Days in AR History - Starting with D

The Memphis-Arkansas Memorial Bridge opened. For the first time, four-lane automobile commerce was possible between Arkansas and Memphis, Tennessee. It replaced an earlier wooden structure, the Harahan Bridge, which opened to automobile traffic in 1916 and allowed a single lane of traffic on each side of the Frisco Railway bridge. The Harahan Bridge caught fire in September 1928 and remained closed to automobile traffic for a year and a half during repairs. The Memphis-Arkansas Memorial Bridge cost $10.5 million to build. It carries an estimated 50,000 cars a day, which is about 5,000 fewer than the newer Desoto Bridge.

Lottie Stephens, the first African-American school teacher in the Little Rock (Pulaski County) school district, died. She was also the first African American to be accredited by the North Central Association and was a charter member of the National Association of Colored Women (NACW) federated club in Little Rock.

The Witt Stephens Jr. Central Arkansas Nature Center opened. The center, whose mission is introducing the public to the importance of conservation education in Arkansas, is the fourth nature center established by the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission (AGFC) and is funded by the Amendment 75 Conservation Sales Tax, allowing the center to provide free admission. Covering almost three and a half acres of land within the Julius Breckling Riverfront Park in the River Market District in Little Rock (Pulaski County), it is located along the Arkansas River Trail between the First Security Amphitheater and the Interstate 30 Arkansas River bridge.

The post office in Oden (Montgomery County) opened with Louis J. Johnson as postmaster. In the early twentieth century, Oden was a thriving town with businesses including a hotel, a bank, a hardware store, grocery stores, and a service station. A predominantly agricultural community, Oden was incorporated in 1929. Oden is eight miles west of Mount Ida, the county seat, and is on the north bank of the Ouachita River. Oden’s population in 2010 was 232.

The Ouachita National Forest, originally called the Arkansas National Forest, was created through an executive order issued by President Theodore Roosevelt. Forest Service Chief Gifford Pinchot remarked at the time that this national forest was the only major shortleaf pine forest under the federal government’s protection. In January 1908, the Arkansas Sentinel newspaper reprinted an article from Forestry and Irrigation Magazine that praised the hearty spirit of cooperation manifested by Arkansas’s people and spoke of benefits to be gained by the conservation of timber supplies.

Gravelly (Yell County) native Arthur Hunnicutt was born. Personifying the rustic but savvy characterizations of his home state, Hunnicutt became one of the most sought-after character actors in Hollywood and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for 1952’s The Big Sky.

Lockesburg (Sevier County) native Effiegene Locke Wingo, the second of only four women from Arkansas to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, reintroduced a bill to create the Ouachita National Park. The proposal was originally the idea of her husband, who had been in the U.S. House of Representatives from Arkansas’s Fourth Congressional District and had died the previous year.

Carlotta Walls LaNier, the youngest member of the Little Rock Nine, was born in Little Rock (Pulaski County). Inspired by Rosa Parks, whose refusal to give up her bus seat to a white passenger sparked the 1955 Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott, as well as the desire to get the best education available, Walls enrolled in Central High School as a sophomore. In 1958, LaNier was awarded the prestigious Spingarn Medal by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), along with the other Little Rock Nine and Daisy Bates. She went on to serve as president of the Little Rock Nine Foundation, a scholarship organization dedicated to ensuring equal access to education for African Americans.

Edward Cole, who had bought the Arkansas Gazette from founder William E. Woodruff, became editor of the paper. Woodruff had previously sold his interest in the paper to Thomas Jefferson Pew, who returned the interest to Woodruff in May 1838. Cole, however, was unable to pay his debts, and George H. Burnett took over proprietorship in October 1840, again pledging to continue the paper’s support of the Democratic Party. Burnett, though, became seriously ill, and Stephen S. Tucker assumed control during his absence.

Charles Maynard “Savvy” Cooke Jr. was born in Fort Smith (Sebastian County). Cooke rose through the ranks of the U.S. Navy from academy cadet to four-star admiral during an extraordinary career spanning more than two decades and two world wars. He survived a sinking submarine; came under attack at Pearl Harbor; had shrapnel strike his helmet on Omaha Beach during the D-Day invasion; attended wartime summits in Casablanca, Quebec, Cairo, Teheran, Yalta, and Potsdam; and stood on the deck of the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay to witness the Japanese surrender.

Evangelist John Brown married Juanita Arrington in Salisaw, Oklahoma. He had met Arrington at one of his revivals in Salisaw when she served as a last-minute fill-in piano player for an evening meeting. Brown later settled in Siloam Springs (Benton County), where he established the Southwestern Collegiate Institute (now John Brown University).

Construction started on Eberts Field after the U.S. government accepted Lonoke County’s bid for an aviation school to locate near the town of Lonoke. Lonoke offered 960 rent-free acres and a new railroad spur connecting the field with the Rock Island Railroad tracks. Eberts Field, maintained by the U.S. government, was one of the leading training centers for aviators during World War I.

Siloam Springs’ Memorial Hospital opened in Siloam Springs (Benton County). The hospital was built in memory of citizens killed in World War II, and much of the material needed for this project was donated. Volunteers did the labor, and all cash needed was raised locally so that no federal money was used—this was unusual enough to gain national attention.

Pearl Oldfield, who became the first woman from Arkansas to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, was born to a farm family near Cotton Plant (Woodruff County). After her husband, William Oldfield, died during his twentieth year of service in the U.S. House of Representatives, the Democratic Central Committee nominated his widow to serve the remainder of his unexpired term and to serve the full term to which he had just been elected. She was elected and served from January 9, 1929, to March 3, 1931.

Charline Woodford Beasley Person was born in Lewisville (Lafayette County). Person ran a 5,000-acre cotton plantation in Miller County, Arkansas, after the death of her husband. Person was an active community and church leader, helping build the community church in Garland (Miller County) and steering her hometown through the Great Depression. She was also the only woman chosen to represent Arkansas at the St. Louis Exposition of 1926.

The town of Fourche (Perry County) was incorporated. The town of Fourche (the name is pronounced to rhyme with “bush”) is located on the banks of the Fourche La Fave River and was once a thriving lumber town. At its height, Fourche had a train depot, a bank, a cotton gin, a hotel, a stock yard, and a post office.

Marian (Ruth Kruse) Breland Bailey, a pioneer in the field of animal behavior, was born. Marian and her first husband, Keller Breland, were the first to use operant conditioning technology for commercial purposes. From their Hot Springs (Garland County) farm, the Brelands exported the new technology all over the world.

Author Thyra Samter Winslow died. Winslow wrote more than 200 stories published between 1915 and 1955 in the heyday of American popular magazines. Her early life in Fort Smith (Sebastian County) provided background for her view of small towns as prejudiced, hypocritical, suffocating places. She was a principal contributor to Smart Set, and some of her work was collected in books. In 1960, she visited Fort Smith for the last time. Later that year, she was paralyzed by a fall and remained hospitalized until her death. Her funeral was at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York—she had converted from Judaism to Catholicism during her last illness—and she is buried in the Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Westchester County, New York.

Witt Stephens died of natural causes; he is buried at Philadelphia Cemetery in Prattsville (Grant County). A prominent businessman who founded Stephens Inc., Stephens played a major role in the economic development of the state through his post–World War II work with the natural gas industry. He established several gas companies within Arkansas and eventually became president and chairman of the board of Arkansas Louisiana Gas (ArkLa).

The first episode of The Simple Life was broadcast on the Fox network. The show was a surprise success, with the first episode drawing thirteen million viewers. The reality television series depicts two wealthy young socialites, Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie, as they struggle with everyday tasks, including manual labor and low-paying jobs such as doing farm work, serving meals in fast-food restaurants, and working as camp counselors. The first season of The Simple Life (2003–2004) was set in Altus (Franklin County), a small town in the Ozark Mountains known for its vineyards.

The poem “De Minimus” (For the Smallest Thing), which was written by Fay Hempstead to show how every great thing in nature arose from something small, was read (presumably by the author) at the dedication of Little Rock Commercial College. Hempstead was an attorney, poet, and dedicated member of the Freemasons who also wrote the first school textbook on Arkansas history.

The sixteenth governor of Arkansas, James Philip Eagle, died of heart failure in Little Rock (Pulaski County). As governor, Eagle faced a divided Democratic Party and a General Assembly bent on enacting a series of “Jim Crow” laws to segregate Arkansas society along racial lines. By the time Eagle left office, the dominance of the Democratic Party had been restored, but Arkansans were more racially divided than at any time since the days of slavery.

Author Gina Wilkins was born in Little Rock (Pulaski County). Wilkins has written more than ninety-five books. A life-long resident of central Arkansas, Wilkins obtained a journalism degree from Arkansas State University (ASU) and worked in advertising and human resources until she sold her first book in 1987 to Harlequin. Hero in Disguise was the title of her first published work. It appeared in the Harlequin Temptation imprint, and she has stayed within the romance genre all her writing life. Within the genre, she has written romantic comedies, family sagas, romantic suspense, and romance with paranormal elements.

Operation New Life at Fort Chaffee, located near Fort Smith (Sebastian County), came to an end, with a total of 50,809 Indochinese refugees having been processed. The state of Arkansas had been tapped by the federal government to be one of four main entry points for Indochinese refugees. The presence and availability of the facilities at Fort Chaffee made it an ideal location for processing tens of thousands of Indochinese seeking refuge from their war-torn region.

Twin Groves (Faulkner County) was incorporated. Twin Groves is located on Highway 65 between Greenbrier (Faulkner County) and Damascus (Van Buren and Faulkner counties). Twin Groves was formed in 1991 by the combination of two unincorporated communities, Solomon Grove and Zion Grove.

Blues musician Son Seals, who was born in Osceola (Mississippi County), died in Richton Park, Illinois, from complications of diabetes. His left leg had been amputated below the knee in 1999 because of the disease. Two years before that, his ex-wife shot him in the face while he slept, resulting in months of reconstructive surgery. Finally, fire destroyed his motor home, and his custom-made guitar was stolen. He was survived by fourteen children from one marriage and various long-term relationships over the years. A singer who became a driving force behind a brief but stormy rejuvenation of the blues throughout the mid-to-late 1970s, Seals dominated the Chicago blues scene as no one has since.

Letters by Alden Woodruff, son of publisher William Woodruff, were published in the Arkansas State Democrat, giving details of his experiences searching for gold in the fields of California. These letters and excerpts of articles by F. J. Thibault detailing their experiences helped to provide a record of the history of the many Arkansans who joined the westward movement.

The original Baring Cross Bridge, the first bridge built across the Arkansas River, opened to a large crowd of people. It is the westernmost bridge of the six bridges spanning the Arkansas River in downtown Little Rock (Pulaski County). The iron and wooden bridge consisted of four Howe Truss spans and one navigation swing span for a total length of 978 feet. The bridge cost $349,277.40 (approximately $5,822,454 in 2003 dollars). Its modern replacement is a steel double-track bridge with a lift navigation span. The bridge remains one of the busiest railroad bridges in the country.

A mob of masked men entered the jail in DeWitt (Arkansas County) and shot three men: Floyd McGregory (sometimes written as Gregory) and his father-in-law, J. A. Smith (who were both white), as well as Mose Henderson (who was African American). The three men had been put in jail for plotting to kill Smith’s wife, who had divorced him and received one-third of his property in the settlement. The Deseret Evening News of Salt Lake City, Utah, having received a telegram about the incident, decried this lack of outrage: “The miscreants deserved their fate, but that makes no excuse for the assassins who took the law into their own hands, thus striking one more blow for anarchy.”

William Bunch, known as “Peetie Wheatstraw,” was born in Ripley, Tennessee, although some accounts list Bunch’s birthplace as Arkansas. Bunch was raised in Cotton Plant (Woodruff County) and became one of the most popular and widely imitated bluesmen of the 1930s and 1940s. He was an incredibly successful pianist, recording more than 160 songs between 1930 and 1941.

Hershel Wayne Gober, who became the highest-ranking federal government official from southeast Arkansas, was born at Monticello (Drew County). Gober served in the military for ten years, retiring as a major in 1978. He was appointed by Governor Bill Clinton to serve as director of Veterans Affairs for Arkansas in January 1988 and served until February 1993, when he resigned to go to Washington DC because President Bill Clinton had appointed him deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. He served as acting secretary in 1997 and again in 2000. In that capacity, he became a member of the president’s cabinet.

Dr. Winfred L. Thompson, seventh president of the University of Central Arkansas (UCA), resigned. He is credited with the biggest building program in UCA’s history and presided over $125 million in new construction and renovation of existing facilities. During his presidency, UCA received three doctoral programs: a PhD in school psychology and a PhD and DPT in physical therapy. UCA has long been a leader in the field of physical therapy, not only in Arkansas but nationally as well. UCA, which has been one of Arkansas’s leading institutions of higher education for more than 100 years, began as a normal school (teacher training institution) with approximately 100 students in 1908.

Opie Read was born in Nashville, Tennessee. Read, a newspaperman who cofounded the comic newspaper The Arkansas Traveler, wrote several successful novels. In his heyday, Read was one of the best-paid novelists in America. Arkansas provided much of the education for this newspaperman, author, and lecturer as he worked for three Little Rock (Pulaski County) newspapers: the Arkansas Gazette, the Arkansas Evening Democrat, and the Evening Ledger. His work as city editor and his associations with the state’s antebellum elite provided him with decades of literary material.

Tupelo (Jackson County) was incorporated. Located about eighteen miles south of Newport (Jackson County), the town was at one time a station on the narrow gauge Batesville and Brinkley Railroad (B&B). The railroad allowed local crops, especially cotton and timber, to be shipped to market. During its heyday, most of the town’s businesses were located along Tupelo’s Front Street on the east side of the highway and railroad bed.

Max Howell was born in Lonoke (Lonoke County). Howell was a politician who served in the Arkansas legislature longer than anyone in history, accumulating power rivaling that of the nine governors with whom he served. In his forty-six years in the legislature, forty-two of which were in the Senate, Howell sponsored more than 700 bills, altering the course of higher education and the judicial system and sharply expanding the state’s services for the disabled and mentally ill.

Author Donald Harington was born in Little Rock (Pulaski County). Entertainment Weekly described Harington as “America’s greatest unknown writer.” His more than fifteen books brought him critical recognition but little in the way of commercial success. His novels, usually set in the fictional Ozark town of Stay More, make up an interconnected body of fiction not unlike William Faulkner’s works about Yoknapatawpha County. Critics have seen in his work the influences of other major world writers such as Gabriel García Márquez and Vladimir Nabokov. In his works, Harington combined the folklore and folk life of the Ozark region with modernist and postmodernist techniques to create works that mix sex, comedy, and violence.

War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock (Pulaski County) hosted the Aluminum Bowl football game. The game pitted Montana State College against St. Joseph’s College of Indiana in the first national football championship game of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA). A variety of events and celebrations promoted the industries, ingenuity, and talent of Arkansas, but the game itself—rain soaked, poorly attended, and ending in a tie—was nothing short of a disaster. Even the halftime feature—Miss Arkansas, Barbara Banks, wearing a $25,000 dress made out of aluminum as she introduced Governor Orval Faubus—had to be bundled in a coat to protect the dress from the downpour.

Artist Louis Freund died in Little Rock (Pulaski County). Freund was a muralist who became famous for his depiction of life in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas during the 1930s. He and his wife, Elsie Bates Freund, founded the Summer Art School in Eureka Springs (Carroll County) and helped shape that resort town as a year-round community for artists and writers.

Justin Matthews Sr. was born on a farm near Monticello (Drew County). Matthews was a prominent Arkansas businessman, real estate developer, and community leader best known for his role in the development of the North Little Rock (Pulaski County) and Sherwood (Pulaski County) areas.

Singer “Sister Rosetta” Tharpe was included in John Hammond’s black music extravaganza From Spirituals to Swing, held at Carnegie Hall in New York City. After this well-publicized event, Tharpe went on a concert tour throughout the Northeast. Tharpe was one of gospel music’s first superstars, the first gospel performer to record for a major record label (Decca), and an early crossover from gospel to secular music.

Wesley Clark (whose original name was Wesley Kanne before his stepfather, Victor Clark, adopted him) was born in Chicago, Illinois. An Arkansas resident from a young age, Clark had a distinguished military career that propelled him into the international spotlight. His consulting business, high-profile television commentary, and political aspirations sustain his involvement with the nation’s political leaders and processes. He obtained the rank of a four-star general during his military career and acted as the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, Europe, from 1997 to 2000. During his first political race, in 2004, he was a Democratic candidate for president of the United States. Although unsuccessful in that race, he ran an effective campaign and ultimately turned his support to John Kerry’s bid.

Paragould (Greene County) native Paul Page Douglas Jr., who became an air force “ace,” married Sarah Lee Chandler. He had met her in Corpus Christi, Texas, before his transfer to England. They corresponded for more than three years before they married while he was on a short leave; three weeks later, Douglas returned to his command. They had two daughters and a son. Douglas retired as a brigadier general on February 1, 1970, having flown four different airplanes over the course of his career. Earning over sixty decorations, Douglas was one of the most decorated flyers in air force history. Following his retirement, he and his wife moved to Conway (Faulkner County), where he joined the staff of the University of Central Arkansas. Douglas died on December 26, 2002. He is buried in the Central Texas State Veteran’s Cemetery in Killeen, Texas.

Sam Kountz, who was born in Lexa (Phillips County) and overcame the disadvantages of being born black in the segregated Delta region of the state to become a highly successful renal surgeon and professor, died at his home in Kings Point, New York. Kountz, who failed the entrance examination to Arkansas Agricultural and Mechanical College (now the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff) but was nevertheless admitted because of his earnestness and determination, became a pioneer in renal transplantation.

The land for the Delta Heritage Trail State Park was acquired. The Delta Heritage Trail is being developed in phases along seventy-three miles of abandoned Union Pacific Railroad right-of-way through Phillips, Arkansas, and Desha counties in eastern Arkansas. The trail project starts one mile south of Lexa (Phillips County) and goes to Cypress Bend (Desha County). The first hiking and biking segment was opened in 2002 from Helena Junction (near Lexa) to Barton (Phillips County), along Arkansas 85, one mile south of U.S. 49. The corridor for trail development includes 887 acres of natural Delta lowlands, fifty-eight bridges (including spans over the White and Arkansas rivers), and numerous opportunities for wildlife viewing.

William Woodruff was born on a small farm in Fire Place on Long Island, New York. Woodruff’s life spanned the years of Arkansas’s territorial days, statehood, Confederacy, and Reconstruction. Although best known today as the founder of the Arkansas Gazette, the state’s first newspaper, Woodruff became one of the state’s most important and colorful historical figures through his other business interests, political connections, and efforts to promote Arkansas.

The city of Fort Smith was incorporated. Early in its history, the settlement, which was established as a military post to keep peace between Osage and Cherokee tribes, served as a point of contact with the American West and, later, as a supply post for gold rush prospectors and military centers. It was named for General Thomas A. Smith, the military district’s commander. Fort Smith is now the second-largest city in the state. Judge Isaac C. Parker presided over the Western Arkansas Federal District Court for more than twenty years in the late 1800s. Miss Laura’s Social Club, which is now the city’s Convention and Visitors Bureau, is the only former house of prostitution on the National Register of Historic Places.

An article written by Benjamin H. Crowley Jr.—a Paragould lawyer and former Confederate officer—appeared in the Daily Soliphone stating: “While the population of Greene County is virtually all white, there being less than a score of colored people in the county at this time, and our people are from all sections of the country, all are given an even chance and a square deal.” While there are no reports of violence, Crowley was in fact a member of the Ku Klux Klan, and black strangers were told to leave town before sundown. Black children there were not offered any form of public education until 1950 when they were bussed to a public school in Jonesboro (Craighead County).

The Wilburn family children made their first public performance, on a street corner in Thayer, Missouri. The Wilburn Brothers were among the most successful and influential sibling duos in the country music industry during the 1950s, 1960s, and early 1970s. Brothers Virgil Doyle (“Doyle”) Wilburn (1930–1982) and Thurman Theodore (“Teddy”) Wilburn (1931–2003), who hailed from Hardy (Sharp County), were stars of the Grand Ole Opry, recording artists with over thirty albums, recipients of the only “Lifetime Recording Contract” ever given by Decca Records, and hosts of their own nationally syndicated country music show for eleven years. In addition, they were talent agents who helped launch the careers of many other legendary country music stars, including Loretta Lynn, Patty Loveless, and the Osborne Brothers.

Charles Maynard “Savvy” Cooke Jr. died in Palo Alto, California; he is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Cooke rose through the ranks of the U.S. Navy from academy cadet to four-star admiral during an extraordinary career spanning more than two decades and two world wars. He survived a sinking submarine; came under attack at Pearl Harbor; had shrapnel strike his helmet on Omaha Beach during the D-Day invasion; attended wartime summits in Casablanca, Quebec, Cairo, Teheran, Yalta, and Potsdam; and stood on the deck of the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay to witness the Japanese surrender.

Governor David Pryor declared December 24, 1976, to be Robert “Say” McIntosh Day. McIntosh became a restaurant owner, political activist, and community organizer distinctly tied to the Little Rock (Pulaski County) area and Arkansas politics. The 1980s saw the most prolific (and outlandish) period of McIntosh’s political career, including a faux crucifixion in 1981 on the steps of the Arkansas State Capitol during a anti-racism demonstration targeting various state legislators and Governor Frank White.