Photos of the Day - Starting with J

On the final day of the Battle of Pea Ridge on March 8, 1862, a massive artillery duel between Union and Confederate forces began at approximately 8:00 a.m. Twenty-one Union guns were placed on a hill in the middle of Cox’s field, an area today known as Welfley’s Knoll. The cannon shown here at Pea Ridge National Military Park are located in that field at the site where Battery A, Second Illinois Light Artillery, more commonly known as the Peoria Battery, had been placed.

Wilson Whitaker Kimbrough Jr. made distinctive contributions to society through his efforts to professionalize law enforcement in Arkansas. He is considered the father of police and criminal psychology in Arkansas and one of the founders of police and criminal psychology in the United States.

By the mid-nineteenth century, increased travel in Arkansas necessitated the construction of bridges across the state’s many streams. Four bridges constructed in the late 1800s still stand as of 2007. The oldest, the Springfield-Des Arc Bridge, which spans Cadron Creek on the Faulkner County–Conway County line, is a metal truss structure built in 1874. Placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988, it was still in use as late as 1987.

Of the seventy-five counties of the state of Arkansas, several have been named in honor of important judicial figures. On November 16, 1833, the territorial legislature named the newest county then to be created in honor of Judge Benjamin Johnson, a judge of the Superior Court of the Arkansas Territory and later the first federal district judge for the state of Arkansas.

Little Rock (Pulaski County) native Betty Grayson was better known to the world as western star Gail Davis. During her career, she appeared in thirty-two feature films and was the star of her own 1950s television series, Annie Oakley. She is shown here as Annie Oakley on a Coleman Dairy bottle. She has been honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and, in 2004, was posthumously inducted into the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame. Cowboy great Gene Autry once referred to her as the “perfect western actress.”

In 1996, folk singer-songwriter Jimmy Driftwood of Mountain View (Stone County) became one of the first inductees into the Arkansas Entertainers Hall of Fame. Driftwood rose to national fame when Johnny Horton recorded his song “The Battle of New Orleans” in 1959, but he nonetheless stayed for the most part in his native Stone County and worked toward preserving the musical heritage of the mountain people.

Cabot (Lonoke County) is one of Arkansas’s fastest-growing cities. Incorporated in 1891, it was once an agricultural center and railroad shipping point for the area. The city now serves as a bedroom community for commuters who work in the Little Rock (Pulaski County) metropolitan area. During the early 1900s, First Street, shown here, was the city’s main business district.

In 1929, the area in Arkansas County marking the oldest European settlement in the Lower Mississippi River Valley was designated Arkansas Post State Park. Approximately thirty-one years later, the U.S. Congress authorized the National Park Service to preserve and develop the area further. In 1960, it was designated a national memorial and a national landmark. Today, the area in this aerial photograph is known as Arkansas Post National Memorial.

In 1974, a newly formed museum commission in Rogers (Benton County) leased space in this downtown building, the Bank of Rogers, to preserve and display city artifacts. The museum officially opened here in October 1975 and remained in the bank building until moving to its own facility in 1982. From humble beginnings, the Rogers Historical Museum has grown into one of the state’s most respected museums.

True Grit, the second novel written by Arkansas native Charles Portis, recounts the 1870s story of a young Arkansas girl named Mattie Ross who hires Marshal Rooster Cogburn to track down the man who robbed and killed her father in Fort Smith (Sebastian County). Published in 1968, the novel has sold millions of copies and, a year after publication, was turned into the movie that garnered John Wayne an Academy Award.

As the former governor of Missouri, Confederate general Sterling Price commanded troops in many Arkansas Civil War engagements, including the 1862 Battle of Pea Ridge. Many Arkansas Confederate soldiers also served under his command throughout the war, including his ill-fated 1864 Missouri raid. At the conclusion of the war, Price fled the United States to Mexico. He soon returned to Missouri, where he died in 1867.

Abraham Block was the patriarch of the first documented Jewish family to immigrate to the state of Arkansas. After a period as a businessman in Virginia, Block moved his family to southwest Arkansas in search of new economic opportunities. He created a regional merchant empire with businesses in Washington (Hempstead County), Fulton (Hempstead County), and Paraclifta (Sevier County) in Arkansas, as well as in New Orleans and Texas. The restored family home in Washington is currently a house museum in Historic Washington State Park.

In 1901, the Arkansas General Assembly designated the apple blossom as the official state floral emblem. During the previous year, the Arkansas Floral Emblem Society had initiated the debate on what would be an appropriate emblem. The General Assembly discarded the honeysuckle, cotton boll, and others before finally choosing the apple blossom. It remains the state floral emblem.

Recording artist and White County native Lonnie Glosson was instrumental in popularizing the harmonica nationwide beginning in the 1930s. Nicknamed the “Talking Harmonica Man,” Glosson continued to perform well into his nineties. He is shown here performing at almost eighty years old.

The famous 1930s Barrow Gang, led by Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker, visited Arkansas on several occasions. In 1933, the gang was registered at a Fort Smith (Sebastian County) tourist camp while Parker recovered from injuries from a car accident. The gang robbed a Fayetteville (Washington County) store and, when making its escape on Highway 71, was confronted by Alma (Crawford County) marshal Henry Humphrey and a companion. A brief shootout mortally wounded Humphrey. The gang fled the state, and a year later, Bonnie and Clyde were killed in a Louisiana highway ambush. A plaque at the Alma City Complex building commemorates Humphrey’s death.

The mysterious 1957 disappearance of attorney Maud Crawford, who was Senator John L. McClellan’s former associate, was believed by many to be linked to the senator’s investigation of organized crime. However, it is more likely that she met foul play due to her discovery of local fraudulent land deals. With little evidence, her case has never been solved, even though she was declared dead due to foul play in 1969.

Within months of the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, the U.S. government began relocating more than 100,000 Japanese Americans from the West Coast to the nation’s interior, fearing they might assist in an invasion attempt. Two of ten centers, Jerome (Drew County) and Rohwer (Desha County), were constructed in Arkansas. Over 16,000 internees spent most of the war years in one of these relocation centers. Shown here are some internees at Rohwer in 1943.

Of the seventy-five counties of the state of Arkansas, four have been named for rivers. On November 1, 1833, the territorial legislature named the newest county then to be created after the Mississippi River. Shown here is the McCallie Access to the Mississippi River near Arkansas City (Desha County).

Small in body but large in voice, Ruby Starr was the only female member of the 1970s rock group Black Oak Arkansas. Born Constance Meirzwiak in 1949, she was spotted by Black Oak Arkansas lead singer Jim Mangrum while singing in an Indiana bar in 1971. She accepted an invitation to join the band, changed her name to Ruby Starr, and toured with the band for the next few years. She is best known for her vocals on the group’s only top-thirty hit, “Jim Dandy.”

Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) native Winona Sammon is better known to the world by her stage name, Peggy Shannon. Born in 1907, Sammon’s performance career began when she joined the famed Ziegfeld Follies in 1923. It was there that she adopted her stage name. She appeared on Broadway for approximately eight years before starting a motion picture career, which saw her compared to famous star Clara Bow. Her promising future was compromised by alcoholism, which contributed to her untimely death in 1941.

Heber Springs, the county seat of Arkansas’s youngest county, has historically been identified as a tourist area. Even before the town was formed, the area was known for its mineral springs. One of those popular springs, Black Sulfur Spring, was believed to be the answer for many ailments. Since the formation of Greers Ferry Lake on the Little Red River in the early 1960s, the town has become a popular resort for camping, boating, and other water sports.

Johnson County native Lee Cazort was the youngest man to serve as the Arkansas General Assembly’s speaker of the House (a post he assumed at twenty-nine years of age) and later as the president of the Senate (at age thirty-three). In 1924, the future lieutenant governor made a bid for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination with the strong support of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). His second-place finish in a field of six helped weaken the influence of the Klan in state politics.

This picture taken in the spring of 1952 shows Jake Hartz Jr. (left), son of Arkansas County soybean pioneer Jacob Hartz Sr., standing in front of a train loaded with the first soybeans exported to Japan from the United States. The Mitsui Co. purchased the food bean, Mamloxi, from Hartz Seed Co.

This photo of a young George Hosato Takei was taken in about 1942 while he and his family were held by the War Relocation Authority at the Japanese Internment Camp at Rohwer (Desha County). In the 1960s, Takei gained international fame as Hikaru Sulu in the original Star Trek television series and six movies.

Yell County native and major league baseball pitcher Johnny Sain (right) compiled 139 career wins, the third highest of an Arkansas native, surpassed only by Lon Warneke and Dizzy Dean. His best years were a four-year stretch (1946-1950) with the Boston Braves. He and future Baseball Hall of Fame member Warren Spahn (left) were part of a famous Boston quip, “Spahn and Sain and pray for rain.” Sain served as a pitching coach from 1959 to 1986.

Diverse rice cultivars that have been collected from more than 100 countries are evaluated each year at the Dale Bumpers National Rice Research Center, which opened in 1998 at Stuttgart (Arkansas County). Scientists look for novel traits and genes that can be used by breeders to develop improved varieties for U.S. farmers.

Oil giant and multimillionaire John D. Rockefeller (left) established the Rockefeller Sanitary Commission in 1909 with the goal to cure and eradicate hookworm disease in Southern states such as Arkansas, where the disease was a major health issue. Rockefeller is seen in this early 1900s photograph with his son, John Jr., the father of Arkansas governor Winthrop Rockefeller.

Albert Pike, a prominent nineteenth-century Arkansas politician and lawyer, also saw military service in the Mexican War and as a Confederate general during the Civil War. A somewhat controversial character, he is perhaps best known as a national leader in Freemasonry.

For much of the twentieth century, cross-country travel was typically accomplished by bus—much of the time a Greyhound Bus. Located in Blytheville (Mississippi County), the structure shown here is one of the most unique bus stations in the nation. The town’’s Art Moderne Greyhound Bus Station is America’’s sole surviving bus station of this style of architecture. In 2003, the station, which had fallen into disrepair, was purchased by community effort and today is owned by Main Street Blytheville.

Southland College was founded near Helena (Phillips County) in 1865 by Quaker missionaries intent on aiding orphans displaced by the Civil War. The school for orphans quickly began to enroll local African-American children eager to learn, becoming the first school of higher education for African Americans west of the Mississippi. By the mid-1880s, the school, which consisted of five buildings, was educating approximately 300 students. The school closed in 1925 after about sixty years of service.

Edwin Bentley was one of the eight founders of the Arkansas Industrial University Medical Department, now the College of Medicine at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS). In 1879, Bentley was selected as chairman of a conference organized in Little Rock (Pulaski County) to resolve disputes over medical education in Little Rock. Bentley and a few others brought factions together, and on October 7, 1879, the Medical Department of Arkansas Industrial University opened. Bentley gave the opening address and on March 2, 1880, delivered the valedictory address for the first commencement.

It has been a common practice in the history of U.S. politics that, upon the death of a senator or representative, his spouse would be appointed to fill the seat. Thus was the case when Thaddeus Caraway died suddenly in 1931. Before the end of the year, his wife, Hattie, was appointed by Governor Harvey Parnell. She won a special election and then the general election in November 1932, becoming the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate. Shown here is the governor’s certifying letter to the president of the Senate recognizing Caraway as the duly elected senator.

Arkansas Children’s Hospital (ACH), with facilities in Little Rock (Pulaski County) (pictured here) and Springdale (Washington and Benton counties), is the only pediatric hospital in Arkansas and is among the ten largest children’s hospitals in the United States. Pediatric specialists routinely treat patients from other states and occasionally other countries.

H. L. Mitchell, an ex-sharecropper and cofounder of the Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union (STFU), is shown in this photo by Dorothea Lange in 1938 at the union’s Memphis, Tennessee, offices. Mitchell ran a dry-cleaning shop in Tyronza (Poinsett County) at the time he helped form the organization. A museum dedicated to telling the STFU story opened in the shop on October 6, 2006.

Incorporated in 1892, Ashdown, originally known as Turkey Flats, was designated the county seat of Little River County in 1907. During its development in the first half of the twentieth century, many businesses were established. One such business was the national grocery store chain of Jitney Jungle, which was founded in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1912. The Ashdown store, which served approximately 2,300 citizens at the time of this circa 1940 photograph, is shown to the left.

The Arkansas Railroad Museum in Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) grew out of an effort by the Cotton Belt Historical Society in 1983 to preserve the last steam-powered locomotive built in Arkansas, Cotton Belt SSW 819. The museum, which houses a large collection of railroad artifacts, is located in the old Cotton Belt shops constructed between 1882 and 1894. The building and grounds are still owned by the Union Pacific Railroad but are leased to the City of Pine Bluff.

The Marion County Courthouse, located in Yellville, has been the site of one of the most controversial activities to occur during the Turkey Trot Festival, one of many festivals throughout the state. 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 the years, the drop evolved into 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.

In 1927, famed author Ernest Hemingway married Pauline Pfeiffer of Piggott (Clay County). About a year after their marriage, she and her new husband traveled to Arkansas, their first of several trips, to visit her family in Piggott. While visiting, Hemingway claimed the barn shown here as his private writing studio, and he penned portions of his novel A Farewell to Arms there.

Blues guitarist William “Big Bill” Broonzy, who attained prominence as a performer and composer in 1930s Chicago, Illinois, maintained a stylish image that belied his beginnings on southern tenant farms. Born on June 26, most likely in 1893, in Scott, Mississippi, to former slaves, Broonzy grew up in the Pine Bluff area (Jefferson County).

At the outbreak of World War II, John Yancey of Conway County enlisted in the Marine Corps, serving in the Pacific Theater in an elite special unit known as Carleson’s Raiders. By war’s end, he had received a Navy Cross and a battlefield commission as lieutenant. He later volunteered for the Korean War, in which he received a Silver Star and a second Navy Cross. He attempted to reenlist to serve in the war in Vietnam, but his request was denied due to his former battle injuries. He died in 1986 and is buried in the Little Rock National Cemetery.

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 1859, when Graham accepted a position at Newton College in Mississippi, William Baxter was hired as his replacement. In March 1862, the school buildings were burned by Confederate forces, closing the school’s doors forever.

The Forrest L. Wood Crowley’s Ridge Nature Center, one of four nature centers built throughout the state by the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, is located near Jonesboro (Craighead County). Money for the 17,033-square-foot, three-story education, exhibit and meeting facility, which opened on August 25, 2004, was provided by Amendment 75, passed in 1996. The center is located on 160 acres, which comprise a small prairie, a pond, and approximately 100 acres of woodland landscape.

The Forrest L. Wood Crowley’s Ridge Nature Center, one of four nature centers built throughout the state by the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, is located near Jonesboro (Craighead County). Money for the 17,033-square-foot, three-story education, exhibit and meeting facility, which opened on August 25, 2004, was provided by Amendment 75, passed in 1996. The center is located on 160 acres, which comprise a small prairie, a pond, and approximately 100 acres of woodland landscape.

Paul Lawrence Dunbar High School, located at the corner of Wright Avenue and Ringo Street in Little Rock (Pulaski County), was completed in 1929 as the Negro School of Industrial Arts. From 1929 to 1955, Dunbar offered a comprehensive education for local black students. The building shown in this postcard was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.

The Arkansas State Captiol is shown here in 1914, shortly before completion. Work on the capitol started in May 1899. After many delays caused by faulty work and political opposition in June 1909, Governor George Donaghey and the Capitol Commission hired architect Cass Gilbert to take over the project. The building was occupied in January 1911 and completed by January 1915.

Of the seventy-five counties in Arkansas, several have been named in honor of patriots from the Revolutionary War era. One such honoree is Major General Nathanael Greene. At the outbreak of the war, he was named commander of Rhode Island’s 1,600 troops, and he eventually became one of General George Washington’s most gifted and reliable officers. On November 5, 1833, the territorial legislature named the newest county then to be created in Greene’s honor.

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. This welcome center located near Lake Village (Chicot County) helps tell the story of the road.

Approximately forty-five species and subspecies of snakes inhabit Arkansas. Six of these, including the Texas coral snake, such as the one shown in this photograph, are venomous. Fortunately, the colorful Texas coral’s habitat is restricted to only a few of the state’s southern counties.

The unexpected death of Senator Thaddeus Caraway (right) in 1931 set in motion a series of events that would make national history. Just a week after Caraway’s death, Governor Harvey Parnell appointed Caraway’s wife, Hattie Caraway (left), to fill the vacant seat. Approximately one month later, she was elected in a special election, becoming the first woman to be elected to the United States Senate.

Public health nurse Mamie O. Hale (who became Mamie O. Garland after her marriage in 1949) is shown here leaving a client’s home; circa 1945. In 1945, Hale was appointed midwife consultant for the Arkansas Department of Health, responsible for training Arkansas’s largely illiterate and elderly midwives. She supervised them at deliveries, taught them to register births, and promoted their certification as trained midwives.