920s-1960s) when his team, the New York Yankees, dominated the world of baseball by winning seventeen American League titles and fourteen World Series titles. Dickey was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1954 and, in 1959, was one of the first five sports figures to be inducted into the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame.

Pork has always been a mainstay of the Arkansas diet, and no Arkansas farm was without hogs. Hogs were raised, butchered, and prepared for the table, all on the farm. Due to the possibility of spoiling, butchering was a cold weather activity. The hog was killed, bled, scalded, and scraped to remove the hair, chores these 1920s Lafayette County farmers are preparing to do. The meat was salted and then smoked for future use throughout the year.

In September 1863, Confederate forces evacuated the capital city of Little Rock (Pulaski County), leaving it for occupation by Union forces under General Frederick Steele. For approximately seven months, the State House was used as quarters by the occupying army. Shown here are members of the Third Minnesota Infantry on the State House lawn.

One of the most unusual competitions in the state is held at the Emerson PurpleHull Pea Festival in Columbia County: the World Championship Rotary Tiller Race. What started as a simple competition in 1990 has evolved into a race with several different categories, including one for children. Shown here is R. J. Hughey of Stephens (Ouachita County) participating in the children’s division in 2002.

Of the seventy-five counties in Arkansas, several have been named in honor of patriots of the American Revolution. On December 19, 1837, the young state legislature named the newest county then to be created in honor of author, inventor, and patriot Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania.

One of the many 1800s structures at the Historic Arkansas Museum in downtown Little Rock (Pulaski County) is the Plum Bayou farmstead. The main “double pen” house, shown here to the right, may date from the 1830s. The log house was moved from its original location near Scott (Pulaski County) in the 1970s and today serves as the museum’s hands-on education center, where visitors experience pioneer life firsthand.

Though Conway (Faulkner County) artist Lester Gene Hatfield is perhaps best known in some circles for legal actions (which he won) taken against his forty-year accumulation of junk and recycled materials, which he developed into a major piece of yard art, he is also an accomplished artist in several media. Many of his works, including watercolors such as this one executed on one of his many trips to France, are included in private and public art collections worldwide.

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. After World War II, the school’s airfield was used to store more than 10,000 obsolete planes for scrapping and future sale. At least sixty-five of the military’s 118 B-32 heavy bombers, such as the ones shown here, were flown to the airfield, some directly from the assembly line.