Photos of the Day - Starting with D

The Peel House in Bentonville (Benton County) is one of Arkansas’s best surviving examples of Italianate architecture. Built in 1875 by Confederate veteran and lawyer Samuel W. Peel, the house was part of a working farmstead surrounded by 180 acres of apple trees. The house, which is shown here in about 1900, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1995. Today, it is part of a tourist attraction called the Peel Mansion Museum and Heritage Gardens.

Doctor M. V. Mayfield arrived in Mena (Polk County) around 1918 and quickly became a respected physician. Approximately eight years after arriving, the seventy-nine-year-old doctor was found ill at home. While Mayfield was being bathed, it was revealed that the respected doctor had the anatomy of a woman. Mary Victor Mayfield’s story briefly became something of an area sensation. Mayfield died about three years after the secret was revealed and is buried south of Mena in the Gann Cemetery.

The Calhoun County Courthouse, located in Hampton, is just one of the many Arkansas seats of government that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Designed by E. L. Koonce and Frank Gibb, the structure was built in 1909 and was added to the National Register in 1976. The courthouse archives the county records dating back to the county’s creation in 1850.

The Miller County Historical and Family Museum was founded by the Miller County Historical Society as part of the state’s sesquicentennial celebration in 1986. The museum opened in 2001 in this 1919 church building located in Fouke (Miller County). It is dedicated to the location, collection, preservation, and presentation of artifacts, photos, documents, and other items that help present the history of the county and its people.

The Lonoke Cemetery, which was located just across the road from the World War I pilot school, Eberts Field, was used as a motivation by instructors for their young pilots in training. The pilot school, established in 1917 and named in honor of Arkansas pilot Captain Melchior McEwen “Ike” Eberts, boasted a record of routine crashes but no deaths. One of those lucky pilots was flying this plane, a type lovingly called a “flying coffin,” when it crashed in 1918.

Capital punishment, with the exception of a few years in the 1970s and 1980s, has been a part of Arkansas history since the late 1700s. Until 1913, when electrocution became the preferred method, hanging was the most common means of execution. The electric chair known as “Old Sparky,” two models of which were used over the years (the second is pictured here), was located at the Tucker Unit until 1964, when it was last used. Over 100 executions were carried out in these chairs.

One of the most popular exhibits at the Arkansas State University Museum in Jonesboro (Craighead County) is the skeletal mastodon model known as Mona. Cast from authentic fossilized bones, it was named after retired museum educator Mona Fielder, who was instrumental in its acquisition. Authentic mastodon bones placed in surrounding display cases complement the model.

On June 24, 1823, Acting Governor Robert Crittenden of Arkansas Territory met with a group of Arkansas Cherokee leaders at the home of Cherokee agent David Brearley on the south side of the Arkansas River in the vicinity of present-day Dardanelle (Yell County). It is believed that the resulting Treaty of Council Oaks, which ceded Cherokee rights to all land south of the Arkansas River, was signed under this tree.

When Boone County was created in 1869, local postmaster Henry Frick became determined to create a new town as the county seat. He convinced Colonel Marcus LaRue Harrison (shown here), who was in the area surveying a railroad route, to lay out a new town. Harrison soon surveyed an area of wide streets and a courthouse square. In return for his work, the town was named Harrison in his honor.

Forrest City (St. Francis County) native Don Kessinger played major league baseball for sixteen years in the 1960s and 1970s, mostly for the Chicago Cubs. After graduating as a star four-sport high school athlete, he enrolled at the University of Mississippi in 1960. In 1964, he was signed by the Chicago Cubs organization and, the following year, became a regular on the team. After his playing days, he managed the Chicago White Sox for half a season in 1979, becoming the only Arkansan to have both played and managed in the major leagues.

As part of the “rails-to-trails” provision of the National Trails System Act, the Delta Heritage Trail State Park began development along seventy-three miles of abandoned Union Pacific Railroad right-of-way in eastern Arkansas. Beginning in Phillips County, the trail continues through Arkansas County and ends in Desha County. Along the trail are some fifty-eight bridges, one of which, the bridge near Helena-West Helena (Phillips County), is shown here.

Theressa Hoover worked for human rights and unity through the United Methodist Church for nearly fifty years. Born in Arkansas, she represented those who, in the words of her 1974 monograph, were in “triple jeopardy”: female, African American, and Christian. Hoover worked for justice and empowerment for women and children around the globe. Her influence has been far-reaching, as she provided inspiration for others through her words and actions. She was inducted into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame in 2000.

A small number of the 10,000 civilians employed by the Chemical Warfare Arsenal established near Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) in 1941 worked on one of the many devices produced at the arsenal. The over 14,000-acre facility, which was renamed the Pine Bluff Arsenal in 1942, produced millions of incendiary munitions and chemical compounds during World War II. After the war and into the 1960s, the arsenal produced biological compounds. It later began producing smoke, incendiary, and pyrotechnic devices.

Much effort in the early twenty-first century was expended on the banks of the Arkansas River in Little Rock (Pulaski County) to develop a scenic park around the famous “Little Rock.” Excavations in 2009-2010 to uncover the “Little Rock” led to the discovery that little of the rock still exists. Instead, a large piece removed years ago that had been on display at City Hall has been moved to the new park. This postcard shows what remained of the rock in the early twentieth century.

By the time the United States entered World War II in late 1941, all of the Arkansas National Guard units had been mobilized. One of those units, the 153rd Infantry Regiment, is shown here, likely at Camp Forrest, Tennessee, before being shipped off to Washington State and then to the Aleutian Islands off the coast of Alaska. The regiment served in several other Alaskan locations before the war came to an end in 1945.

Trout Fishing in America (TFIA), based in northwest Arkansas, is a musical performance duo consisting of Keith Grimwood (left), who plays bass and sings, and Ezra Idlet, who sings and plays acoustic guitar and banjo. The name of the duo comes from the seminal 1960s experimental novella by Richard Brautigan. Trout Fishing in America has been nominated for four Grammy Awards and has released at least twenty albums.

Arkansas has produced wine since the early 1800s. Italian immigration to northwest Arkansas in the late 1800s and the area’s fertile soil led to that part of the state becoming a leader in wine and juice grape cultivation. Many area wineries developed with Tontitown (Washington County), which still holds an annual grape festival. Shown in this 1930s photo are workers at the Granata Winery, one of the area’s wineries.

From November 1818 to February 1819, Henry Rowe Schoolcraft explored land from Potosi, Missouri, southwest to the White River, northwest to near Springfield, Missouri, then south by canoe on the White River to present-day Batesville (Independence County), and finally northeast again to Missouri. In 1821, his Journal of a Tour into the Interior of Missouri and Arkansaw, describing Arkansas Ozarks geography, vegetation, wildlife, and inhabitants, was published in London, England.

The American Colonization Society (ACS), founded in the 1820s with a mission to relocate ex-slaves and freedmen to Africa, became well known for the creation of the nation of Liberia. The years following Reconstruction saw a surge in the number of African Americans desiring to relocate to Africa. In the 1880s and 1890s, approximately 650 Arkansas emigrants, more than in any other state, left for Africa. By the mid-1890s, the ACS dropped its resettlement program, which was taken over by private companies. Shown in this 1895 photo are some 200 passengers, of which half were from Arkansas, boarding the ship Horsa bound for Liberia.

In 1964, the Beatles made a brief stopover at the airport at Walnut Ridge (Lawrence County). To draw attention to the historic event and to attract tourists to the town, a sculpture was created. Unveiled on September 18, 2011, the eye-catching sculpture, which is located downtown, reproduces the street crossing depicted on the Abbey Road album cover.

The first recorded mining of gypsum in Arkansas was in 1922 in open pits located in Pike County. A long gypsum belt was discovered running through parts of Howard, Sevier, and Pike counties, with the thickest single bed located near a place called Plaster Bluff in Pike County. The pile of gypsum shown in this 1961 photo was mined at Highland Park (Pike County) and then stored at a nearby plant for processing. In that year, Arkansas produced almost 170,000 tons of gypsum.

During the 1957 desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock (Pulaski County), this Magnolia gas station, located across the street from the school, was a central gathering place for many segregationist demonstrators. The National Park Service restored the building in 1997 and used it as a visitor center and museum until the 2007 opening of the Little Rock High School National Historic Site Visitor Center.

When construction began on Norfork Dam in Baxter County in 1941, approximately 4,000 observers arrived in the area to view the initial blast, shown here, to remove a cliff. Because the local media had hyped the blast, many of the witnesses were disappointed when only a small part of the cliff crumbled.

The Arkansas Forestry Commission (AFC) was established by Act 234 of 1931 and amended by Act 48 of 1939. Its initial responsibilities included fire control, education in fire safety, and forest management. In this early 1940s photo, a commission employee is shown with a fire plow, creating a furrow to help prevent the spread of fire.