Days in AR History - Starting with M

District Assembly 101 of the Knights of Labor ordered a strike on the Texas and Pacific Railroad after a foreman in Marshall, Texas, fired Charles A. Hall, a local Knights leader. A mass walkout of shop workers on the Missouri Pacific followed on March 6. Two days later, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch headlined, “Traffic Throttled: The Gould System at the Mercy of the Knights of Labor.” At its height, the Great Southwestern Strike of 1886 shut down railway lines in five states (Arkansas, Illinois, Kansas, Texas, and Missouri), threatened to upset commerce nationally, and, with its promise of union recognition, attracted support from a wide spectrum of unskilled and semi-skilled railroaders.

Henry Karr Shannon was born at Lunenburg in Izard County. Henry Shannon was dubbed “the sage of Lunenburg” for the daily column he wrote for the Arkansas Democrat. The column, called “Run of the News,” ran from 1944 to 1971, and through it, Shannon “developed the largest following of any columnist in Arkansas,” according to a 1973 comment by Robert S. McCord, then associate editor of the Democrat.

Petit Jean was established as Arkansas’s first state park by Act 276 of the Arkansas General Assembly. Situated on Petit Jean Mountain, the park encompasses forests, ravines, streams, springs, vistas, and unusual geological formations preserved almost as French explorers found them in the early part of the eighteenth century. Today, Petit Jean State Park is one of the most popular state parks in Arkansas.

Barely eighteen, “Little Willie” John of Cullendale (Ouachita County) cut the first version of the song “Fever” in Cincinnati, Ohio. John was a powerful rhythm and blues vocalist and songwriter who recorded several hit songs. From Peggy Lee to Madonna, the song “Fever” lives on through countless versions, but John’s haunting, tortured vocals have yet to be replicated. He left a brief but profound musical legacy.

President Richard Nixon signed Public Law 92-237, which made the Buffalo River of Arkansas the first designated “National River” in the National Park System. This environmental victory was due to the efforts of Neil Compton’s Ozark Society’s vigorous and eventually successful campaign to stop the construction of the two dams on the Buffalo River (Gilbert and Lone Rock) that were proposed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The date of the signing was 100 years to the day after President Ulysses S. Grant had signed the bill creating Yellowstone National Park.

Captain George Carmichael accepted the transfer of Campo de la Esperanza—established by the Spanish in 1795 as San Fernando de las Barrancas on the Chickasaw Bluffs overlooking the Mississippi River—to the United States. In May 1803, France and the United States had signed the treaty for the Louisiana Purchase, adding Arkansas to the young republic. Two years later, the signing of the Treaty of San Lorenzo, which Americans called Pinckney’s Treaty, set the Mississippi River as the definite boundary between Spanish Louisiana and the United States. As part of the transfer, San Fernando de las Barrancas was moved to present-day Crittenden County and renamed Campo de la Esperanza (Hopefield).

Arkansas’s first recorded duel took place. The smallest insult (real or imagined) might bring on a challenge to a duel. In this case, William Allen became fascinated with a sword-cane belonging to Robert Oden. He refused to return it to its owner, playfully forcing Oden to chase him to get it back. A challenge followed, and Allen was killed in Arkansas’s inaugural duel. Dueling was a popular means of settling disputes among the well-bred, higher-class population on the Arkansas frontier, and though it was considered part of the code of honor for a Southern gentleman, its popularity added to Arkansas’s reputation for violence that remained until well after the Civil War.

Thomas James Churchill, the thirteenth governor of Arkansas, was born on his father’s farm near Louisville, Kentucky. Churchill led advances in health and education while in office. During his administration, legislation set standards for practicing medicine and established the Medical Department of Arkansas Industrial University (now the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences) in Little Rock (Pulaski County). In addition to creating a facility for the mentally ill and a state board of health, his administration appropriated funds for a branch normal (teachers’ training) school in Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) for African-American students.

Black leaders assembled at the First Baptist Church in Little Rock (Pulaski County) and demanded the halt of legislative efforts aimed at segregating streetcars. The Streetcar Segregation Act, adopted by the Arkansas legislature in 1903, had assigned African-American and white passengers to “separate but equal” sections of streetcars. Such protest meetings usually fell on deaf ears in the Arkansas General Assembly since no black lawmakers remained in the legislature after post-Reconstruction disfranchisement. However, boycotts were organized to carry the protest of such meetings to the streetcar companies themselves.

Zinc (Boone County) was incorporated. Zinc is a small town in eastern Boone County, east of Harrison and south of Lead Hill on the Sugar Orchard Creek. As the town’s name suggests, it was once a center for the mining of zinc and lead.

Judge Jeptha Evans originally scheduled the hanging of John Arthur Tillman. The date was the anniversary of the victim’s murder, but attempts to appeal the sentence postponed the hanging until July. Meanwhile, state law mandated that all future criminals sentenced to death would be executed by electric chair rather than by hanging. While this law had been passed by the state legislature in February 1913, it could not be implemented until the “execution room” had been constructed at the state penitentiary in Little Rock, which had not yet been completed by November 1. Tillman was the last person executed by hanging in the state of Arkansas. Accused of murdering a girlfriend, Tillman insisted upon his innocence to the day of his death.

John Lucas was born in Marshall, Texas. Lucas’s life was representative of the broad changes that occurred in the patterns of race relations in Arkansas and the South during the latter half of the nineteenth century. From the end of the Civil War until the early 1890s, African Americans could obtain an education and then enter politics as independent, forthright champions of their race’s interests. After that point, as historian J. Morgan Kousser observed, “most blacks would have to emigrate to the North, choose other professions, or settle for the role of white-appointed race leader, with all constraints that role imposed on their statements and actions.” Lucas served in the Arkansas General Assembly and advocated for the rights of African Americans during his tenure in office.

The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission (AGFC) was created when Act 124 was signed by Governor George Washington Hays after lengthy debate in the legislature. By 1911, game populations had been declining across the country, and Arkansas was one of seven states that had no conservation agency. The AGFC was born in response. The AGFC manages wildlife and natural habitat and sets hunting, fishing, and trapping regulations. It works with public, private, local, state, and federal groups to enhance conservation efforts and educate the public about the importance of healthy wildlife populations and their habitats. AGFC also publishes the bimonthly Arkansas Wildlife magazine, which began as Arkansas Game and Fish in 1967 but changed its name in 1992.

Marsille P. Reed, an original Arkansas Tuskegee Airman from Tillar (Drew County), graduated as a member of the class 45-A-SE. Arkansas’s original Tuskegee Airmen were a part of a segregated group composed of African-American Army Air Corps cadets, personnel, and support staff known as the Tuskegee Airmen. Twelve Arkansans were known to have performed and maintained various roles at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. Those roles included flight instructor, pilot, flight officer, engineer, bombardier, navigator, radio technician, air traffic controller, parachute rigger, weather observer, medical professional, and electronic communications specialist. The term “original” is applied to the individuals who received government and civilian instructional training while at Tuskegee between 1941 and 1946.

The body of Brigadier General William Orlando Darby was returned to Arkansas. Darby, who was born in Fort Smith (Sebastian County) and who died in Italy in 1945 from combat wounds and was buried originally in a military cemetery outside Cisterno, Italy, was reinterred at Fort Smith National Cemetery just a few blocks from his boyhood home. After graduating from West Point, Darby had been chosen to organize, train, and lead an elite commando unit known as the First United States Ranger Battalion and was known as an exemplary leader. He was promoted to brigadier general two weeks after he died, the only soldier to have received such a posthumous promotion.

Construction began on a 65,000-square-foot museum, now known as the Mid-America Science Museum, in Hot Springs (Garland County). Conceived during the 1960s by Governor Winthrop Rockefeller and promoted by his successor, Governor Dale Bumpers, the facility was authorized by the General Assembly in 1971. The museum’s mission is to “stimulate interest in science, to promote public understanding of the sciences, and to encourage lifelong science education through interactive exhibits and programs.” It has more than 100 permanent exhibits, one of which—“Caged Lightning”—produces 1.5 million volts of electrical energy, and was recognized in 2007 by The Guinness Book of World Records as the most powerful conical Tesla Coil. The museum became an affiliate of the Smithsonian in 2001.

Jack Carnes was born in Zanesville, Ohio. Carnes was the founder and owner of Camark Pottery, one of Arkansas’s premier art pottery companies. Camark pottery has become highly valuable to collectors and is featured in museums such as the Old Statehouse Museum and the Historic Arkansas Museum, both in Little Rock (Pulaski County).

Henry Yuzuru Sugimoto—a noted artist whose paintings chronicled the immigrant experience, including the time he and his family spent in internment camps in southern Arkansas during World War II—was born as Yuzuru Sugimoto in Wakayama Prefecture, Japan. When he was a baby, his father moved to California to seek employment. Nine years later, his mother joined his father in California, leaving Sugimoto and a younger brother in the care of her parents. Sugimoto’s maternal grandfather had been a samurai and still owned many artworks, which Sugimoto copied with his grandfather’s encouragement. In 1919, Sugimoto’s parents could finally afford to bring him to America. He joined his parents in Hanford, California, and changed his name to Henry.

The town of Cushman (Independence County), which had been established in 1886 and was originally called Minersville because of its valuable manganese mining industry, was officially incorporated. The town had ninety-six mining employees, two doctors, and three hotels at a time when the local population was estimated at seventy. In 1958, ore valued at more than $1 million was shipped from Cushman itself, and more than $2 million in ore was shipped from the adjacent Batesville Manganese District. After demand for the manganese ore abated, the community evolved into a quiet bedroom community supported by workers from various commercial enterprises.

Henderson-Brown College at Arkadelphia (Clark County) was merged with Hendrix College in Conway (Faulkner County) as Hendrix-Henderson College because of the pressure of financial needs among the Methodist Church–sponsored schools. After about two years, the Henderson part of the name was dropped. At about the same time, Galloway Women’s College in Searcy (White County) was merged in also, and Hendrix College became the only Methodist school of higher education in the state for white students.

The renovation of Mountain Valley Spring Water’s historic headquarters was completed. Mountain Valley Spring Water, a brand name for bottled spring water from Hot Springs (Garland County), originated in the 1870s and rose to nationwide prominence, as did the town of Hot Springs, due to the springs’ reputation for curative powers.

Greenway (Clay County) was incorporated. Greenway is located on U.S. Highway 49 in Clay County, three miles south of Piggott (Clay County). Built as a stop on the St. Louis and Texas Railroad, Greenway is one of the small agricultural centers of the Mississippi Delta region.

Ida Josephine Brooks, who in 1906 was the first woman to have a private practice in psychiatry in Arkansas, died at the age of eighty-five at St. Vincent’s Infirmary in Little Rock (Pulaski County). The daughter of Joseph Brooks, of Brooks-Baxter War fame, she applied for admission to the University of Arkansas Medical School but was rejected. This led Brooks to campaign ardently for the education and training of woman physicians in the state. She earned a medical degree from a Boston University in 1891, later studied psychiatry, and in 1914 received an appointment as associate professor at the very school that had first rejected her.

The legislature approved Act 320, authorizing the closure of the Arkansas State Tuberculosis Sanatorium and the transfer of control of the structure from the Department of Health to the Board of Mental Retardation. The sanatorium officially closed in June, and the main gates were left unlocked for the first time in more than sixty years. Today, the facility operates as the Booneville Human Development Center and is classified as a historic site. By the time the facility closed, it had treated over 70,000 patients, and in time, its main hospital, the Nyberg Building, became known worldwide for its tuberculosis treatment.

St. Joe (Searcy County) native Jesse Smith Henley was elevated from the position of chief judge of the Eastern District of Arkansas to the position of judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals of the Eighth Circuit. Henley presided over a number of desegregation cases and was the first federal judge in the country to declare an entire state penitentiary in violation of the Eighth Amendment. Although Henley is likely to be most remembered as the overseer of Arkansas prisons, he was actually one of the more conservative judges on the Court of Appeals. He said, “As far as the government in general is concerned, except for certain basic functions, I’m against it, always have been and still am.”

John William Morris died at the age of 104. He had practiced medicine until the age of 101. In 1973, the American Medical Association and Ripley’s Believe It or Not recognized him as one of the three oldest practicing physicians in the United States. Morris estimated that he delivered more than 7,000 babies during his career. On his 100th birthday, the three national television networks were on hand to record the event, and he was featured on their daily news shows. The next day, Morris was back at work and treated twenty-five patients at his clinic.

Howard Seymour Stern died in Little Rock (Pulaski County). Stern was a physician, a noted photographer, and an award-winning painter. Although he had no professional training in art, his paintings and photographs continue to be displayed in various collections in Arkansas and around the world. His father was an architect, half the partnership of Mann and Stern, which designed Little Rock Central High School, the Albert Pike Hotel, the Arkansas Consistory, the Arlington Hotel, and the Fordyce Bath House.

Sid Wallace was hanged, an event that drew observers from across Johnson County. One of the most famous violent post–Civil War episodes in Johnson County was the 1873 murder of Judge Elisha Mears. The man suspected in the killing was “noted desperado” Sid Wallace, who attempted to assassinate Joseph T. Dickey, a St. Louis drummer (or a railroad foreman, depending upon the source), in the spring of 1872 and who was convicted of murdering Constable R. W. Ward of Clarksville.

Singer Lee Elhardt Hays was born in Little Rock (Pulaski County). Lee Hays was best known as the bass singer for the folk-music group the Weavers. Among the songs he is most known for are: “If I Had a Hammer,” “Roll the Union On,” “Raggedy, Raggedy, Are We,” “The Rankin Tree,” “On Top of Old Smokey,” “Kisses Sweeter than Wine,” and “Goodnight Irene.”

Harding College in Searcy (White County) was accredited by the North Central Association. The school, founded in 1924 from the combination of two struggling junior colleges, has grown from an initial enrollment of seventy-five college-level students and 173 elementary and high school students into a university that is the largest private educational institution in the state.

Chester Burnett (popularly known as Howlin’ Wolf) married Alabamian Lillie Handley Jones, a property owner and smart money manager. The couple settled in south Chicago, and she would remain with him until his death in 1976. Although Burnett lived in several parts of the South throughout his life, Arkansas (especially West Memphis) was his main stomping ground. One of the most influential musicians of the post–World War II era, his electric blues guitar—backing his powerful, howling voice—helped shape rock and roll.

John Quincy Wolf Jr., a college professor and self-trained folklorist who left a lasting legacy through his scholarship and the collecting and recording of mid-South folk music and folk tales, died. Wolf is credited with discovering and encouraging folk music performers such as Almeda Riddle, Ollie Gilbert, and Jimmy Driftwood. He was recognized by his contemporaries as an authority, and he advised promoters of the Newport [Rhode Island] Folk Festival concerning performers. His recollections of his father’s tales of growing up in the Ozarks after the Civil War were put together following his death and published by his widow, Bess, and a Memphis State University professor, F. Jack Hurley, as Life in the Leatherwoods.

Governor Mike Huckabee formally handed the deed to the McGehee National Guard Armory over to the city of McGehee (Desha County). The McGehee National Guard Armory was built in 1954 and reflects standardized plans that featured open floor plans, steel-framed roofs, and concrete block walls—a functional design typical of National Guard armories built during a period when larger facilities were needed. The City of McGehee later transferred the armory to the C. B. King School, a school for people with disabilities.

The town merchants of Carlisle (Lonoke County) organized a fundraiser to entertain former president Willilam Howard Taft. Upon arrival, Taft made a short speech from the train and then took a tour by automobile to view the rice fields and creameries. Carlisle, a bedroom community outside the metropolitan area of Little Rock (Pulaski County), lays claim to being the birthplace of rice-growing on the Grand Prairie.

Twenty-eight-year-old jitney (vehicle for hire) driver Browning Tuggle was lynched in Hope (Hempstead County) for allegedly attacking a white woman. Despite Tuggle’s protestations of innocence, a mob of about 100 men gathered and broke down the door of the jail. They took Tuggle from his cell, hanged him from the water tank tower, and riddled his body with bullets. According to the Arkansas Gazette, more than 2,000 people viewed Tuggle’s body before it was cut down.

The Walnut Ridge Army Flying School in Lawrence County was decommissioned. But as World War II ended, the U.S. Army Air Forces and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation revived the Walnut Ridge Army Air Field. With the war over, it seemed there would be no more need for so many military aircraft, and since the jet airplane had just been developed, many of them were considered obsolete. The government needed places to store and sell these planes, and Walnut Ridge—an ideal site because of the large land area and large parking ramp—became one such site. An estimated 10,000 to 11,000 warplanes were flown to Walnut Ridge in 1945 and 1946 for storage and sale.

James Ronald Rodgers Sr., the nation’s first African American to be appointed manager of a major commercial airport, the first black head of a major independent city agency in Little Rock (Pulaski County), and the state’s first black commercial loan officer, was born in Little Rock. In 1980, Rodgers was named manager of Little Rock Regional (now National) Airport at age thirty-three. During his tenure from 1980 to 1993, boardings went from 494,000 to more than one million, a 200,000-square-foot expansion of the terminal was completed, a runway was renovated and extended from 7,173 feet to about 8,000 feet, and a parallel runway was built. The expansion projects Rodgers coordinated totaled more than $70 million.

George William Stanley Ish, a prominent and highly respected black physician in both the black and white communities in Little Rock (Pulaski County), died. He is buried in Haven of Rest Cemetery in Little Rock. Ish was educated in Little Rock public schools and held academic degrees from Talladega College in Georgia and Yale University. He received his medical degree from Harvard Medical School. He was a member of the Pulaski County and Arkansas Medical Societies and was on the staff of Arkansas Baptist Medical Center and St. Vincent Infirmary.

Actress Gail Davis died of cancer in Los Angeles, California. Davis starred as the legendary sharpshooter in the groundbreaking TV Western series Annie Oakley, which ran from 1954 through 1956. She appeared in thirty-two feature films, was a guest on a number of TV shows, received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, was inducted into the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame, and served as a role model for young women.

Patrick Ronayne Cleburne, who became the highest-ranking Irish-born officer in American military history, was born in Ovens, County Cork, Ireland. He became a drugstore owner and lawyer in his new Arkansas hometown of Helena (Phillips County) and was a delegate to the Democratic Convention in 1858. He entered the Civil War as commander of the Yell Rifles, and, before he died leading a charge on a Union breastwork in Franklin, Tennessee, he had attained the rank of major general.

The Sixth Arkansas Volunteer Infantry fought its last Civil War battle, which was at Bentonville, North Carolina. Although the Confederates won the battle, the Arkansas brigade of which the Sixth was a part had lost so many men that further consolidation was needed (the Sixth had already merged with the Seventh). As one of its prized units, the Sixth fought in all of the major battles of the Army of Tennessee. With the rest of the Arkansas Brigade, it helped form what many believe was the toughest military unit ever from Arkansas. Brigadier General William Hardee expressed this best in his report about General Patrick Cleburne’s division, saying, “When his division defended, no odds could break its line; when it attacked, no numbers resisted its onslaught.”

The town of Avoca (Benton County) was incorporated. Located on U.S. Highway 62 between Rogers (Benton County) and Pea Ridge National Military Park, it has benefited from the general growth in population that northwestern Arkansas has experienced.

Mammoth Spring State Park opened the state’s tenth Arkansas Welcome Center, just off U.S. Hwy. 63 and within sight of Missouri. Mammoth Spring State Park preserves the state’s largest natural spring—and one of the largest in the world. Approximately nine million gallons of water flow through the spring hourly. The spectacular stream of cold water is the chief source of the Spring River, a fishing and canoeing stream that is popular year-round because of its dependable flow. The park also preserves a fully restored nineteenth-century railroad depot.

Little Rock native Orville Henry died in Malvern (Hot Spring County) after a two-year battle with pancreatic cancer. The best-known newspaper sportswriter in Arkansas history, Henry worked for the state’s two largest newspapers, the Arkansas Gazette and the Arkansas Democrat (later the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette). Although he covered other sports, Henry is most identified with writing about Arkansas Razorbacks football at the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County).

The Mosaic Templars of America headquarters building in Little Rock (Pulaski County) was destroyed by fire. Built between 1911 and 1913, it stood on the corner of Broadway and Ninth Street in downtown Little Rock. The Mosaic Templars was established in 1875 as an African-American fraternal organization that provided insurance and other services to black citizens in an age of segregation. Following the fire, the Department of Arkansas Heritage and the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center vowed to build a new structure on the historic site. The new cultural center, which opened on September 20, 2008, presents exhibits interpreting Arkansas’s African-American history from 1870 to the present. The third-floor auditorium resembles the original auditorium, including a horseshoe-shaped balcony and a stage with a proscenium opening.

Nationally recognized coin collector Matthew Herman (Matt) Rothert Sr. was born in Huntingburg, Indiana. While living in Camden (Ouachita County), he noticed that the motto “In God We Trust” was printed on coins but not on paper money. He wrote letters and gave speeches that resulted in Senator J. William Fulbright, along with several other senators and representatives from around the country, proposing a bill putting the motto “In God We Trust” on paper money.

Arkansas’s only automobile manufacturer, the Climber Motor Corporation, closed. The Climber Motor Corporation produced cars and trucks intended to cope with Arkansas’s primitive road system better than previous modes of transportation. Today, the Climber Motor Corporation factory building remains in Little Rock (Pulaski County) and is currently the headquarters of Creative Engineering/Micro Grinding. The significance of the building was recognized with its nomination to the National Register of Historic Places in 2005. In addition, two Climbers are known to exist, both located at the Museum of Automobiles outside Morrilton (Conway County).

Paul Dee “Daffy” Dean died. Dean was best known as a baseball player for the St. Louis Cardinals along with his brother Jay Hanna “Dizzy” Dean. Dean disliked the “Daffy” nickname reporters gave him, but his brother, who was far more outgoing than Dean and an eager self-promoter, likely convinced him that a “Dizzy and Daffy” gimmick could sell tickets.

President George H. W. Bush presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, to Sam Walton and described Walton as “an illustration of the American dream” who helped to “bring economic prosperity to his community and to the nation.”

The First Ever First Annual World’s Shortest St. Patrick’s Day Parade was held in Hot Springs (Garland County), with an open invitation for gag parade entries turning out more than fifty groups, including seventeen marching Irish wolfhounds and a marcher who boasted he would cover the “entire parade route while holding his breath.” The parade began when a group of Hot Springs residents gathered in a pub on the city’s Bridge Street and began musing about ways to capitalize on the fact that the street had been named in Ripley’s Believe It or Not! during the 1950s and 1960s as the world’s shortest street in everyday use.