March 9, 1914

Physician and leader in the nineteenth-century movement to modernize medicine in Arkansas, William Blackwell Welch died in Fayetteville (Washington County). Welch began practicing medicine in Alabama after graduating from Tennessee’s University of Nashville medical department in 1849. Moving to Cane Hill (Washington County) in 1855, Welch went on to serve as an army surgeon to Confederate Company B, Thirty-fourth Arkansas Infantry. Later, when Arkansas regular physicians began engaging in professional organizing and advocacy, Welch emerged as a leader in the movement, co-founding and serving as the first vice president of the Washington County Medical Society.