July 11, 1906

Prominent nineteenth-century Arkansas lawyer and historian John Hallum died after a fall from the steps of a Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) hotel. At age fifteen, determined to become a lawyer, Hallum declined a scholarship to study for the ministry at Cumberland University, choosing instead to attend Wirt College. Although he failed to complete his collegiate studies, he continued to study law while holding a teaching position at a school in Memphis, Tennessee, and was admitted into the Tennessee bar in 1854 and opened a private practice. He served a brief stint in the Confederate army before being discharged due to illness. After resuming his practice, he served as counsel for Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest and later the Knights of the Golden Circle. In 1876, he moved his practice to Little Rock. He later wrote several works of history, most notably Biographical and Pictorial History of Arkansas (1887).