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  Tenant farming and sharecropping became increasingly common after the Civil War, as white plantation owners who previously used slaves to work their fields turned to new ways to tend the crops. These tenant farmers, who were both black and white, leased parcels of land from owners ... Read More

Historic Places: The A. C. Jeffery Farmstead was constructed in 1848 by Augustus Curran Jeffery, the son of Jehoiada Jeffery, an early pioneer settler in Izard County and founder of the town of Mt. Olive. The Jeffery family first arrived in the area September 10, 1816, when Jehoiada Jeffery, ... Read More

On June 27, 1806, the District of Arkansas was created by the Territorial Legislature of Louisiana from the southern part of the New Madrid District.  (Above) A new map of part of the United States of North America, containing the Carolinas and Georgia, 1806; and a Map of the U.S.... Read More

This is Isaac Charles Parker (1838–1896) who served as federal judge for the Federal Court of the Western District of Arkansas in Fort Smith.  He tried 13,490 cases, with 9,454 of them resulting in guilty pleas or convictions. His court was unique in the fact that he had jurisdiction ove... Read More

On this day in 1848, a steamboat named Cotton Plant brings the body of Chester Ashley back to Little Rock for burial. Ashley (1791–1848) was prominent in territorial and antebellum Arkansas. He was involved in the dispute over ownership of the site of Little Rock, the ... Read More

Historic Places: Built in 1912-13, the Bedford Brown Bethell House in Des Arc, Prairie County, has been called one of the most elegant old homes in the Grand Prairie region of Arkansas.  Bedford Brown Bethell, the original owner, was born August 23, 1846, in Tulip Ridge.  In th... Read More

 Historic Places: The Louisiana Purchase Marker is located at the junction of Phillips, Lee and Monroe counties in eastern Arkansas. The marker commemorates the “initial point” from which land surveys of the territory acquired through the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 were surveyed. The ... Read More

Born in Little Rock in 1940, Grammy award-winning Ferrell “Pharoah” Sanders, noted jazz saxophonist, is recognized as a pioneer of the “free jazz” movement. Collaborations with artists such as Sun Ra and John Coltrane remain his most noted work, but his solo efforts stretch over four deca... Read More

Folklorist Alan Lomax spent his career documenting folk music traditions from around the world. He and his father John spent time in Arkansas collecting old stories and songs. Recently thousands of the songs and interviews Lomax recorded were made available fo... Read More