| The Columbia Gazetteer of North America. 2000. |
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| Arkansas |
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Arkansas, state (53,182 sq mi/137,741 sq km; 1995 est. pop. 2,483,769), S central U.S., admitted as the 25th state of the Union in 1836; 34°46'N 92°18'W. The  and largest city is Little Rock; other important cities are Fort Smith, Fayetteville, North Little Rock, Pine Bluff, Hot Springs, Texarkana, and West Memphis. On the E, the Mississippi R. separates Ark. from Tenn. and Miss. The state is bounded on the N by Mo., on the W by Okla. and a part of Texas, and on the S by La. The Arkansas R. flows SE across the state bet. the Ozark plateau and the Ouachita Mts. and runs down to the S and E plains to empty into the Mississippi. The other rivers of the state also flow generally SE or S to the Mississippi; these include the St. Francis (which forms part of the E Mo. state line), the White R., the Ouachita, and the Red R. (which forms part of the Texas state line). The climate of Ark. is marked by long, hot summers and mild winters. The state’s many lakes and streams and its abundant wildlife provide excellent hunting and fishing. Tourism is an important state industry. In particular, the mineral springs at Hot Springs attract many visitors. The state’s transportation network is based on rivers as well as roads, RRs, and air travel. The 440 mi/708 km Arkansas R. Navigation System links Okla. and Ark. to the Mississippi R. A major cotton-producing state in the 19th cent., Ark. has since diversified its agr. production and overall economy. Soybeans and rice are of particular importance, however, cotton remains an important crop. Ark. has become a leading producer of poultry; other livestock and dairy prods. also contribute greatly to the farm economies. The state’s most important mineral prods. are petroleum, bromine and bromine compounds, and natural gas, and it is the nation’s leading bauxite producer. Principal mfg. includes food prods., chemicals, electrical equip., paper, lumber and wood prods., furniture, auto and airplane parts, and machinery. A people known as the Bluff Dwellers, who inhabited caves, probably lived in the Ark. area before 500. They were followed by the Mound Builders, who received their name from the mounds they constructed, apparently for ceremonial purposes. The first white men to arrive in Ark. (1541–1542) were probably members of the Span. expedition under Hernando De Soto. Later, the Fr. explorers Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet came S along the Mississippi to the mouth of the Ark. R. A number of Native Amer. groups, such as the Osage, Quapaw, and Caddos, lived in the vicinity. In 1682, La Salle’s lieutenant, Henri de Tonti, est. Ark. Post, the first white settlement in the Ark. area. La Salle claimed the Mississippi valley for France, and the region became part of the Fr. territory of La. The French ceded the La. territory to Spain in 1762 but regained it again before it passed to the U.S. under the La. Purchase (1803). Ark. became part of the Territory of Mo. in 1812. In 1819 it was made a separate entity, and the first territorial legislature met at Ark. Post. The capital was moved to Little Rock in 1821. Ark. achieved statehood in 1836. The cotton boom of 1818 brought the first large wave of settlers, and the Southern plantation system, moving W, fixed itself in the alluvial plains of S and E Ark. As the Civil War began, poorer farmers were generally indifferent to questions of slavery and states’ rights. The slaveholding planters held the most political power, however, and after some hesitation, Ark. finally seceded (1861) from the Union. In the Civil War, Confederate defeats at Pea Ridge (March 1862), Prairie Grove (Dec. 1862), and Arkansas Post (Jan. 1863) led to Union occupation of N Ark., and Gen. Grant’s Vicksburg campaign separated states W of the Mississippi from the rest of the Confederacy. In Sept. 1863, Federal troops entered Little Rock, where a Unionist convention in Jan. 1864 set up a govt. that repudiated secession and abolished slavery. Because the state refused at first to enfranchise blacks, Ark. was not readmitted to the Union until 1868, when a new constitution gave blacks the right to vote and hold office. Reconstruction in Ark. reached a turbulent climax in the struggle (1874) of 2 Republican claimants to the governorship, Elisha Baxter and Joseph Brooks. Baxter’s apparent success in the election was not accepted by Brooks, and followers of the 2 men resorted to violence in what became known as the Brooks-Baxter War. After President Ulysses S. Grant declared Baxter as governor, Baxter called a constituent assembly dominated by Democrats to frame a new state constitution. The convention adopted (1874) the constitution that, in amended form, still remains in force. During Reconstruction the regime of carpetbaggers and scalawags was detested by most Ark. whites, but it brought advances in education and (at exorbitant costs caused by corruption) RR construction. Because of high cotton prices and the failure to give the freed blacks any economic status, the broken plantation system was replaced by sharecropping and farm tenancy. The lives of the people of the Ozarks remained largely unchanged; they retained the customs, skills, and superstitions that have given the hill folk their distinctive regional characteristics. In the late 19th cent., as RR construction proceeded, Ark.’s pop. grew substantially, and bauxite and lumbering industries developed. Oil was discovered in Ark., near El Dorado, in 1921. Disaster struck in 1927 when the Mississippi R. overflowed, flooding 1/5 of the state. With the fortunes of the state pegged to the price of cotton, the Depression of the early 1930s struck hard. Dispossessed tenants, black and white, formed (1939) the Southern Tenant Farmers Union; after trouble with the authorities, it moved its hq. to Memphis, Tenn. A strike called in 1936 spread to other regions before its strength waned. Other impoverished farmers migrated W to Calif. as “Arkies”—like the “Okies” from neighboring Okla. After World War I, Afr. Americans moved in a steady stream to the industrial N. World War II brought further loss of pop. as workers left Ark. for war factories elsewhere. The war, however, created a boom for new industries in the state, notably the processing of bauxite into aluminum. The decline of industrial output after the war was offset by the vigorous efforts of a state development commission formed in 1955 to attract new industry to Ark. In 1957, Gov. Orval Faubus of Ark. became a center of natl. and world attention when he resisted the attempted desegregation of public schools in Little Rock. In 1971, Ark. and landlocked Okla. joined in the Arkansas R. Navigation System, a project that developed the Arkansas R. basin to provide water transportation to the Mississippi. In the 1980s, the Ark.-based Wal-Mart merchandise chain became the largest retailer in the U.S. Started in 1962 as a small-town discount store, the chain would eventually make Ark. founder Sam Walton the wealthiest person in the U.S. Tyson’s, also headquartered in Ark., became the largest poultry firm in the world. The state constitution (1874) provides for an elected governor and bicameral legislature, with a 35-member senate and a 100-member house of representatives. The representatives serve 2-year terms; governor and senators serve for 4 years. Ark. sends 2 senators and 4 representatives to the U.S. Congress and has 6 electoral votes. Ark. has long been dominated by the Democratic party, but in 1966 Winthrop Rockefeller was elected the state’s first Republican governor since Reconstruction and was reelected in 1968. Bill Clinton was elected governor 5 times bet. 1978 and 1990. In 1992 Clinton was elected President of the U.S. Among the institutions of higher education in the state are the Univ. of Ark., at Fayetteville; Ark. State Univ., at Jonesboro; Hendrix Col. and the State Col. of Ark., at Conway; Ouachita Baptist Col. and Henderson State Col., at Arkadelphia; the Col. of the Ozarks, at Clarksville; Ark. Col., at Batesville; and Harding Col., at Searcy. Ark. has 75 cos.: Arkansas, Ashley, Baxter, Benton, Boone, Bradley, Calhoun, Carroll, Chicot, Clark, Cleburne, Cleveland, Columbia, Conway, Craighead, Crawford, Crittenden, Cross, Dallas, Desha, Drew, Faulkner, Franklin, Fulton, Garland, Grant, Greene, Hempstead, Hot Spring, Howard, Independence, Izard, Jackson, Jefferson, Johnson, Lafayette, Lawrence, Lee, Lincoln, Little River, Logan, Lonoke, Madison, Marion, Miller, Mississippi, Monroe, Montgomery, Nevada, Newton, Ouachita, Perry, Phillips, Pike, Poinsett, Polk, Pope, Prairie, Pulaski, Randolph, Saint Francis, Saline, Scott, Searcy, Sebastian, Sevier, Sharp, Stone, Union, Van Buren, Washington, White, Woodruff, Yell. | | | | Capital city or county seat is shown by the symbol |
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| | | The Columbia Gazetteer of North America. Copyright © 2000 Columbia University Press. |
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