February 22, 2007

In 1923, Dentler Rowland of Jonesboro (Craighead County) sold part of a collection of approximately eighty stone objects, the largest of which was a statue dubbed King Crowley. Rowland claimed to have discovered the objects on Crowley’s Ridge. Though he presented them as Native American in origin, and though many prominent Arkansans (including Bernie Babcock) accepted them as legitimate, representatives of the Smithsonian doubted their authenticity. Today, the “fakes” are identified by most modern researchers as folk art. King Crowley is in a private collection, but the Arkansas State University Museum in Jonesboro owns a collection of thirty-six objects made by Rowland.