Arkansas

One of America's first national parks, Hot Springs has welcomed the famous and the infamous, all seeking the healing elements of her waters.

Hot Springs was one of the first areas set aside as a federal land reservation in 1832--predating the first national park at Yellowstone by 40 years. In 1921, it was officially designated a national park. Physically the smallest of the 59 US national parks today, Hot Springs measures just larger than 5,500 acres. Its 47 on-site springs produce more than 700,000 gallons of thermal water per day. From early natives who quarried novaculite found in the surrounding hills to famous politicians, performers, and athletes, people have been coming to these springs for thousands of years to partake in the supposed healing powers of the water. President Franklin Roosevelt, boxer Jack Dempsey, and French opera diva Lily Pons are a few of the visitors who made the trek to the ""Valley of the Vapors."" The history of Hot Springs National Park revolves around people's' interactions with its thermal water.

Pocahontas, Arkansas, began as an early settlement known as Bettis Bluff. The name Pocahontas appears to have first been used in 1836 when the town was chosen as the county seat of the new Randolph County. The area's rivers played a significant role in the county's development, with the first steamboat arriving in Bettis Bluff in 1829. Pocahontas flourished following the Civil War due to the growing lumber industry, which cleared vast forested areas, allowing for an agricultural economy. The arrival of the railroad in the early 20th century ushered in new opportunities, and while World War II led many to leave in search of better-paying jobs, others benefited from the opening of Brown Shoe, Magee Picture Frames, Waterloo, and other industries. A significant lumber industry developed as the forests of the Current and Black River bottoms were cleared. The Port of Pocahontas became a shipping point for lumber, and the Sallee Handle Mill along the riverfront in Pocahontas became a booming business. Randolph County emerged as a significant producer of rice, soybeans, and, more recently, peanuts.

The 1872 French castle courthouse set the tone for construction in Monticello. Numerous elegant churches, residences, schools, and civic buildings followed.

Southern Arkansas University began as a residential agricultural high school, the Third District Agricultural School, in 1909. The school evolved into a junior college, popularly known as Magnolia A&M College, and later into a four-year institution, Southern State College. These four institutions served, primarily, young people of southwest Arkansas and provided extraordinary support to students, often the first in their families to seek degrees. The schools' educational value has been exceptional, as measured in graduates' achievements. Distinguished graduates have included, among many others, Gen. Horace Wade, '36, vice chief of staff, US Air Force; Leland Tollett, '56, president of Tyson Foods; Harry Thomason, '62, Hollywood producer and director; Cinda Hallman, '66, CEO, Spherion Corporation; Joyce Elliot, '73, Arkansas state senator and educational reformer; Joan Dempsey, '81, deputy director, US Central Intelligence Agency; and Fernando Barbosa, '92, managing director, Walt Disney Television International.

Arkansas's booze scene had a promising start, with America's biggest brewing families, Busch and Lemp, investing in Little Rock just prior to Prohibition. However, by 1915, the state had passed the Newberry Act, banning the manufacturing and selling of alcohol. It was not until sixty-nine years later that the state welcomed its first post-temperance brewery, Arkansas Brewing Company. After a few false starts, brewpubs in Fayetteville, Fort Smith and Little Rock found success. By 2000, the industry had regained momentum. An explosion of breweries around the state has since propelled Arkansas into the modern beer age.

Pulaski County, one of Arkansas’s original five counties, has been a political and cultural center for the state since 1819, being the home of the state’s capitol and the seat of the state’s economic power.  Located in the Arkansas River valley, Pulaski County is marked by bustling communities and has been home to colorful Arkansas characters, such as Chester Ashley and William Woodruff, and civil rights pioneers, such as Scipio Jones and Daisy Bates. These luminaries left traces and trails in the architecture throughout the county that attest to their cultural and economic world. This book serves as a document to the buildings they left behind and how the county has changed in the last 200 years. /Author Brian David Irby dives into the Arkansas State Archives’ photograph collection to tell the story of Pulaski County’s development.

Eureka Springs has a lively and colorful past, peppered by one-of-a-kind characters drawn to the town for its soothing waters.

And while Eureka Springs is known today as one of the most well-preserved towns in the nation, some of its most interesting history hides in plain sight. Join local author Joyce Zeller as she uncovers the remarkable and often forgotten history of this natural wonder of the Ozarks. With tales of the 1922 bank robbery, the residency of notorious prohibitionist Carry A. Nation and how a beloved cat named Morris became "general manager" at the historic Crescent Hotel, this is a side of the Eureka Springs story that won't be found anywhere else.

Up and down the Arkansas Delta, food tells a story. Whether the time Bill Clinton nearly died on the way to a coon dinner or the connections made over biscuits and gravy or the more common chicken and dumpling feuds, the area is no stranger to history. One of America's last frontiers, it was settled in the late nineteenth century by a rough-and-tumble collection of timber men, sharecroppers and entrepreneurs from all over the world who embraced the traditional foodways and added their own twists. Today, the Arkansas Delta is the nation's largest producer of rice and adds other crops like catfish and sweet potatoes. Join author Cindy Grisham for this delicious look into Delta cuisine.