calsfoundation@cals.org
November 11, 1876
John D. Adams became owner, with William D. Blocher, of the Daily Arkansas Gazette. Two years later, James Newton (J. N.) Smithee bought and started a competing newspaper, the Arkansas Democrat. Competition and public defamation led to a war between the newspapers’ owners that resulted in the Smithee-Adams Duel, often described as “the last duel fought in Arkansas.”