March 16, 2009

To help fund the Arkansas centennial celebration in 1936, the U.S. Congress approved the minting of two commemorative half-dollar coins. Shown here is the Arkansas Half Dollar, bearing a portrait of an Indian chief and a white figure of idealized Liberty on its obverse. The reverse, designed by Little Rock (Pulaski County) artist Edward Everett Burr, depicts a spread-winged eagle with a background of stars in the shape of a diamond. Eighty-five thousand of the Arkansas Half Dollar coins were minted between 1935 and 1939.