Photos of the Day - Starting with F

A major issue during the early-twentieth-century Progressive Era was the passage of the initiative and referendum. In the summer of 1910, Governor George Donaghey (shown here) and populist William J. Bryan made a five-day, 1,750-mile whistle-stop train tour through the state to support the passage of the measure in Arkansas. Before the tour was complete, fifty-five speeches had been delivered to an estimated 100,000 citizens. The measure passed by popular vote later that year.

In 1949, fifteen-year-old Sue Kidd of Van Buren County became a member of the Springfield Sallies, a team in the professional All-American Girls Baseball League. She had considerable pitching success with three different teams in a career that lasted approximately five years. As a pitcher for the South Bend Blue Sox, in whose team uniform she is shown here, she was instrumental in helping the team win the 1951 and 1952 league championships.

Millwood State Park is located in southwest Arkansas near Ashdown (Little River County) on the shores of Millwood Lake. The 29,550-acre lake was created in 1966 when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers constructed the longest earthen dam in Arkansas, stretching some 3.3 miles. In 1976, the Corps signed a lease with the state parks system leading to the creation of the state park. The lake, with its trademark standing timber, is well known for its excellent bass fishing.

James Bales, a professor of Bible and theology at Harding University in Searcy (White County) in the mid-twentieth century, gained a national reputation as a debater and author on theological and political issues. He was especially known for his anti-communist debates and activities. He published more than seventy books and numerous articles during his long career.

Since Ouachita County was founded in 1842, its government has occupied several different courthouses in Camden. The first two were destroyed by fire, a common occurrence in Arkansas, and the third, shown here in the 1890s, was almost completely destroyed by a tornado in 1931. It was rebuilt (completed in 1933) and that structure is still in use today.

Maryland native William Savin Fulton was the last territorial governor of Arkansas. Fulton, a veteran of the War of 1812 and the first Seminole War, was appointed territorial secretary in 1829 by his friend, President Andrew Jackson. Jackson then appointed him territorial governor in 1835. When Arkansas achieved statehood in 1836, he was elected one of the state’s first two U.S. senators. Reelected in 1840, he served in the office until his death in 1844.

The goal of the Walton Arts Council, formed in the 1980s, was the construction of an arts center for the Fayetteville (Washington County) area. A donation from the Walton family to the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville, combined with $7 million raised from private donations, was used to build the Walton Arts Center, shown here in 2008.

U.S. district judge William Ray Overton is best known for his 1982 ruling in McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education, which held the teaching of creationism to be unconstitutional. The plaintiffs challenged the constitutionality of Act 590 of 1981, which required Arkansas public schools to have a “balanced treatment” between creation science and evolution. Overton ruled that “no group, no matter how large or small, may use the organs of government, of which the public schools are the most conspicuous and influential, to foist its religious beliefs on others.” 

Perhaps the most notorious incident of racial violence in Arkansas occurred on the streets of Little Rock (Pulaski County) on May 4, 1927. Citizens had been upset in late April when an African-American man accused of the murder of a young white girl had been moved out of the city for his safety. Less than one week later, John Carter was accused of assaulting a white woman and her daughter. A mob tracked him down and shot and hanged him. Carter is shown here hanging from a telephone pole before the mob burned his body and dragged it in a caravan of cars through the streets of Little Rock. No charges were ever filed against those involved in his lynching.

African-American lawyer Scipio Africanus Jones, shown here working at his desk in 1915, was admitted to practice law in the Pulaski County Circuit Court in 1889 and the Arkansas Supreme Court in 1900. He assisted families during the Argenta Race Riot in 1902 and later worked to free twelve African-American men sentenced to death following the Elaine Massacre in 1919.

Celia Alta Haskins married Orval E. Faubus in 1931. The newlyweds moved to Huntsville (Madison County), where Orval was elected circuit clerk and recorder. While he served in World War II, Alta fulfilled his elected duties. Alta Faubus became the state’s first lady in 1955. As first lady, she was involved in a number of activities, including volunteering at the Training School for Girls and serving in an advisory position on the state Board of Mental of Health. She also was a leader in the development of Arkansas Head Start. She and Orval were divorced in 1969.

Twila Paris was one of the twentieth century’s most successful singers, songwriters, and pianists in the area of contemporary Christian music. During the peak of her career, she received ten Dove Awards and three American Song Writer Awards. She has charted more than thirty number-one hits on the Christian contemporary charts. She continues to compose, record, and tour from her home base in Washington County.

Bayou Bartholomew, which begins in Jefferson County and runs some 359 miles through five other Arkansas counties before entering Louisiana, was the major waterway for transportation through the interior Delta during much of the nineteenth century. With a million-acre watershed, it is the longest bayou in the world.

When Arkansas’s third territorial governor, John Pope, engaged architect Gideon Shryock to design a capitol building in 1833, he envisioned a structure that “would command the admiration and respect of the passing stranger, and have moral and political influence on the whole community.” The building, which is shown here in the 1930s, was abandoned in 1911 when a new capitol was occupied. The building has served many purposes since then. Today, it is the home of the widely respected Old State House Museum.

The Clark County Library, one of the oldest library buildings in Arkansas, is representative of early efforts to establish libraries in the state. On November 11, 1897, about thirty Arkadelphia (Clark County) women formed the Women’s Library Association with a goal of establishing a public library in Arkadelphia. After the library had occupied several locations, a library building fund was created in 1899. In 1903, a loan was secured and construction of a library building, shown here, began. By 1913, the debt was fully paid.

Augustus Hill Garland of Hempstead County was prohibited from practicing law due to his service in the Confederate Congress during the Civil War. Garland contested the 1865 law that debarred him, arguing that the law was ex post facto and therefore unconstitutional. Garland’s argument was confirmed when, in 1867, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in his favor in Ex parte Garland. The decision opened the door for him to serve as governor, U.S. senator, and as U.S. attorney general under President Grover Cleveland.

Augustus Hill Garland of Hempstead County was prohibited from practicing law due to his service in the Confederate Congress during the Civil War. Garland contested the 1865 law that debarred him, arguing that the law was ex post facto and therefore unconstitutional. Garland’s argument was confirmed when, in 1867, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in his favor in Ex parte Garland. The decision opened the door for him to serve as governor, U.S. senator, and as U.S. attorney general under President Grover Cleveland.

The Dean B. Ellis Library is centrally located on the campus of Arkansas State University in Jonesboro (Craighead County), occupying this eight-story building. The library is the educational center of the university community and includes a collection of more than 1.5 million items.

Benjamin Joseph Altheimer Sr. of Pine Bluff (Jefferson County), shown here with his niece in 1945, was a lawyer and philanthropist known for promoting innovative agricultural research and education. Altheimer became vitally interested in agriculture and helped develop and promote some of the latest technologies in the 1930s and 1940s. In 1942, he created the Ben J. Altheimer Foundation, which provided funds to build a clerical and machine trade school, a technical school building, and a Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts building in the town of Altheimer (Jefferson County).

The suspension bridge built at Tumbling Shoals (Cleburne County) over the Little Red River was one of three such bridges built in the area by Henry Churchill in about 1912. Measuring some 440 feet in length, the bridge was salvaged before the waters of Greers Ferry Lake covered its location in the 1960s. One of the other bridge sites was also covered by the waters; however, the third bridge remained in use until 1989, when it collapsed, killing five people.

Diamond Cave, located near Jasper (Newton County), was a major tourist attraction starting in the 1920s, with its several rooms, mineral formations, and crystal-clear pools. During the attraction’s heyday, the area surrounding the cave consisted of campgrounds, a hotel, a restaurant, and a skating rink. The cave and the area continued to attract visitors until the cave was eventually closed in the mid-1990s.

Upon graduating from the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County) with a law degree, Tom Terral established a private law practice and taught school. Becoming active in Democratic politics, he was elected secretary of state in 1916. He was elected governor in 1924 due in part to his joining the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) to gain votes. During his term, Petit Jean State Park was opened, construction was begun on the Arkansas State Hospital, and the post of Commissioner of Insurance and Revenue was created. Being defeated in his bid for reelection in 1926, he retired from politics.

Harold Jenkins of Helena (Phillips County) took his stage name from the towns of Conway (Faulkner County) and Twitty, Texas, thus becoming Conway Twitty. As a rockabilly and country legend, Twitty topped the charts more than fifty times, with the 1958 release of “It’s Only Make Believe” being the first to climb to number one.

In 1884, Paragould was designated the county seat of Greene County. A temporary courthouse was used for the first few years. Plans for a new brick courthouse were begun in August 1887. Completed in 1888, the building constructed by S. R. McGinnis and W. F. Boone cost almost $15,000. The new two-story Georgian Revival was crowned by an impressive clock tower, which was removed in 1965. When a new courthouse was constructed in the 1990s, the old brick structure fell into disrepair. Added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976, it has since been restored to its former beauty.

The spring-fed Caddo River is considered an excellent Arkansas float stream. The mountain stream originates southeast of the town of Mena (Polk County) and flows generally from west to east approximately forty-five miles through the Ouachita National Forest, where it is impounded by DeGray Lake. From the base of DeGray Lake, the Caddo flows in a generally southeasterly route of about seven miles before it joins with the Ouachita River.

When this map was printed in about 1820, Arkansas had recently become a U.S. territory with a population of just over 14,200 citizens. As shown in this map, the territory included not only modern-day Arkansas but parts of what would later become the state of Oklahoma.

The mining town of Rush (Marion County) once boasted a population of approximately 5,000. A reported silver strike brought miners to the area in the 1880s. A smelter, such as the one seen in this photo, proved the suspected silver to be zinc. A growing world market for the mineral brought rapid growth to the town, which peaked with the zinc demands of World War I. After the war, demand rapidly declined, as did the town’s population. Today, the now-deserted ghost town is a part of the Buffalo National River area and is on the National Register of Historic Places.

The courthouse grounds in many of the state’s county seats are dominated by monuments dedicated to the former Confederacy. Marianna (Lee County), located in the Arkansas Delta, is one such county seat. Created in 1873 and named in honor of Robert E. Lee, the county features a statue of the Confederate general on its courthouse lawn.

After graduating from Hall High School in Little Rock (Pulaski County), Wesley Kanne Clark accepted an appointment to West Point, where he graduated first in his class in 1966. A Vietnam veteran, Clark rose to the rank of a four-star general and acted as the Supreme Allied Commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Europe from 1997 to 2000. His first political race was a failed attempt to obtain the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004. Clark has served as president and CEO of Wesley K. Clark and Associates. He has also provided commentary to CNN and FOX News as a military and foreign affairs analyst.

Most people associate the bathhouses of Hot Springs (Garland County) with the luxurious Bath House Row. However, early “bath houses” were far from this image. Most early baths used a tank to collect water for troughs or, like the Corn Hole bath shown here, they consisted of a crude wooden frame with a canvas top built around the spring. Many of the springs were known by what ailment they were supposed to relieve. The Corn Hole was believed to relieve suffering from corns, bunions, and other foot-related problems. One of seven baths present in 1856, it dried up in 1882.

The Janet Huckabee Arkansas River Valley Nature Center, located in Fort Smith (Sebastian County) is one of the four nature centers owned and operated by the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. The center, named in honor of former Arkansas first lady Janet Huckabee, interprets the natural environment of the Arkansas River Valley, as well as expands upon the mission of the agency. The 14,000-square-foot nature center opened in 2006.

For approximately fifty years, Parnell Springs, located in Bradley County, was a thriving community and health resort. By the 1880s, the waters of the springs brought large numbers of people to the area seeking a cure for their ailments. A hotel and other overnight accommodations were constructed. Ownership of the springs changed several times over the years, and hard times and declining patronage resulted in the closing of the resort in the 1930s. Today, all that remains are the springs, which are shown here in this circa 1916 photograph.

Marion Berry, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, was born in 1942 in Stuttgart (Arkansas County). By profession a pharmacist and a farmer, Berry entered politics in 1986 when he was appointed to the Arkansas Soil and Water Conservation Commission by Governor Bill Clinton. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from the First Congressional District approximately ten years later.

The Arkansas Air Museum, the state’s first and largest aviation museum, is located at Drake Field in Fayetteville (Washington County). The museum, which opened its doors in 1986, is housed in an all-wood hangar constructed during World War II. The building is the oldest aviation-related structure still standing in northwest Arkansas.

Approximately three years after Pulitzer Prize-winning poet John Gould Fletcher moved back to his native Little Rock (Pulaski County), he married fellow accomplished writer Charlie May Simon. The couple, though often traveling the world, lived in their dream home on a bluff overlooking the Arkansas River. The colonial revival house named “Johnswood,” shown here in the 1950s, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1994.

William Hope Harvey, nicknamed “Coin” for his position on free silver in the late 1800s, founded both the resort of Monte Ne (Benton County) and the Ozark Trails Association, establishing him as a pioneer in the promotion of Arkansas tourism. By the Great Depression, becoming displeased with the two major political parties’ economic policies, he founded the Liberty Party in 1931 to promote reforms. The next year, he ran as the party’s nominee for president of the United States.

The late-nineteenth-century temperance leader Carry A. Nation spent her last years in Eureka Springs (Carroll County). She purchased a nearby farm and a house in the downtown area, which was to become a school to promote temperance. The house, named after her hatchet-wielding saloon attacks, was known as Hatchet Hall and can be seen in this 1935 photo. It was still standing as of 2019.

Bypassed by the main highways, town centers such as the one in Walnut Ridge (Lawrence County) have slowly slipped into decline. Once-active business districts now see little customer traffic, with many buildings having been abandoned. The tall white building on Walnut Ridge’s major street, shown to the left, once housed the area’s movie theater, which screened some of Hollywood’s most popular movies well into the 1970s.

In the early part of the twentieth century, William Montgomery Brown, Right Reverend of the Episcopal Diocese of Arkansas, introduced his “Arkansas Plan,” a groundbreaking program designed to reach out to the state’s African-American population. A controversial figure, Brown spent approximately thirteen years in Arkansas before returning to his native Ohio, where he died in 1937.

The streets of Harrison (Boone County) were far from deserted in October of 1905, the year this photo was taken. Early that month, a white mob took two African-American prisoners from the jail, whipped them, and ordered them to leave town. The mob then headed down the once sleepy streets to the black community and burned much of the area to the ground. The approximately thirty black citizens were ordered to leave town, and most did. Four years later in 1909, another mob drove out all black residents but one from the town.

The city of Lowell (Benton County) was originally a small settlement known as Robinson’s Cross Roads, settled in the 1840s along what was later called Old Wire Road. The original settlement consisted of about thirty homesteaders. A school was established in 1884; it was a two-story, two-room building that was also used as a meeting place for the Masons and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.

The antebellum house known as Estevan Hall in Helena (Phillips County) was built by the Hanks brothers in the 1820s and is possibly the oldest structure still standing in the county. It has been owned or occupied by members of the Hanks family since its construction. As with many of the area’s homes, it was used by the Union army during the Civil War. The exterior of the house has changed over time and presently shows a New Orleans French-style architectural influence. The structure was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.

Robert Ward Johnson, a prominent pre-Civil War politician who served in both the U.S. House of Representatives and and the U.S. Senate during the 1850s and 1860s, attempted to return to the Senate in 1878. After his defeat, it was discovered that a supporter had offered bribes to two African-American legislators for their votes (U.S. senators were not then directly elected). The embarrassing discovery ended Johnson’s public service. He died only a few months later.

St. Johns’ College in Little Rock (Pulaski County), a school created by Arkansas Freemasons, was the first institution of higher education chartered in the state (though the third to open). Chartered by the state legislature in 1850, the school did not open its doors until the fall of 1859. The Civil War hampered the growth of the school, which never fully recovered. In 1889, the Grand Lodge sold all of the college property. Shortly afterward, the college buildings burned to the ground. The school is shown here sometime in the 1870s.

During the last half of the nineteenth century, thousands of tourists began to flock to the resort town of Hot Springs (Garland County). Many of those sightseers journeyed to the spa city by the fastest means of transportation of the day, the railroad. Railroad companies used many ways to attract passengers. One of the most popular and least expensive was the distribution of free illustrated guidebooks. This guidebook, advertising Hot Springs as “America’s Baden-Baden,” was published in 1888 by the Iron Mountain & Southern Railway Co.

Gerald L. K. Smith was a minister and political agitator who built a series of “Sacred Projects,” tourist attractions with a religious theme, in Eureka Springs (Carroll County) beginning in the 1960s. He attained prominence first in the 1930s as an organizer for Louisiana political boss Huey P. Long but was known more for far-right activism, particularly for anti-Semitic and fascist causes. The magazine The Cross and the Flag, bearing photos of Smith and his wife, promoted his doctrine and beliefs.

The 11,038-acre Big Lake National Wildlife Refuge located in Mississippi County was established in 1915 to provide habitat and protection for migrating and wintering birds. Over the years, the mission has been expanded to protect endangered species. The area was a free-flowing river until the New Madrid Earthquakes of 1811-12 resulted in a sunken area that evolved into a lake/swamp ecosystem. Today, the natural area is a refuge for many species of animals.

Harding University, the largest private educational institution in the state, officially opened as Harding College in Morrilton (Conway County) in 1924. Due to ongoing financial problems partly the result of the Great Depression, the school moved to Searcy (White County) in 1934. The institution has continued to grow at this location, obtaining university status in 1979. The campus, which today occupies a 200-acre site, is shown here in 1961.

Freeman Owens of Pine Bluff (Jefferson County), shown here in 1911 with his Pathe camera, invented the Phonofilm, the first synchronized sound and film camera. He filed a patent application in June 1923. His employer, Dr. Lee De Forest, also filed for the patent. Owens lost the rights in a legal decision stating that the company owned all rights to inventions made by Owens.

Ouachita Baptist College, now Ouachita Baptist University, in Arkadelphia (Clark County) conducted its first session in the fall of 1888 and has operated continuously since that date. The school has seen considerable growth during its more than a century of operation. Much of that growth came in the 1950s and 1960s under the direction of Dr. Ralph Phelps Jr. Among the many buildings constructed during his tenure was the J. E. Berry Chapel and Bible Building shown here in this 1964 photograph.