October 8, 1905

Elmer Wayne Mikel was born in Jenny Lind (Sebastian County). Mikel was a bootlegger during Prohibition and later became a self-published author who wrote books and essays about his criminal life and his experiences at the notorious Tucker State Prison Farm (which later became the Tucker Unit of the Arkansas Department of Correction) in Jefferson County in the 1930s. Mikel was also a songwriter who wrote about Arkansas subjects, including the deadly Greenwood (Sebastian County) tornado of 1968. In 1970, Mikel wrote and self-published Uncle Tom’s Prison, which recounted his life as a criminal and prisoner, and issued an album of the same name with his musical collaborator Glenn R. Arters.