The EOA at 15: The 15 Most Popular Entries of the Past 15 Months

The past fifteen months have been a tumultuous time, and Arkansans—as they’ve been doing for fifteen years now, since our launch in May 2006—have looked to the CALS Encyclopedia of Arkansas to provide information and context as they navigated political news, social justice protests, and an unprecedented global pandemic.

The following entries were the fifteen entries viewed the most from March 2020 to May 2021. Click on the title of each for the link to the full EOA entry.

Sundown Towns

news article "negroes leave town of bonanza"
Newspaper account of African Americans leaving Bonanza (Sebastian County), from the Arkansas Gazette; May 7, 1904.

Elaine Massacre of 1919

twelve black men in overalls and work shirts in two rows
The twelve Elaine Massacre defendants.

Negro Boys Industrial School Fire of 1959

metal plaque with names on top of rock
Memorial plaque listing the names of the twenty-one African American boys who died in a fire at the 1959 Negro Boys Industrial School. Although a total of twenty-one boys died in the fire, the fourteen whose bodies could not be identified were buried in unmarked graves at Haven of Rest Cemetery; April 21, 2018.

One Drop Rule

news article "Act 320 makes cohabitation between the white and negro races a felony punishable with not less than one month nor more than one year in the penitentiary"
Article in the Batesville Daily Guard about the 38th General Assembly passage of Act 320.

Little Rock Nine

a white man in military garb standing next to several black teenagers
National Guardsman prevents four Black students from entering Little Rock Central High School; September 4, 1957. Students shown are (left to right) Carlotta Walls, Gloria Ray, Jane Hill, and Ernest Green.

Titan II Missile Explosion (1980)

a large hole in the ground with debris
Aerial view showing damage to the Titan II Missile silo after the 1980 explosion.

Trees

huge bare tree against blue sky
Chinquapin oak (Castanea ozarkensis) in Riverside Park in Batesville (Independence County); 2011. The tree is 102 feet tall. Chinquapin (Independence County) received its name from the chinquapin trees that once grew in the area. Logging practices and a chestnut blight that struck the Ozarks in the 1950s and 1960s virtually wiped out the tree. Today, very few chinquapin trees are left in Arkansas, and an effort is being made to replenish them.

Slavery

black letters on white background "negroes for sale"
Notice of slave auction at Spring Hill (Hempstead County); 1842.

Native Americans

fence post saying "choc" with barbed wire
Mile post no. 94, eight miles east of De Queen (Sevier County), which marked the 1877 boundary between Arkansas and the Choctaw Nation from Fort Smith (Sebastian County) to the Red River.

Ozark Mountains

two people standing on outcropping with trees and looking out over misty mountains with pink sky
Whitaker Point (a.k.a. Hawksbill Crag) in the Ozark Mountains in southwestern Newton County.

Civil War through Reconstruction, 1861 through 1874

group of men in work clothes standing in row with tents in background
The Thirteenth Regiment Illinois Infantry at Helena (Phillips County) during the summer of 1862, several months before participating in the Union victory at the Battle of Arkansas Post.

Albert Pike

older man in vest and suit jacket with white long hair and long beard smoking large pipe
Albert Pike, a political leader and lawyer who served as a Confederate general during the Civil War; circa 1880. He is perhaps best known as a national leader in Freemasonry.

European Exploration and Settlement, 1541 through 1802

white man in armor
Portrait of Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto, who led the first European expedition into what is now Arkansas.

Duggar Family

red and blue flyer with smiling white woman and man with a group of children holding stringed instruments
Jim Bob Duggar’s 2001 Arkansas Senate campaign card.

African Americans

group of black children of various ages posing in front of brick building
Group of students in front of an unidentified building at the Consolidated White River Academy in Brinkley (Monroe County); 1939.

We don’t yet know what information our readers will seek in the next fifteen months, and beyond, but we’ll be ready for them!

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