Days in AR History - Starting with J

A piano was introduced into the Fayetteville Christian Church’s worship service during the concluding Sunday service of a meeting preached by Dr. A. D. Mayo of Boston, Massachusetts. While an opposing minority seemingly acquiesced to the introduction of the instrument, by the end of the year, the non-instrumentalists were meeting separately. This effort evolved officially into the Second Christian Church, non-instrumental, in January 1891. The post–Civil War decades saw many Arkansas Restoration congregations divide over issues stemming from liturgical innovations and a general liberal theology that the more rural, conservative, and mainly Southern churches of Christ rejected as conflicting with the goals of the Restoration Movement and with scripture.

The buildings of St. Johns’ College in Little Rock (Pulaski County), the first college in Arkansas to receive a charter, burned to the ground. The Grand Lodge of Arkansas had ended its funding of the college in 1878 and “leased” it to Professor Leo Baier. Baier made some improvements, and the enrollment increased to 142 by 1881. After Baier retired, W. J. Alexander assumed the contract, and the college continued until 1882, when the Grand Lodge voted to sell all the property of the college and the Masonic Addition in order to raise funds to build a new Masonic temple in Little Rock. No students were taught at St. Johns’ after 1882.

The new Highway 22 bridge was dedicated, making the Dardanelle Pontoon Bridge obsolete. The Dardanelle Pontoon Bridge was the largest pontoon bridge in existence in the United States, crossing the Arkansas River between Dardanelle (Yell County) and Russellville (Pope County). A toll bridge, it opened for traffic in 1891 and lasted until the construction of a steel bridge replacement in 1929.

James Paul Clarke was inaugurated Arkansas’s eighteenth governor. Described by Joseph Taylor Robinson as a man whose “physical courage was primitive, at times almost savage,” Clarke had a fierce temper and once pulled a pistol on W. R. Jones, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, who had opposed Clarke’s attempted regulation of the railroad corporations. He was an advocate of the silver monetization crusade associated with the William Jennings Bryan wing of the Democratic Party. He was also a defender of white supremacy as the key doctrine of his party.

Jeff Davis was inaugurated as Arkansas’s twentieth governor, having won the election by crusading against the “Yankee trusts,” banks, corporations, and railroads. During his tenure as governor, he struggled to reform the state prison system, oversaw the construction of a new state capitol, and earned the ire of prohibitionists. There were several attempts to drive him from power, including one impeachment effort, but he survived and went on to win a seat in the U.S. Senate following his third term as governor.

Dow Chemical Company broke ground for a bromine plant four miles west of Magnolia (Columbia County). The importance of oil and gas drilling had declined in the area, but a new natural resources industry had arrived in the mid-1960s as chemical companies discovered the high bromine content of brine located thousands of feet beneath the earth’s surface. Bromine is an element used in numerous chemical and manufacturing processes. A second plant soon followed.

El Dorado (Union County) native Reece “Goose” Tatum died in El Paso, Texas. Tatum excelled at two sports, baseball and basketball, but is most famous for his basketball career with the Harlem Globetrotters. Known as “Goose” for his comic walk and for his exceptionally wide arm span, he is remembered more for his comic antics in games than for his athletic ability and accomplishments, which were considerable. Tatum was inducted into the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame in 1974. Tatum’s jersey, No. 50, was retired on February 8, 2002, sixty years after his first season. His was the fourth number the Globetrotters had retired. On the same occasion, he was entered into the Globetrotters’ “Legends” Ring at Madison Square Garden.

Helena (Phillips County) native Roberta Martin, famed gospel singer, died of cancer in Chicago, Illinois. She reportedly refused painkilling drugs during the time leading up to her death, believing that God could perform a miracle. At her funeral, 50,000 Chicagoans passed through Mount Pisgah Baptist Church to pay their last respects. Martin was one of the most significant figures during gospel music’s golden age (1945–1960). A performer and publisher, she reached iconic status in Chicago, where she influenced numerous artists and had an impact on an entire industry with her innovation and business acumen. Martin was honored posthumously by the Smithsonian Institution in 1981 with a colloquium and by the U.S. Postal Service in 1998 with a commemorative postage stamp.

David Yancey Thomas was born on a farm in southwest Kentucky in Fulton County. Despite his Kentucky heritage, Thomas went on to become one of the most influential academic historians in the field of Arkansas history. He reestablished the Arkansas Historical Association, served as the first editor of the Arkansas Historical Quarterly, and was chair of the Department of History at the University of Arkansas for twenty-eight years.

A meeting led by African-American leaders was held in Little Rock (Pulaski County) to protest a legislative bill known as the Tillman bill, proposed in January 1891, which required racially separate facilities on passenger coaches in railroad cars and waiting rooms and which provided for significant fines for anybody violating the provisions. The move was stimulated in part as a distraction by Democratic leaders against encroachment on their political and social dominance by a growing interest in groups such as Union Labor, agrarian, and populist organizations. About 600 people attended the meeting, which was addressed by prominent black professionals and businessmen.

Garland (Miller County) was incorporated. Located on the Red River in eastern Miller County, the community got its start around 1835 when William Wynn arrived at the banks of the Red River and established a farm.

John Johnson was born into abject poverty in Arkansas City (Desha County). He graduated from high school in Chicago, Illinois, where his mother had taken him at age nine following the accidental death of his father. Johnson became editor of the monthly newsletter of the insurance company where he worked while attending the University of Chicago; in 1942, with a $500 loan secured by his mother’s furniture, he published the first issue of Negro Digest, which was an instant success. He established the Johnson Publishing Company and, in 1945, began publication of Ebony. He began publishing Jet in 1951. He was named among the Forbes 400 richest Americans, and President Bill Clinton gave him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

The Sheridan Headlight announced the organization of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) in Grant County, noting that the members and meetings were unknown. In March 1922, the KKK demonstrated with a parade through the streets of Sheridan that drew one of the largest crowds of its time. However, in the late 1920s, the Klan declined rapidly in popularity in the state. Few black families lived in Sheridan (Grant County) until the 1920s, when those numbers increased due primarily to the arrival of forest industries that employed black workers.

Track and field star Al Joyner Jr. was born in East St. Louis, Illinois. Joyner won the gold medal at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles for the triple jump, the first American in eight decades to win the event and the first African American to do so. He attended Arkansas State University (ASU), where he later returned as a coach, and was the winner of the prestigious Jim Thorpe award, honoring the best American field athlete at the Olympics. He also married now-deceased track legend Florence Griffith, who came to be known as “Flo Jo” after her marriage to Joyner. His sister, Jackie Joyner Kersee, is also an Olympian.

The Skirmish at White Springs took place at the start of Brigadier General John S. Marmaduke’s Expedition into Missouri. Shelby reported only one Confederate casualty for this engagement, an enlisted man from Elliott’s Battalion. Shelby also reported twenty Federal troops killed and approximately twenty wounded, plus the capture of an unspecified number of prisoners.

James Byron Reed was born near Lonoke (Lonoke County). He was admitted to the state bar in 1906 and established a private practice that same year. He also ventured into politics, winning election to the Arkansas House of Representatives, where he served in 1907. He ultimately represented the Sixth District of Arkansas in the Sixty-eighth through the Seventieth U.S. Congresses, serving from 1923 to 1929.

Pietro Bandini died in Little Rock (Pulaski County) of heart failure. Bandini is most widely remembered in Arkansas for the 1898 founding of Tontitown (Washington County), located in the northwest corner of the state and designed to be a refuge for Italian immigrants who had come to Arkansas for work and ended up in diseased quarters on a Chicot County plantation. He was also a tireless advocate for immigrant communities throughout the nation and was honored by Pope Pius X and Queen Mother Margherita of Italy for his work.

Xenaphon Overton (X. O.) Pindall died in Little Rock (Pulaski County) after a fall from a bluff near the Arkansas River. Striking his head on some rocks, he fell into a pool of boiling water coming from the steam exhaust drain of a utility company. Pindall—attorney, Mason, civic leader, Democrat, and legislator—served as acting governor of Arkansas from May 15, 1907, until January 11, 1909. Rising to the position through an improbable series of circumstances, Pindall focused on the administrative detail of the office and used the power of appointment to shape the policies of state government.

Hattie Caraway, the first woman in the U.S. Senate, served her last day in the Senate, having been defeated in the previous year’s election by J. William Fulbright. During her career in the Senate, Caraway was known as “Silent Hattie,” but she was a strong supporter of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal programs and was instrumental in locating many wartime industries in Arkansas.

Stone County native Dick Powell died of cancer at the age of fifty-eight. He is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California. Powell was a musician, actor, and director. An ambitious man always pursuing new avenues for his creativity, Powell experimented with different media (radio, film, and television) at a time when not many did. The films of which he was a part ranged from 1930s comical musicals to 1940s films noir.

The old Lake Fort Smith State Park was closed. It first became a state park in 1967, making it Arkansas’s twenty-third state park. The opening of the new Lake Fort Smith State Park in the spring of 2008 in a new location with entirely new facilities made it the newest of Arkansas’s state parks. At the park’s official dedication in 2008, park officials and local leaders celebrated the site that overlooks Lake Fort Smith and that in many ways reproduces the environment of the earlier park. Plans for the future include linking Lake Fort Smith State Park to the Ozark Highlands Trail, since the old state park was the western terminus for this trail.

After the American Red Cross (ARC) in Arkansas mobilized local relief efforts the previous week in response to the Flood of 1937, the national office assumed command. Counties needing various levels of rescue operations were Arkansas, Craighead, Crittenden, Cross, Greene, Jackson, Lawrence, Lee, Mississippi, Monroe, Phillips, Poinsett, Prairie, Pulaski, St. Francis, White, and Woodruff. Eight counties offered support to assist the displaced. Emergency relief consisted of rescue, temporary shelter, food, clothing, and urgent medical care extended without question to all persons affected. Once floodwater receded, assistance was disseminated based on need, not loss.

The XV Club in Little Rock offered a presentation still fondly remembered for its title, “The Human Mind: Its Cause and Prevention.” For more than 100 years, the fifteen members of the XV Club have met fifteen times a year for dinner and discussion. Since 1904, more than a hundred prominent citizens of Pulaski County have been part of this select organization. The constitution of the club states that its “object shall be social intercourse and the discussion of literary, scientific, historical, political, and all current topics.” The minutes of the first meeting elaborate that its sessions are “cultured but not too cultured, literary but not too literary, political but not too political, scientific but not too scientific, funny but not too funny, serious but not too serious.”

House Concurrent Resolution No. 2 of 1939, which was unopposed, won final approval to designate the pine tree as Arkansas’s official state tree. The resolution, introduced by State Representative Boyd Tackett of Pike County, cited the state’s timber resources as one of its greatest sources of wealth and, notably, “one of the few renewable resources of the state.” The resolution did not specify a particular native pine species, but reference is often made to either the southern shortleaf pine (Pinus echinata) or the loblolly pine (Pinus taeda).

Rock and roll legend Elvis Presley visited Leachville (Mississippi County) while on his way to Texas. He performed a three-song concert sponsored by the senior class and held at the gymnasium. He performed “That’s All Right,” “Hearts of Stone,” and “Tweedle Dee.” Leachville, incorporated in 1916, was once known as “The Cleanest Town on Buffalo Island, Where Agriculture and Industry Meet.”

Gilbert Maxwell “Broncho Billy” Anderson died of a heart attack in Pasadena, California. A Little Rock (Pulaski County) native, “Broncho Billy” was America’s first cowboy movie star, paving the way for such stars as John Wayne and Roy Rogers. In 1958, Anderson was awarded an honorary Oscar by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for his contributions to motion picture development.

A fire swept through Washington (Hempstead County), destroying a number of businesses. The Cairo and Fulton railroad line had become the new economic artery, and rather than rebuilding in Washington, most businesses moved to Hope (Hempstead County), thus precipitating the decline of Washington. In the late 1870s, Hope began to promote the idea that the county seat should be relocated from Washington to Hope. For sixty years, and through several elections, Hope tried to gain the county seat. Unethical behavior abounded on both sides, consisting of lies, cheating, mud-slinging, and election fraud. Finally, the Arkansas Supreme Court intervened and, in a ruling in May 1939, declared Hope as the county seat of Hempstead County.

The trial of Charles Stinnett, a black man, on charges of raping Emma Lovett, a white woman, in Harrison (Boone County) resulted in his conviction and a sentence of death by hanging after the jury deliberated for four hours. The propensity toward violence on the part of the white community led all but one African American to flee Harrison, leaving it essentially an all-white town.

Virginia Johnson, the first woman to run for the office of governor of Arkansas, was born in Conway (Faulkner County). Running as a conservative Democrat, Johnson campaigned against six other Democrats, all male, vying to run against the Republican incumbent, Winthrop Rockefeller, in the gubernatorial race of 1968. Johnson lost the Democratic nomination to Marion Crank, who captured sixty-four percent of the vote, with turnout reported as light. Johnson vowed to help Crank unseat the governor but later withdrew her support. Rockefeller was reelected. Johnson was often asked why a woman would make a good governor, and Johnson always replied, “Why not?” One local reporter noted that she was “the only novelty in a rather dull campaign.”

Wilson Kimbrough Jr., who is considered the father of police and criminal psychology in Arkansas and was one of the founders of police and criminal psychology in the United States, was admitted to the Naval Reserve Officer’s Training Program as an apprentice seaman and soon was assigned to the Navy V-12 Unit at Central Missouri State Teachers College in Warrensburg, Missouri. Kimbrough eventually became a psychology professor at the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County). His students, and the students taught by his students, dominate the fields of police and criminal psychology and have written the top books on police selection, hostage negotiation, and threat assessment.

A devastating tornado ripped through the town of Beebe (White County). Damages were estimated in the tens of millions of dollars. Beebe High School was severely damaged, and the just-completed $2.5 million junior high was totally destroyed. Several homes and businesses and two churches were obliterated. Hundreds of homes were damaged, and two fatalities were attributed to the storm. The high school gym was leveled shortly after being evacuated, though no one was injured. A few days after the tornado, President Bill Clinton came to Beebe to survey the damage.

The gravesite of Mike Meyer Disfarmer was added to the National Register of Historic Places. Mike Disfarmer was a mid-twentieth-century portrait photographer Heber Springs (Cleburne County) whose work gained fame and popularity some years after his death. The gravesite was added to the National Register due to its statewide significance and Disfarmer’s status as a person of historical significance.

During the Mexican War, thirty-four Arkansans and a group of Kentucky cavalry, all commanded by Major Solon Borland, were captured by a Mexican force after neglecting to post guards. Despite this blemish on his record, Borland later went on to be elected to the U.S. Senate

The Skirmish at Burrowsville (Searcy County) took place. The skirmish was part of a larger attempt to drive Confederate and guerrilla forces from northern Arkansas. The overall effort was deemed to be a success by Federal commanders, but that success was somewhat embellished in their official reports. While a minor skirmish, this engagement was typical of the fighting that occurred between Union and Confederate forces in this period in northern Arkansas.

Arkansas Industrial University opened. The Morrill Act, passed by Congress during the Civil War, had provided land grants to each state to establish agricultural and mechanical colleges. Upon reentering the Union after the war, Arkansas became eligible for the grants. Washington County proposed a $100,000 bond issue, and Fayetteville offered another $30,000, including individual land donations, to build a college. Fayetteville’s proposal was selected. In 1899, the legislature changed the name of Arkansas Industrial University to the University of Arkansas (UA).

The Capital Hotel in Little Rock (Pulaski County), known formerly as the Denckla Block, was opened with a new, grand interior created to match its grand exterior. Though not originally built as a hotel, the Denckla Block became one after the Metropolitan Hotel, Little Rock’s only upscale hotel, burned. The new hotel got its name from a Little Rock matron, Mrs. Morehead Wright. When asked to suggest a name, Wright noted that it was a “capital enterprise located in a capital building” in the “capital of the state,” which she hoped would be a “capital success.”

Pennsylvania native writer Will Lighton, who bought a dilapidated farm in Fayetteville (Washington County), published a story called “The Story of an Arkansas Farm” in the Saturday Evening Post; the story’s publication resulted in a stream of curious visitors to Arkansas. Later expanded into a book, Happy Hollow Farm, Lighton’s story attracted more than 200 “back-to-the-land” settlers to Fayetteville. In 1910 and 1911, he edited a magazine, Back to the Land, printed in Fort Smith (Sebastian County), featuring articles by Lighton and others. Lighton eventually moved to Hollywood to try his hand at screenwriting. The Happy Hollow Farm house was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.

Prominent physician Zaphney Orto died. In 1882, while living in Walnut Ridge (Lawrence County), Orto began investigating malaria, believing there was a direct connection between malaria and mosquitoes. In 1898, at the outbreak of the Spanish-American War, Orto volunteered for military service, serving at the rank of major. He was president of the State Medical Society of Arkansas in 1890. Leaving his private practice, he became the second president of Simmons National Bank in Pine Bluff beginning the year it was founded, 1903, until his death in 1923.

Winthrop Rockefeller, heir to the Rockefeller fortune, enlisted as a private in the U.S. Army. As governor of Arkansas, Rockefeller brought economic, cultural, and political change to Arkansas. “W. R.” or “Win,” as he was known, brought an end to the political organization of former governor Orval E. Faubus and created a political environment that produced moderate leaders such as Dale Bumpers, David Pryor, and Bill Clinton.

American forces of the First, Third, and Fourth Ranger battalions landed unopposed in the early morning hours in the harbor of Anzio, Italy, and took control of the area. They were the first to land during the World War II invasion of Italy. These troops, expanded from the original First United States Army Ranger Battalion were organized and trained by West Point graduate William Orlando Darby from Fort Smith (Sebastian County). Unopposed at first, the First and Third battalions later suffered severe casualties, leaving the Fourth Division as the only remaining ranger force.

The Park Hotel was added to the National Register of Historic Places. The Park Hotel is a seven-story hotel located at 211 Fountain Street in downtown Hot Springs (Garland County) near Bathhouse Row. Built by the renowned architectural firm of Thompson, Sanders and Ginocchio, the hotel is still in operation in the twenty-first century. Harry Truman stayed often in his favorite room at the Park Hotel, No. 401, before becoming president of the United States.

The Little Rock to Cantonment Gibson Road-Fourth Street Segment near Atkins in Pope County was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. This road is part of the Little Rock to Cantonment Gibson Road that was constructed between 1825 and 1828 to connect Little Rock (Pulaski County) and Fort Smith (Sebastian County) to the military post at Cantonment Gibson in the Indian Territory (modern-day Oklahoma). The road was used extensively during the forced removal of Native Americans from the southeastern United States to the Indian Territory during the 1830s.

The first building for the St. Scholastica Monastery—a log cabin—was completed in the monastery’s Shoal Creek location in Logan County. Now located in Fort Smith (Sebastian County), the sisters of St. Scholastica have staffed three girls’ high schools for boarding and day students; conducted elementary schools; operated four hospitals in rural areas; and cared for children in an orphanage in Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) from 1932 to 1938 and an orphanage, school, and daycare facility in North Little Rock (Pulaski County) from 1907 to 1997.

M. V. Mayfield of Mena (Polk County), who had been practicing medicine as a man, was publicly revealed to have the biological characteristics of a female, causing a stir in the national media. Mayfield had come to Mena in 1918 and practiced medicine with the identity of a man for seven or eight years. A small, kind, and peaceful citizen, Mayfield had been known as “the cancer doctor.” Little is known about Mayfield’s early life. Mayfield died on August 24, 1929 and was buried in Gann Cemetery, south of Mena, as a pauper, and, as Mayfield had wished, in men’s clothing, with the service performed by a woman, Fannie Vise.

Will Rogers visited the town of England (Lonoke County) and met with representatives of the Red Cross, the mayor, and many farmers in the region after reading in a California newspaper about the dire situation there, in which people who were unable to secure food to feed their families had staged a riot. Having been denied in his appeal to President Herbert Hoover, Rogers decided to raise money himself by embarking on a tour for drought relief. The tour, along with money sent in from citizens across the country after reading the stories in their local papers, helped feed and clothe the people of England and carry them through the tough times.

Anita Pointer was born in California. Pointer, who spent several years of her youth living with her grandparents in Prescott (Nevada County), was an original member of the singing group the Pointer Sisters. She started singing gospel in her father’s church in West Oakland, California, and went on to attain pop music stardom. The group’s top-ten hits include the songs “Fire,” “Slow Hand,” “He’s So Shy,” “Jump (For My Love),” “Automatic,” “Neutron Dance,” and “I’m So Excited.” In 1998, Pointer was inducted into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame. She said of Arkansas: “I do feel like home is where the heart is, and my heart feels at home in Arkansas. I love the South.” Pointer died in 2022.

Mena (Polk County) native T. Texas Tyler died in Springfield, Missouri. Tyler initiated a distinctive country and western musical style that made him a success in the recording industry and on stage in the 1940s, 1950s, and into the 1960s. He pioneered a storytelling style in which the performer spoke some or all of the lyrics, later employed by other country stars such as “Red” Sovine, Jimmy Dean, “Whispering” Bill Anderson, and others.

James McQueen McIntosh was promoted to brigadier general in the Confederate army. McIntosh served as a Confederate colonel in the Second Arkansas Mounted Rifles and as a brigadier general before losing his life at the Battle of Pea Ridge.

The Skirmish at Boggs’ Mills took place. A short engagement in rural Yell County, this skirmish is notable for pitting Arkansas Confederate troops against a combined Federal force consisting of both white and African American troops from Arkansas. While just a brief engagement that did not cause any casualties, this skirmish was typical of the encounters between Union and Confederate forces in Arkansas during this period.

Paragould (Greene County) native Paul Page Douglas Jr., who became an air force “ace,” assumed command of the 388th Tactical Fighter Wing at the Korat Royal Thai Air Force Base in Thailand. A command pilot, he flew the F-105 Thunderchief in 101 missions over North Vietnam. His airplane was nicknamed the “Arkansas Traveler.” In February 1969, Douglas assumed command of the 836th Air Division at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida. Douglas retired as commander of the 836th in 1970. The tactics he developed for the P-47 Thunderbolt during World War II made that plane one of the most successful fighter planes of the war.