The EOA at 15: The 15 Most Popular Entries of the Past 15 Months

The past fifteen months have been a tumultuous time, and Arkansans—as they’ve been doing for fifteen years now, since our launch in May 2006—have looked to the CALS Encyclopedia of Arkansas to provide information and context as they navigated political news, social justice protests, and an unprecedented global pandemic.

The following entries were the fifteen entries viewed the most from March 2020 to May 2021. Click on the title of each for the link to the full EOA entry.

Sundown Towns

Newspaper account of African Americans leaving Bonanza (Sebastian County), from the Arkansas Gazette; May 7, 1904.

Elaine Massacre of 1919

The twelve Elaine Massacre defendants.

Negro Boys Industrial School Fire of 1959

Memorial plaque listing the names of the twenty-one African-American boys who died in a fire at the 1959 Negro Boys Industrial School. Although a total of twenty-one boys died in the fire, the fourteen whose bodies could not be identified were buried in unmarked graves at Haven of Rest Cemetery; April 21, 2018.

One Drop Rule

Article in the Batesville Daily Guard about the 38th General Assembly passage of Act 320.

Little Rock Nine

National Guardsman prevents four black students from entering Little Rock Central High School; September 4, 1957. Students shown are (left to right) Carlotta Walls, Gloria Ray, Jane Hill, and Ernest Green.

Titan II Missile Explosion (1980)

Aerial view showing damage to the Titan II Missile silo after the 1980 explosion.

Trees

Chinquapin oak (Castanea ozarkensis) in Riverside Park in Batesville (Independence County); 2011. The tree is 102 feet tall. Chinquapin (Independence County) received its name from the chinquapin trees that once grew in the area. Logging practices and a chestnut blight that struck the Ozarks in the 1950s and 1960s virtually wiped out the tree. Today, very few chinquapin trees are left in Arkansas, and an effort is being made to replenish them.

Slavery

Notice of slave auction at Spring Hill (Hempstead County); 1842.

Native Americans

Mile post no. 94, eight miles east of De Queen (Sevier County), which marked the 1877 boundary between Arkansas and the Choctaw Nation from Fort Smith (Sebastian County) to the Red River.

Ozark Mountains

Whitaker Point (a.k.a. Hawksbill Crag) in the Ozark Mountains in southwestern Newton County.

Civil War through Reconstruction, 1861 through 1874

The Thirteenth Regiment Illinois Infantry at Helena (Phillips County) during the summer of 1862, several months before participating in the Union victory at the Battle of Arkansas Post.

Albert Pike

Albert Pike, a political leader and lawyer who served as a Confederate general during the Civil War; circa 1880. He is perhaps best known as a national leader in Freemasonry.

European Exploration and Settlement, 1541 through 1802

Portrait of Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto, who led the first European expedition into what is now Arkansas.

Duggar Family

Jim Bob Duggar’s 2001 Arkansas Senate campaign card.

African Americans

Group of students in front of an unidentified building at the Consolidated White River Academy in Brinkley (Monroe County); 1939.

We don’t yet know what information our readers will seek in the next fifteen months, and beyond, but we’ll be ready for them!

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To celebrate 15 years of the CALS Encyclopedia of Arkansas and to make sure the EOA keeps providing history, culture, and context, consider making a one-time or recurring donation that will help us grow and maintain the EOA into the future.

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