May 16, 1986

John Howard Yancey, one of Arkansas’s most colorful war heroes, died. His close friend, General Sidney McMath, planned every detail of the funeral. Yancey is buried in Little Rock National Cemetery, and a department of the Marine Corps League in Texas is named after him. Yancey had been the model for the bronze bust of Count Pulaski—the Revolutionary war hero for whom the county is named—in the county courthouse. The Arkansas Historical Society established John Yancey–Count Pulaski Day—”Two Heroes Bonded Together in Bronze”—in 1999, which is celebrated in the fall.