February 20, 2009

In 1905, Hugh Dinsmore, a native of Benton County and a six-term U.S. congressman, became involved in an altercation with Governor Jeff Davis, who was running for the U.S. Senate. Approaching Dinsmore in the lobby of a Fayetteville (Washington County) hotel, Davis struck him with a cane. The ex-congressman subsequently pistol-whipped Davis. While the incident gathered statewide coverage, neither man was arrested. Shown here is a monument erected to Dinsmore by the Washington County Historical Society in 1955.