Days in AR History - Starting with S

A gala was hosted by President Bill Clinton to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of Central High School’s desegregation. The National Park Service dedicated its new visitor center with a ceremony featuring a keynote address from civil rights activist and U.S. representative John Lewis. The following day, nearly 2,000 visitors converged on the front lawn of Central High to honor the Little Rock Nine and reflect on the school’s significant role in the civil rights struggle. A testament to its utilitarian design and quality construction, Little Rock Central High School is still in operation in the twenty-first century, making it the only fully functioning high school to be established as a National Historic Site.

The Fort Smith Expedition began. At this point of the Civil War, reliable communication between the garrisons at Fort Smith (Sebastian County) and Little Rock (Pulaski County) required substantial forces like this expedition. The expedition was ultimately deemed to be a success, as it both accomplished its mission of communicating with Fort Smith and also returned with intelligence gathered along the Arkansas River Valley.

Johnny Sain was born in Havana (Yell County) to John Franklin Sain Sr. and Eva Sain. He was a star major league pitcher and is widely considered to have been the best pitching coach in major league baseball history. As a pitcher, he won 139 games, the third-highest total for an Arkansas native; only Dizzy Dean, with 150 victories, and Lon Warneke, with 192, won more.

The Lafayette Hotel opened in downtown Little Rock (Pulaski County). The hotel, with 300 fireproof guest rooms, featured private baths with running water for $2.50 per night. The hotel was one of the state’s best-known hotels until its closure in 1973. The interior public spaces were designed by decorator Paul Martin Heerwagen.

Senator John McClellan and Representative Oren Harris announced that a $60,000,000 U.S. Navy ordnance plant would be built near Camden (Ouachita County). It was named the Shumaker Naval Ammunition Depot after Captain Samuel R. Shumaker, a naval ordnance officer who had served thirty-three years before being killed in the Pacific Area during World War II. The plant, which produced all types of rocket bombs, was situated northeast of Camden and covered 68,417.82 acres in Calhoun and Ouachita counties.

Construction was completed on a new hospital in Paragould (Greene County). Construction had begun in 1941 on donated land. Sponsored by a nonprofit corporation with funds supplemented by a WPA grant, the hospital had suffered a setback when it was three-fourths completed and the Works Progress Administration (WPA) funds ran out (the WPA had disbanded). The hospital, now known as Arkansas Methodist Medical Center, is one of Paragould’s largest employers.

Basketball star Scottie Maurice Pippen was born in Hamburg (Ashley County), the youngest of twelve children. Pippen dreamed of playing college basketball but was only 6’1″ and 150 pounds as a high school senior. As a favor to his high school coach, Pippen was offered a position with the basketball team at the University of Central Arkansas (UCA) in Conway (Faulkner County). This offer was not for a playing position but as student manager of the team. During his four years at UCA, Pippen grew to 6’7″ and 210 pounds, and also grew in skill and experience. Used even in his freshman season because of openings on the team, Pippen eventually played all five positions on the team.

The 11’5″ tall, 1,200-pound “Large Standing Figure: Knife Edge” sculpture created by internationally famous British sculptor Henry Moore was placed on its circular marble base on Metrocentre’s pedestrian mall at Capitol Avenue and Main Street in downtown Little Rock (Pulaski County). It had been purchased by Little Rock’s Metrocentre Improvement District at a cost of $185,000. The work, considered to be among the state’s most noteworthy public sculptures, was moved to its present location on Union National Plaza at Capitol Avenue and Louisiana Street in 1999 when the pedestrian mall in Little Rock was reopened to traffic.

Jean-Baptiste Bénard de La Harpe, a French officer, trader, and explorer, died in St. Malo, France. He was the first European explorer to record the existence of a large rocky bluff on the north bank of the Arkansas River. This major outcrop of rock is just upstream from a smaller rock, where it was possible to ford the river. It was at this location that the settlement of Little Rock (Pulaski County) subsequently developed.

Confederate colonel Robert Glenn Shaver gave the main address at the dedication of a monument on the Shiloh battlefield to honor all the Arkansas soldiers who fought and died there. During the Civil War, Shaver organized and was colonel to the Seventh Arkansas Regiment that became known as “Shaver’s Regiment.” After the war, his activities with the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) in Arkansas resulted in him fleeing the state for fear of prosecution.

Caroline Tracy Dye, better known as “Aunt Caroline,” died in Newport (Jackson County). Dye was a highly respected seer whose name was recognized in Arkansas and the Mid-South in the early years of the twentieth century. Dye’s reputation lives on in two songs written by Memphis bluesman W. C. Handy. He said the gypsy mentioned in “St. Louis Blues” (1914) was Dye. In “Sundown Blues” (1923), he named the fortune teller as Aunt Caroline Dye of Newport, Arkansas. Through the years, the legend of Dye has been distorted and stretched, identifying her as a fortune teller, a “hoodoo” woman, or a “two-headed doctor” (or psychic).

Gravelly (Yell County) native Arthur Hunnicutt died. Personifying the rustic but savvy characterizations of his home state, Hunnicutt became one of the most sought-after character actors in Hollywood, being nominated for an Academy Award for best supporting actor in 1952’s The Big Sky.

Diocesan administrator Monsignor J. Gaston Hebert announced that six of the ten sisters at the Monastery of Our Lady of Charity and Refuge in Hot Springs (Garland County) had been excommunicated by the Roman Catholic Church because of their association with a Canadian group called the Army of Mary, whose founder claimed to be a reincarnation of the Virgin Mary; the sisters are no longer affiliated with the Diocese of Little Rock. The monastery had gotten its start in 1908 when four French-speaking nuns had, at the invitation of Bishop John Baptist Morris, come from Ottawa, Canada, to establish a home for underprivileged girls of the state.

The committee that had gathered at the Mount Comfort Meeting House—located three miles northwest of Fayetteville (Washington County)—to recommend a plan, fundamental principles, a name, and a location for what became the Far West Seminary, made its report. They chose the name “Far West Seminary” in order to emphasize the western location of the planned institution. The seminary ultimately failed due to political and religious factionalism, economic hard times, and a major fire. However, the effort proved to be a seedbed for other northwest Arkansas educational endeavors prior to the Civil War that helped Fayetteville earn the nickname “the Athens of Arkansas.”

Roswell Beebe, one of the most important businessmen and politicians in Little Rock (Pulaski County) as well as the donor of several pieces of land to the city, died while visiting a relative in New York. Beebe was elected an alderman for Little Rock (Pulaski County) in 1848 and mayor in 1849, both on the Democratic ticket. His greatest business venture, though, was the organization of the Cairo and Fulton Railroad Company.

Branch Normal College, the first college in Arkansas specifically for African-American students, opened in Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) under the direction of Joseph Carter Corbin. It was created in 1873 as a branch of Arkansas Industrial University (now the University of Arkansas) by a legislative act. The school is now the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff (UAPB).

The name Petit Jean was discontinued for a town in Yell County. Originally called Red Lick, the area became known as Petit Jean in 1866, after the nearby river. The town is now known as Ola (Yell County). Ola is the third-largest town in Yell County. The area that became Ola was part of the Ward Township, Section 3, Township 4 North, Range 21 West. The 1850 Census shows twenty-two families residing within the Ward Township and includes a store and scattered, outlying homesteads. Postal service was established in 1848. Early settlers came from North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, and Tennessee, attracted to the area by its cheap land and commercial possibilities.

James (Jim) Lee Howell was born in Lonoke (Lonoke County). Howell was a professional football player and coach. As head coach of the New York Giants in the National Football League (NFL) from 1954 to 1960, he led the team to appearances in three NFL championship games and won the NFL title in 1956. He retired with a career record of 55-29-4. His career winning percentage was the best in Giants history for head coaches with fifty or more games and counted among the best in NFL history.

Vic Snyder was born in Medford, Oregon. Snyder served seven terms in the U.S. Congress representing Arkansas’s Second Congressional District. Snyder’s experiences in the U.S. Marine Corps, as a family physician, and as a lawyer helped shape his career in government service. In Congress, Snyder served on the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, the House Armed Services Committee, and the Joint Economic Committee. In 2007, he was elected chair of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. Snyder was the only member of the Arkansas delegation in the House to vote against the 2003 resolution authorizing the use of military force in Iraq. In 2009, he was also the lone Arkansas congressional delegate to vote in support of climate-change legislation.

A bond issue for a new school for African Americans in Crittenden County was defeated. Meanwhile, a new $300,000 facility for 900 white children had just opened. Life magazine carried an article in March of that same year with accompanying photographs detailing the conditions of black education in West Memphis (Crittenden County), which spent an average of $144.51 for each white child’s education and $19.51 for the education of each black child. Photographs revealed the crowded conditions in the black school, which had been partially destroyed by fire. Some 310 students and their five teachers were squeezed into five rooms of the gutted building, and 370 more were packed into a one-room church. Not until 1971 did the first black students graduate from the integrated Marion High School.

A change-of-command ceremony was held at Fort Chaffee. Command was transferred from the U.S. Army to the Arkansas Army National Guard when the U.S. Army garrison was deactivated, and Fort Chaffee became the Chaffee Maneuver Training Center for Light Combat Forces. The Fort Chaffee Redevelopment Authority was established to begin redeveloping the 6,000 acres that were turned over to the state. This was to include demolishing more than 700 buildings and rezoning land. The official redevelopment of the base began shortly after land was turned over, and the redevelopment authority is overseeing a number of residential, commercial, and industrial projects in what is known as Chaffee Crossing.

The Buckville Cemetery was added to the National Register of Historic Places. The community of Buckville (Garland County) was inundated by the waters of Lake Ouachita in the 1950s; the remains lie under the lake’s surface. The Buckville Cemetery is the only reminder of the town that occupies its original location. Situated no farther than thirty feet from the lake shoreline, the cemetery contains 303 graves, many of which belong to the area’s early settlers and prominent citizens.

Lorenzo Gibson died in Little Rock (Pulaski County); he is buried in Mount Holly Cemetery. Early Arkansas, especially Little Rock, benefited from contributions made by Gibson in the areas of medicine, law, business, and public service. He established a mercantile business in Little Rock in 1833, practiced medicine, and served as the state representative for Pulaski and Hot Spring counties. At the time of his death, he was seeking the office of U.S. senator.

Bess Miller Moore (later known as besmilr moore brigham)—an award-winning poet and writer of short stories who considered herself a Mississippi writer but lived for decades with her husband near Horatio (Sevier County)—was born in Pace, Mississippi. Brigham used lower-case spelling, and erratic, though purposeful, punctuation that relied on rhythm rather than grammar. She spelled her name phonetically because that was the way people talked. She and her husband liked to migrate in life and were described as “the last free people.” She died in 2000 from complications from Alzheimer’s disease.

Caraway, a small farming community located in Craighead County, got its first post office, with Joseph Ewing Johnston as postmaster. The town was named for U.S. Senator Thaddeus Caraway of nearby Jonesboro (Craighead County). Starting in 1955, Caraway was home to the All American Red Heads professional women’s basketball team, which played from 1936 to 1986, having moved to the town that was home to their new owner. Caraway was also home to one of Arkansas’s Congressional Medal of Honor recipients, U.S. Army Sergeant Nick Daniel Bacon, who was awarded the medal for his actions in Vietnam.

Little Rock (Pulaski County) native Glenn Abbott—who played eleven years for the Oakland Athletics, Seattle Mariners, and Detroit Tigers in the 1970s and 1980s—was one of four major league pitchers to combine for a no-hit performance. Manager Alvin Dark removed starter Vida Blue after the fifth inning—a rare move when a pitcher is holding opponents hitless—and had Abbott pitch the sixth inning. Paul Lindblad pitched the seventh inning, and Rollie Fingers finished the game, marking the first time four pitchers ever combined for a no-hit major league game.

Bernell “Fatman” Austin, creator of the first fried dill pickle, died at St. Vincent Infirmary Medical Center in Little Rock (Pulaski County). The Austin family still sells Fatman’s Original Fried Dill Pickles, using his secret recipe, during the annual two-day Picklefest held every May in downtown Atkins (Pope County).

A dedication service was held for the Southwestern Collegiate Institute (now John Brown University) in Siloam Springs (Benton County). The school came into existence as a humble creation, sporting a high school academy and a two-year junior college. The school evolved into a four-year liberal arts university and later developed graduate programs in business and counseling. Throughout its history, the university has forged close ties with the churches and industries of northwest Arkansas and business leaders such as Sam Walton and John Tyson.

In the wake of the uproar over the 1957 desegregation of Central High School, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a unanimous opinion under the name of Cooper v. Aaron, in which the Court placed responsibility for the “unfortunate and distressing sequence of events” on the actions of legislators and executive officials resisting the mandate of Brown v. Board of Education, which in turn brought about “violent resistance to that decision in Arkansas.” The Fourteenth Amendment requires states to provide the equal protection of the law to all. The Court refused to sacrifice the constitutional rights of the plaintiffs, pointing out that no state elected official can “war against the Constitution” without violating his or her oath to support it.

A group of about twenty-five people in Grannis (Polk County), most of them related to one another, closed themselves off from the rest of the world in preparation for the return of Jesus Christ. The ensuing ten-month vigil attracted national attention and sparked debate on the separation of church and state and the right of religious expression. What came to be known as the Grannis Vigil ended on July 16, 1976, when federal marshals, acting on a court-ordered eviction notice, forcibly removed the families from their homes.

A memorial service for E. Fay Jones, an internationally known architect from Arkansas and designer of the acclaimed Thorncrown Chapel in Eureka Springs (Carroll County), was held at the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County) near the J. William Fulbright Memorial Peace Fountain, which was his last design.

The grand opening of the museum and educational center at the Lakeport Plantation house was held. The house, built around 1858 by Lycurgus Leonidas Johnson, was deemed at the time the showplace of the state’s “cotton aristocracy.” The home was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974 and is Arkansas’s grandest example of Greek Revival architecture. It was deeded to Arkansas State University by the last owner and was part of the school’s Delta Heritage Initiative program, which sponsored extensive renovation.

John Rogers Eakin, who used the spelling “Jno” for his name, died in Marshfield, Missouri, while visiting a daughter there. Eakin’s agricultural experiments with grape growing and his forward-looking jurisprudence exemplified traits of the Southern aristocratic elite. He championed women’s rights, which put him ahead of many contemporaries in thinking. His publication of the Washington Telegraph throughout the Civil War made it the only newspaper in the state to publish continuously, leaving an invaluable written legacy.

Piggott (Clay County) was incorporated. A thriving agricultural town in northeast Arkansas, Piggott has several claims to fame, including its relationship with famed American writer Ernest Hemingway, its selection as a site for filming the classic movie A Face in the Crowd, and its reputation as a “marrying mecca.” This reputation was garnered In the late 1940s and early 1950s, when most states had a three-day waiting period for marriage licenses. Arkansas had a law that the waiting period could be waived in special cases, and the Clay County judge took the position that all marriages were special cases. People flocked to Piggott from neighboring states to be married. During the peak year of 1950, there were 5,960 marriages in Piggott, more than twice the entire population of the city.

Alan Ladd, known for his role in the movie Shane, was born in Hot Springs (Garland County). He appeared in nearly 100 movies, including The Great Gatsby and This Gun for Hire. When he was four years old, he and his widowed mother were forced to leave Hot Springs after Ladd accidentally burned down their apartment house while playing with matches.

The North Little Rock School District finally desegregated, when eight African-American students were admitted to the all-white Clendenin and Riverside elementary schools. A group of six black students (known as the North Little Rock Six) had attempted to desegregate the district on September 9, 1957, when they arrived for the first day of the school year at North Little Rock High School. A group of students blocked the school’s entrance, and a crowd of more than 200 had gathered by noon. The students did not attempt again to attend the school and enrolled instead in the black Scipio Jones High School.

Pennsylvania priest Father George Tribou, whose name became synonymous in Little Rock (Pulaski County) with rigorous academics and strict discipline, became principal of the Catholic High School for Boys (CHS). A 1970 Arkansas Gazette article by reporter Bill Lewis stated that CHS was—in an era widely viewed as permissive—“almost an anachronism, an institution out of its time.” The article went on to say that the school’s promotion of spiritual formation, discipline, and high educational expectations nonetheless found a receptive audience in both parents and students. Tribou ended his tenure as principal on December 10, 2000.

Madison County was founded. Named after U.S. President James Madison, its county seat is Huntsville. The county is a beautiful and still largely unspoiled part of the Ozarks. Forests mostly of hardwood trees cover about two-thirds of the county.

Benton County was formally established as a separate county from Washington County. Located in the northwest corner of Arkansas, Benton County borders Missouri and Oklahoma and is part of the Ozark Plateau. It was named in honor of U.S. senator Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri, who had played a key role in Arkansas’s admission into the Union. The county seat, Bentonville, was also named after Sen. Benton.

Benjamin Joseph Altheimer Sr. was born in Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) to German-Jewish immigrant parents. He and his two brothers became land developers and established the town of Altheimer (Jefferson County). A few years after Altheimer married a young woman in Chicago whose family was engaged in merchandising, the Altheimer family moved to Chicago. Altheimer served as general counsel and secretary to Mendel Brothers firm and became president of the company in 1945, but he maintained connections with Arkansas. He created the Ben J. Altheimer Foundation in 1942, endowed faculty chairs at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, founded the Benjamin J. Altheimer Law Library in Pine Bluff, and provided for the William H. Bowen School of Law courtroom.

Second Lieutenant John Hanks Alexander reported to Fort Robinson, Nebraska, for duty with the Ninth Cavalry, the famous Buffalo Soldiers. The Ninth Cavalry was an all-black regiment commanded by white officers. Alexander, the second African-American graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, became the sole black officer in a command position of these Buffalo Soldiers.

The notorious Elaine Massacre erupted, which marked the deadliest racial episode in Arkansas history. The lynchings and murders that occurred in Elaine arose out of whites’ fear and distrust of a black union organization in Phillips County. A shooting at a church in Hoop Spur (Phillips County) sparked the conflict; the presence of about 100 sharecroppers attending a meeting of the Progressive Farmers and Household Union quickly spurred massive violence by whites against blacks throughout the county. Although the exact death toll remains unknown, historians have estimated that hundreds of black citizens were killed, while five white citizens died in the incident.

Blanche Lincoln was born Blanche Meyers Lambert in Helena (Phillips County) into a seventh-generation Arkansas farm family. Later, she became the youngest woman elected to the U.S. Senate and the first woman from Arkansas since Hattie Caraway to be elected to the Senate.

The Lafayette Hotel in downtown Little Rock (Pulaski County) was added to the National Register of Historic Places. The hotel opened in 1925 and was one of the state’s best-known hotels until its closure in 1973. The building’s exterior featured elements of the Renaissance Revival style of architecture with its decorative terra cotta detailing, arched windows on the top floor, and a projecting copper cornice.

Virginia Maud Dunlap Duncan and her husband, Gilbert Duncan, began the weekly publication of the Winslow American. The couple had changed the name of the paper they bought, which was originally the Winslow Mirror. After her husband’s death, Virginia Duncan continued the paper until 1956. Virginia Duncan achieved national recognition for being elected mayor of Winslow (Washington County) and serving from 1925 to 1926 with an all-women city council.

Author Richard Wright was born on a farm in Roxie, Mississippi. After Wright’s father left the family, Wright and his mother and brother eventually moved to Elaine (Phillips County). Wright wrote fiction and nonfiction. His many works, influenced by the injustices he faced as an African American, protested racial divides in America. His most famous work, the autobiographical Black Boy, was a controversial bestseller that opened the eyes of the nation to the evils of racism.

Franklin County native Betty Flanagan married future Arkansas governor and U.S. senator Dale Bumpers while he was attending law school at Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois. The two had dated during their last year of high school, but they had been separated while attending different colleges and while Dale was in the U.S. Marines. Flanagan was teaching the fifth grade before the couple wed, and after Dale graduated from Northwestern, they returned to Charleston (Franklin County), where Betty Bumpers continued to teach elementary school while her husband established a law practice.

Nine African-American students attempted to enter Little Rock Central High School but were turned away by the Arkansas National Guard, which had been called out by Governor Orval Faubus. One of the Little Rock Nine, Elizabeth Eckford, arrived alone and was confronted by an angry mob before managing to board a city bus and get to safety.

The Arkansas Gazette’s executive editor Harry Ashmore and the Gazette vehemently answered Governor Orval Faubus’s calling out of an armed detachment of the Arkansas National Guard to surround Central High School, ostensibly to quell mob violence, with the front-page editorial, “The Crisis Mr. Faubus Made,” taking the argument beyond segregation-versus-integration to the supremacy of the federal government in all matters of law. Under Faubus’s orders, the guardsmen had turned away the Little Rock Nine as they tried to enter the school. As the days and weeks wore on, the Gazette covered all the developments of the ongoing crisis.

The Skirmish at Maysville took place. The skirmish consisted of a series of engagements over the course of a single day between Union and Confederate troops in northwestern Arkansas that ended with the complete rout of the Federal force. Originally a mission to escort a Union officer carrying messages, the movement ended with the capture of the messenger and some of his comrades.