Archive for May, 2016

The hydroelectric battle

Tuesday, May 17th, 2016

The visitors’ center at Bull Shoals-White River State Park is well worth the visit.

On the back deck is a spectacular view of Bull Shoals Dam with the lake on one side and the cold water of the White River on the other side.

If you have any doubt that Arkansas has the best system of state parks in the country, this facility will help put such doubts to rest.

Inside, exhibits tell the story of the White River, both before the construction of Bull Shoals Dam in the late 1940s and early 1950s and in the decades that have followed.

As an Arkansas history buff, the thing I found most interesting was a framed front page of the Baxter Bulletin from 64 years ago (it now publishes six days a week but was a weekly at the time). It was the issue published after President Truman spoke at the dedication of Bull Shoals Dam on July 2, 1952.

Truman, never one to mince words, took a shot at Arkansas Power & Light Co. (now Entergy Arkansas) and the other private power companies that had opposed the use of federal dams to generate electricity.

According to the articles in the newspaper, AP&L engineers had constructed a model in an attempt to show that flood control and hydroelectric generation weren’t compatible goals for the same dam.

Truman didn’t hesitate on the day of the dedication to make fun of that model.

What you must understand is that AP&L had been the most politically powerful business entity in the state for several decades thanks to the skills of Harvey Couch and C. Hamilton Moses.

Couch, who grew up in rural Columbia County, had at the age of 35 in 1914 purchased the only electric transmission line in the state. That line ran 22 miles from Malvern to Arkadelphia.

Couch later built two dams on the Ouachita River near Hot Springs (forming Lake Hamilton and Lake Catherine) to generate electricity for his growing utility company.

By 1930, AP&L had 3,000 miles of lines and served customers in 63 of the state’s 75 counties. Couch also formed Mississippi Power & Light Co. and Louisiana Power & Light Co. He built the first modern natural gas-fired power plant in this part of the country near Monroe, La., and was appointed by President Hoover to the board of the Reconstruction Finance Corp., which was formed in 1931 to address problems caused by the Great Depression.

“The only luxury the longtime resident of Pine Bluff (where AP&L had its headquarters) allowed himself was a rustic log cabin on Lake Catherine,” Patricia Laster writes for the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture. “He called it Couchwood, and there he entertained everyone who had helped him in his rise to fame, as well as international bankers and presidents Herbert Hoover and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.”

Couch used his political influence to persuade officials in Washington not to create a taxpayer-subsidized Arkansas River Valley Authority that would cut into AP&L profits. Instead, the Roosevelt administration pushed for the Tennessee Valley Authority, which was created by Congress in May 1933.

Like Couch, Moses grew up in rural south Arkansas. He was born on a farm near Hampton in 1888 and worked in area logging camps when he wasn’t in school. He graduated from what’s now Ouachita Baptist University at Arkadelphia in 1908 and then headed south to New Orleans, where he obtained his master’s degree in Southern history from Tulane University. He earned his law degree in 1911 in Little Rock and then went to work for Gov. George Donaghey. Moses later served as an adviser to Gov. George Hays and Gov. Charles Hillman Brough.

Moses became the general counsel for AP&L and Couch’s other businesses in 1919. Moses moved into the role of AP&L president following Couch’s death in 1941 and proved just as politically influential as Couch had been. Moses was the AP&L president until 1952 and remained as board chairman until 1955.

Sherry Laymon writes for the Encyclopedia of Arkansas that “private power companies profited greatly during World War II as they operated at full capacity to meet war production demands. However, decreased power loads after the war created financial difficulties for utility companies, which eventually led to an intense struggle between public and private power entities in the 1940s. To increase public demand for electricity, Moses initiated his Arkansas Plan, designed to encourage community leaders to utilize local residents, resources, capital and labor to strengthen their communities and attract business and industry into the state. The University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, state organizations and private corporations supported his efforts and organized to form the Arkansas Economic Council in December 1944.

“Moses, Arkansas’ business cheerleader, visited many Arkansas communities and motivated Arkansans to demonstrate civic pride in their towns by making notable improvements to attract new industry. As a result, local residents enhanced their communities by paving city streets, whitewashing storefronts, landscaping public property and developing recreational programs. They also built houses, churches, hospitals and schools, which attracted more industry to the state. Moses then traveled across the country preaching the gospel of Arkansas to draw corporate attention to the state. Within 10 years, the state reaped bountiful harvests as new industry created 36,000 jobs.”

Arkansas remained a rural, poor state, though. And large parts of rural Arkansas remained without electricity.

“Private power companies had explored the possibility of building a dam at Wildcat Shoals above Cotter as early as 1902 but never began work toward it,” Scott Branyan writes for the Encyclopedia of Arkansas. “Congress approved the construction of six reservoirs in the White River basin in the Flood Control Act of 1938. A U.S. Army Corps of Engineers report in 1930 had recommended the Wildcat Shoals site along with seven others as being the most effective of the 13 investigated. However, in a 1940 report, the Corps of Engineers presented the Bull Shoals site as an alternative to Wildcat Shoals, where unsuitable foundation conditions had been found. This report recommended the construction of Table Rock and Bull Shoals as multipurpose reservoirs for flood control, hydropower generation and other beneficial purposes, coming to the conclusion that the reservoir projects were justifiable.”

Pushing early on for construction of dams on the White River was Congressman Claude Albert Fuller, who served in Congress from 1929-39. Fuller, who had practiced law at Eureka Springs before being elected to Congress, helped lead the fight for adoption of the Flood Control Act of 1938, which followed a series of devastating floods in the region in 1937.

Fuller was defeated in the Democratic primary of 1938 by Clyde Ellis. Fuller went back to Eureka Springs to practice law and served as president of the Bank of Eureka Springs from 1930 until his death in 1968. He continued as a private citizen to advocate for the dams.

Meanwhile, Ellis took up the fight in Congress. Ellis, the oldest of nine children, had been raised on a farm near Garfield in Benton County. The farm had no electricity, and rural electrification became his passion.

Ellis helped form the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, which was designed to protect the interests of the New Deal rural electrification programs.

Ellis ran for the Senate in 1942 and lost in the Democratic primary. John L. McClellan became the state’s new senator. Ellis was hired in 1943 as the first general manager of the NRECA.

In a 1984 history of the NRECA titled “The Next Greatest Thing,” it was written: “The record of NRECA in those years, stamped with the strong and powerful personality of Ellis and his spellbinding, single-minded leadership, is studded with stunning victories, few defeats.”

Sheila Yount writes for the Encyclopedia of Arkansas: “Known as Mr. Rural Electrification, Ellis led the electrification association through funding battles for the Rural Electrification Administration, which provided low-interest loans to the nation’s electric cooperatives, and fiercely fought the power companies, which opposed the rural electrification program. Rural service was far more expensive to create than service in urban areas. When the power companies charged higher rates for rural service, their customers used less electricity, making the service increasingly unprofitable.

“Ellis also helped persuade the federal government to include hydropower plants at Norfork Dam in Baxter County and other dams in Arkansas that were originally designed for flood control only. He fought major battles to give the cooperatives access to the power from those dams. Ellis credited the NRECA’s success to the grassroots support of the electric cooperatives.”

Ellis wrote a book titled “A Giant Step” in 1966.

“The wires which tied the houses of rural people together also seemed to unite their spirits,” he wrote. “Beginning in the early days and growing through the years, there has been some unusual quality about the rural electrification program, which has drawn people of diverse political and social views together in a common purpose. The people who work for our program feel they’re working in a cause or movement or a crusade, which many of them can’t define.”

Yount writes: “Besides the political arena, the association’s role expanded to provide many services for the nation’s electric cooperatives, including retirement and insurance plans; training for directors and employees; legal seminars for cooperative attorneys, safety training; and communications assistance. Ellis also helped bring electricity to people in 30 other countries through the Agency for International Development. This program was a compilation of various federal efforts to provide foreign aid during the Cold War. Created by the Kennedy administration, AID used American dollars to fight poverty and bring about development in Third World nations. Ellis traveled to Colombia, Nicaragua, Ecuador and other countries promoting rural electrification, using his experiences in Arkansas to prove to governments and citizens that such a program was possible anywhere in the world.”

Construction on Norfork Dam on the North Fork River began in the spring of 1941.

“The North Fork River was a strong candidate for a tributary flood control project,” Branyan writes. “The Corps noted it was a primary contributor to flooding in the White River because of its steep banks and big feeder streams, which frequently swelled quickly during periods of runoff. For a number of years, the Corps and private entities had studied the site for potential hydropower use as well. … Securing funding for Depression-era projects at the time of a possible impending war, however, was difficult.

“Congressman Ellis argued that a dam with a power plant was immediately needed for any increased manufacturing requirements during possible wartime production demands. He succeeded in obtaining funding and additional authorization for hydropower in the Flood Control Act of 1941, and the Little Rock District of the Corps of Engineers awarded the construction contract to the Utah Construction Co. and Morrison-Knudsen Co.”

The Norfork powerhouse was operational by 1944. A second generator was in use by February 1950.

The dam was made entirely of concrete — about 1.5 million cubic yards to be exact. The site that was chosen is 4.8 miles upstream from the confluence of the White and North Fork rivers at Norfork.

A Missouri Pacific railroad spur from Norfork to the site of the dam was built to move equipment, concrete and 2,000 tons of reinforcing steel. A total of 27,000 railroad cars moved along the spur during construction.

“During 1940, several hundred small farms were abandoned in Baxter County and left in foreclosure,” Branyan writes. “However, the construction of a dam in the area meant prospects for work during the Depression. As soon as word of the approval of Norfork Dam appeared in the newspapers, locals began contacting Ellis to inquire about jobs. During the four years of the project, the number of workers employed on both the dam and powerhouse was 815.

“Farmland around two communities along the river — Henderson in Baxter County and Bakersfield in Missouri — was inundated. Around Henderson, about 400 landowners had to relocate. Twenty-six cemeteries were moved. Crops continued to be harvested into the late fall of 1942. The lake began to fill by Feb. 1, 1943.”

Construction of Bull Shoals Dam began in 1947. That dam required 2.1 million cubic yards of concrete. At the time of its construction, it was the fifth-largest concrete dam in the country, and its powerhouse was the largest building in the state. Powerhouse construction began in September 1950 and concluded two years later. The final two generating units were installed in 1963.

“The completion of the dam and reservoir immediately began to affect the local economy,” Branyan writes. “Media coverage attracted attention to the region and resulted in the quick growth of the tourist industry. In 1940, there were only 13 businesses in the area that provided overnight accommodations. By 1970, 300 such establishments could be found. Assessed taxable real estate values, per capita income and manufacturing payroll rose dramatically in the following decades. The area also now supports a retirement community.

“The dam put an end to long, multiday fishing floats from Branson, Mo., to Cotter. Jim Owen of the Owen Boat Line had operated a float trip business on the river for many years. Largely through Owen’s promotion, the White River garnered a reputation for excellent smallmouth bass fishing. But the new reservoir soon offered equally excellent lake fishing for a number of warm-water species as well as stocked trout below the dam. Marina, boat businesses and fishing guide services sprang up rapidly to handle the influx of anglers.”

Resorts such as Gaston’s became nationally known due to the quality of the trout fishing created by cold-water releases from the dam.

Back to Clyde Ellis: The man known as Mr. Rural Electrification retired from the NRECA following a heart attack and stroke in 1967. He was named general manager emeritus.

Ellis later worked for the U.S. secretary of agriculture and for McClellan in the U.S. Senate. Ellis died in February 1980 in Washington following another stroke and is buried across the Potomac River from the nation’s capital at Arlington National Cemetery.

Here in Arkansas, he probably should be remembered as the man who handed AP&L a rare political defeat while bringing government-subsidized hydropower to a poor, rural state.

Posted in Building Arkansas, Business, Ozarks, Traveling Arkansas | 2 Comments »

Anita Davis and the South Main renaissance

Thursday, May 12th, 2016

The original version of this story ran in the May-June issue of Talk Business & Politics magazine.

Anita Davis never set out to rehabilitate part of downtown Little Rock.

She wasn’t a historic preservation activist or one of those people who write letters to the local newspaper.

She describes herself as shy.

She simply likes walkable neighborhoods and felt it was time to give back to the city she has called home since the late 1980s.

“I started thinking one day about the fact that I had never really been involved in the community or given anything back,” Davis says during breakfast at the Capital Hotel. “I had a bunch of stuff that I needed to store and began looking for a place to put everything. What I found was a building on South Main Street.”

A love affair with the neighborhood ensued.

Davis, a Murfreesboro native, purchased the Bernice Building at 1417 S. Main St. in 2004.

A year later, she bought an empty lot at 1401 S. Main St.

She admits now that she viewed the neighborhood as dangerous and ran back to her car following her first visit there. But she was captivated by the Bernice Building, constructed in 1923, and soon was reading everything she could get her hands on about the concept of “placemaking.”

Davis found herself attending conferences from Boston on the East Coast to Seattle on the West Coast in an effort o learn more about building walkable neighborhoods.

One of Davis’ daughters lived in New York City in the Chelsea neighborhood. She could easily walk to restaurants, grocery stores, boutiques and entertainment venues from her home. Davis wanted to see if she could bring a touch of Chelsea to South Main Street.

She also wanted to bring a touch of Murfreesboro.

Yes, Murfreesboro.

“When I was growing up in Murfreesboro in the 1950s, we had three drugstores downtown, a hardware store, a movie theater and a lot more,” Davis says. “We could walk to all of those places. You didn’t have to get in the car and drive from place to place. Anyone who grew up in a thriving Arkansas town in the 1950s and 1960s knows what I’m talking about. I had seen it work in a town as small as Murfreesboro, and I had seen it work in a city as big as New York.”

Davis’ parents, Clarence and Bennie Sue Anthony, were well-known in their corner of southwest Arkansas. Davis had a maternal grandmother named Bernice (who once had worked at Franke’s, the venerable Little Rock cafeteria), which was another part of the attraction of the Bernice Building on South Main.

The empty lot adjacent to the building once had been the site of a Captain D’s fast-food restaurant, which had burned. The restaurant’s owners decided not to rebuild in a neighborhood that was becoming increasingly downtrodden. There were still crepe myrtles on the lot. Davis began bringing in plants and benches. A sculpture competition was held. In 2011, a wooden structure was built to serve as a shelter.

The Bernice Garden was born.

It’s now the home of everything from Mardi Gras celebrations to beard-growing contests to farmers’ markets to the annual Arkansas Cornbread Festival each fall.

Prior to Captain D’s opening in January 1981, the lot long had been the home of a tiny restaurant known as the Little Rock Inn. Suddenly, there was life again at 1401 S. Main St. after Anita Davis stepped in.

By 2006, Davis was ready to make another purchase. This time it was the Lincoln Building at 1423 S. Main St., which had been built in 1906.

In 2006 on the other side of Main Street, she bought the property that once had housed a popular dairy bar known as the Sweden Crème.

Now, the Bernice Building houses the downtown location of Boulevard Bread Co.

The Lincoln Building houses the Green Corner Store and the soda fountain that has helped make Loblolly Creamery’s products well known across Arkansas.

The old Sweden Crème is now an innovative restaurant known as The Root Café, which has received national attention.

All of these businesses attract people from throughout central Arkansas and even out-of-state visitors to South Main Street on a daily basis.

Between Boulevard Bread and the Green Corner Store is the home of studioMAIN, a nonprofit organization that brings architects and others in the design community together to introduce urban design concepts for Little Rock. Exhibitions sponsored by studioMAIN have included everything from the work of students to professional designers. An architectural film was produced for the Little Rock Film Festival, and pop-up events are held throughout the city to show what neighborhoods can become. Design awards are given and partnerships have been established with organizations such as the Arkansas Arts Center.

Boulevard Bread began serving customers in 2000 at its flagship location at the corner of Kavanaugh Boulevard and Grant Street in the Heights neighborhood of Little Rock. Attracted by the South Main vibe, Boulevard’s owners decided to open a downtown location with an expanded bakery that’s open from Monday through Saturday from 7 a.m. until 3 p.m.

The nearby Green Corner Store describes itself as “Arkansas’ first eco lifestyle store” since products sold there are made from natural, organic, recycled or reclaimed materials. Many of the products — ranging from bath and beauty items to apparel to packaged food — are made in Arkansas. Owner Shelley Green calls it a chance to “showcase the array of green products that are both beautiful and functional.”

The soda fountain portion of the building, which had housed the C.H. Dawson Drugstore from 1905-67, became the home in 2012 of Loblolly Creamery, founded by Sally Mengel and Rachel Moore. They debuted their ice cream samples at the 2011 Arkansas Cornbread Festival. Loblolly ice cream initially was sold at only the Green Corner Store. Now, Loblolly products, which often are seasonal and use local ingredients as much as possible, can be found in numerous locations, from Little Rock restaurants such as Big Orange and Graffiti’s to retailers such as Whole Foods and Stratton’s Market.

With the success of its ice cream, Loblolly diversified into drinks and syrups. The ice creams have names such as Rock Town Bourbon Pecan, Little Rocky Road and Earl Grey Lemon.

On the other side of Main Street, Jack and Corri Sundell opened The Root in June 2011 after three years of planning. They featured everything from burgers to homemade bratwurst to vegetarian dishes and soon gained a dedicated following.

In December 2014, The Root won an award from the HLN cable television network’s program “Growing America: A Journey to Success.” The honor came with a $25,000 check. Soon afterward, it was announced that The Root had been awarded a $150,000 Mission Main Street grant from JPMorgan Chase Bank. The Root was among just 20 small businesses nationally to get a grant.

Using shipping containers, the Sundells are expanding the restaurant. Three containers are being used for additional dining space, three containers are being used to expand the kitchen and one is being used as a walk-in cooler.

The premise of the HLN program won by The Root was that teams of MBA graduates and students from top business schools across the country would help three small businesses become more efficient. Also featured were a disaster-relief company in Denver and a barbershop in Detroit. The team that came to Little Rock helped the Sundells improve their website and their social media efforts.

While the Green Corner Store, Loblolly Creamery, Boulevard Bread and The Root Café were achieving acclaim in the neighborhood she adopted, Davis had her own expansion plans. She has always enjoyed collecting items, and purses became a specialty. Davis was intrigued as a child by her mother’s and grandmother’s purses, considering them a reflection of the individuals. She was part of a group that put together a traveling exhibit titled “The Purse and the Person: A Century of Women’s Purses” that stopped in cities across the country, including the Historic Arkansas Museum in Little Rock in 2006. Among the cities where the purses were exhibited were Dallas, Seattle and Sacramento.

Davis eventually decided to create the Esse Purse Museum at 1510 S. Main St. in a building that had been constructed in 1946. The museum opened in June 2013.

Davis says she started collecting purses more than three decades ago, but having one of the premier collections in the country was “not intentional. It was kind of my way of honoring women. There just aren’t a lot of things in this country that honor women.”

Davis believes the museum complements her vision for the rest of South Main Street, which she likes to describe as the “feminine side of Little Rock,” not because men aren’t welcome but because she sees it as an area that’s open to new ideas. The purses on display — more than 250 of them — are arranged by decade beginning in 1900. Davis views the collection as not only a look at the history of fashion but also as something that gives insight into the history of women. Photos and accessories accompany the purses.

Davis’ collection grew to more than 3,000 handbags, most of which were stored in her attic before the traveling exhibition, which toured the country for three years. Davis is hopeful that the museum will lead to additional restaurants and shops along South Main Street.

Though she’s a collector, Davis has a more muted personal style. She admits that she carried the same shoulder bag for a decade prior to opening Esse.

In 2014, The Huffington Post included Esse on its list of the “World’s Hottest Museums.”

It wrote: “Set in an emerging neighborhood filled with boutiques and trendy eateries, Esse Purse Museum celebrates the art and history of women’s handbags. And the best part is that it sells purses too.”

Also on the list were the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and the 21c Museum Hotel in Bentonville. Among the other museums on the list were the Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Fla., and the Astrup Fearnley Museet in Oslo, Norway.

Anita Davis was in very good company.

“When I first got involved with this neighborhood, I asked myself, ‘What do you want it to be?'” Davis says. “I fell in love with the area, and I’m constantly looking for ways to bring more people here. I also feed off the energy and ideas of people like Corri and Jack Sundell. I like people who make things happen, and they know how to make things happen.”

Davis is quick to give credit to other people and entities who have helped spur development along South Main Street. They include:

— Joe Fox and his Community Bakery at 12th and Main. The bakery began in the Rose City area of North Little Rock in 1947 but moved to its current location when Fox purchased it in 1983. Fox moved to Little Rock from Boston in the 1970s and says he yearned for a place where he could read The New York Times and get a bagel and a good cup of coffee early in the morning. Fox became the Little Rock distributor for The New York Times. At the bakery, he has more than a dozen bakers who work through the night.

— The nationally award-winning literary quarterly Oxford American, which moved its offices to South Main Street several years ago and then teamed up with Matt and Amy Bell for a restaurant and entertainment venue known as South On Main, which is in the building once occupied by the popular Tex-Mex restaurant Juanita’s. South On Main has received acclaim for its food and the quality of its concert series.

— Midtown Billiards, which made Esquire magazine’s 2007 list of Best Bars in America. Midtown holds a private club license so it can stay open until 5 a.m. It’s a favorite haunt of musicians, restaurant workers, newspaper reporters and others who work late.

The South Main Street scene received another boost in February 2015 when Bart Barlogie Jr., Eric Nelson and Jason Neidhardt opened what’s now Raduno Brick Oven & Barroom, which features Neapolitan pizzas from a double-deck, brick-lined gas oven that can reach temperatures of 650 degrees. To keep things in the South Main family, the owners announced from the first that they would use products from Loblolly and Boulevard.

Davis calls her involvement along South Main Street “the best thing that has ever happened to me.” She said it was “an area that needed some love, and I love it. What’s funny is that I had once been warned by my dad to never buy a building with a flat roof. All the buildings I’ve bought down here have flat roofs. What would he think?”

Davis says she has learned through the years to “figure out what you like and go for it.”

So what does the future hold for Davis?

“I don’t really have firm plans right now,” she says. “I’ve found that running a museum is a full-time job.”

Davis would like to see the Southside Main Street organization, a nonprofit entity that promotes economic development on Main Street between Interstate 630 and Roosevelt Road, continue to grow. Southside Main Street is affiliated with Main Street Arkansas and the National Main Street Center.

She also wants the Arkansas Cornbread Festival to grow. This year’s event will be held Oct. 29 with the Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance and Our House as beneficiaries. The stated goal of the festival, which began in 2011, is to raise awareness and funds for worthy nonprofit organizations while celebrating Southern culture and heritage through food, crafts and music.

“If you grew up in Arkansas, you grew up eating cornbread,” Davis says. “I see it as a link to our shared history and our grandmothers who would make cornbread. What better way to pull in a diverse audience is there than food? I know I grew up on cornbread. We had it about every day with our vegetables.”

These days, there are plenty of food, shopping and entertainment options along South Main Street in Little Rock, thanks in large part to a lady who remembers what it was like to grow up in Murfreesboro.

Posted in Building Arkansas, Favorite Arkansans, Little Rock | No Comments »

Arkadelphia rising

Monday, May 9th, 2016

In the May issue of Arkansas Life magazine there’s a profile of my hometown of Arkadelphia written by Heather Steadham.

The headline reads: “From its new town hall and hybrid police cars to its plans to send every child to college, Arkadelphia is a small town with a big vision.”

Following a riding tour of Arkadelphia with Jimmy Bolt, the city manager, Steadham wrote: “Behind the Amtrak station lies the old Arkadelphia Milling Co., which burned about a century ago but is still a giant part of Arkadelphia’s history and serves as a local landmark with its three old concrete silos standing stalwart against time and tornadoes. It seems like the town has always, in its way, tried to be progressive, and when Arkadelphia Milling Co. shut down, Arkadelphia looked toward tourism to help out its economy. Jimmy tells me how Arkadelphia used to be known for having more gas stations (per capita) than any other town and, in fact, the Encyclopedia of Arkansas reports that ‘Ripley’s Believe It or Not’ proclaimed that the small God-fearing town had more service stations than — gasp! — churches.

“But these days there are much better things for Jimmy to brag about. He shows me the beauty of the flowerbed full of tulips and azaleas next to the Martin Luther King Jr. overpass that the Rotary Club constructed when he was president, making one of the two major entrances into town a joy upon arrival. He shows me the user-friendly arrangement of the Baptist Health System buildings, which are clustered together to form an entire medical village. And he shows me the super-inclusive recreation center at Feaster Park, where tourists and residents alike can enjoy a water park, a skateboard park, an indoor recreation facility, softball fields, outdoor basketball courts and other play areas all in one centralized location. It’s like … there was a plan.”

Steadham ends her glowing profile of the city this way: “When I leave Arkadelphia, driving back down the street that separates what I first thought were two contentious universities, I see what I somehow missed on my way in. Above the road, a bridge links the two sides of the ravine. Written along its face are the words ‘Arkadelphia: It’s a great place to call home.’ When a small town becomes unstuck after a devastating disaster, when good people fight to end intolerance, when the bitterest of rivalries become literally and metaphorically linked, and all of these become inextricably intertwined to form a community, I have to agree. It is a great place to call home.”

The article, mind you, was written before it was announced late last month that a Chinese company with 10,000 employees worldwide — Shandong Sun Paper — will build a $1.3 billion pulp mill near Arkadelphia to create materials for baby diapers and other products. It will be Sun Paper’s first North American operation and represents one of the largest private-sector investments in Arkansas history. So Arkadelphia is hotter than ever from an economic development standpoint.

More than 2,000 workers will be involved in the construction phase during the next three years, which should cause business at area motels, restaurants and retail locations to boom. Once it’s operating, the plant will employ 250 people directly. The biggest impact, however, will come from the 400 truckloads of pine timber the mill will consume daily once it’s at full capacity. That timber demand will create an estimated 1,000 additional jobs. That’s right: 400 truckloads per day.

In the decade since the housing downtown began, the south Arkansas pine belt has been producing timber more quickly than it can be harvested. There’s an enormous oversupply of pulpwood. Thousands of acres that once were row crops or cattle pastures in south Arkansas have been planted in pine, but the needed thinning hasn’t occurred due to a lack of demand. There’s more timber in Arkansas now than at any point in the past 75 years.

As the home of Ouachita Baptist University and Henderson State University, Arkadelphia will always be first and foremost a college town.

What the Sun announcement does, though, is position Arkadelphia and the rest of Clark County at the center of the state’s timber industry. Other south Arkansas cities have seen job cuts in the industry for at least the past decade, but Georgia-Pacific in nearby Gurdon already bucked the trend by investing $37 million in its lumber mill, increasing capacity by 60 percent.

In addition to being a college town since the late 1800s, Arkadelphia has a long tradition of processing products grown and found in the area.

The salt factory operated by John Hemphill just across the Ouachita River from Arkadelphia in the early 1800s was considered to be among the state’s first manufacturing concerns. A large salt kettle graces the lawn of the Clark County Courthouse. The plaque on the kettle (which for decades was on the Henderson campus) reads: “Used in the production of salt from the water of the Saline Bayou one mile east of Arkadelphia by John Hemphill, pioneer salt maker of Arkansas Territory. Given to the Henderson State Teachers College Museum by the family of Capt. Robert W. Huie, 1845-1929, friend and benefactor of the college.”

The Caddo Indians had been getting salt from the area for hundreds of years. In the late 1700s, Louis Badins referred to Saline Bayou, “whose water yields through evaporation a fifth of salt so corrosive that it consumes meats which are salted with it and it burns sacks in which it is placed.”

Hemphill’s salt refinery operated from 1812-51. There were other places in Clark County where salt was produced. In 1830, H.A. Whittington described the Barkman estate as having “about 5,000 acres with several salt springs on it, from which he makes about 5,000 bushels of salt per annum.”

The Confederates cranked back up salt production in the county during the Civil War. Kettles such as the one now on display at the courthouse could hold 200 gallons and were used to boil water, with the salt left at the bottom.

By the early 1900s, one of the most prosperous industries in Arkansas was the Arkadelphia Milling Co., which produced flour, meal and stock feed. The mill operated 24 hours a day and had the motto: “We never sleep.” Its Dolly Dimple brand of flour was known across the region. The mill unfortunately became a victim of the Great Depression and closed in 1932.

From 1915 into the 1920s, the Arkadelphia Lumber Co. operated one of the South’s largest sawmills west of Arkadelphia at the company town of Graysonia. Almost 500 employees produced more than 150,000 board feet of lumber each day. Graysonia no longer exists, long since having been overtaken by the pine forests that once provided a livelihood for the hundreds of people who lived there.

Arkadelphia was among the state’s leading cities in the early 1900s. In addition to the Arkadelphia Lumber Co. and the Arkadelphia Milling Co, the Temple Cotton Oil Co. also was thriving. The Arkadelphia Rotary Club was formed in 1919, just six years after the famous Club 99 had been established in Little Rock. The Arkadelphia club played a key role in raising money to update the city’s water system and lobbied for getting city streets paved.

Companies that added to the economic mix in Arkadelphia after World War II included Reynolds Metals Co., Hollywood Maxwell, Oberman Manufacturing, Ouachita Marine, Levi Strauss & Co. and the Tectum Corp.

Education long has been a major part of the economy.

Ray Granade wrote for the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture: “Arkadelphia became an educational center with the opening of two colleges for white people (Ouachita Baptist College in 1886 and Arkadelphia Methodist College in 1890), two schools for African-Americans (Bethel College AME in 1891 and Colored Presbyterian Industrial School in 1896), and the first in a series of business colleges (Draughon’s in 1891).

“In addition to these, an elementary and secondary school for black students, called the Arkadelphia Presbyterian Academy, was founded in 1882. The Arkadelphia Baptist Academy opened in 1890, later updating its name and becoming associated with Arkansas Baptist College in Little Rock in 1892. The activity by education-minded citizens led one local newspaper to refer to the community consistently as ‘the city of colleges’ while other locals called it ‘the Athens of Arkansas.’ Beginning with their first game in 1895 and continuing into present day, Henderson State University and Ouachita Baptist University have maintained a football rivalry called the Battle of the Ravine because the two schools are positioned across from another on either side of U.S. Highway 67.”

Timber remained an important part of the area’s economy. In 1967, Esther Ross and her daughter, Jane Ross, began the Ross Foundation. Esther’s father, J.G. Clark, had been an owner of vast tracts of south Arkansas timberland.

The Ross Foundation manages more than 60,000 acres for conservation and charitable purposes. It has poured millions of dollars in charitable funds into the county through the years. Its most notable accomplishment occurred in 2010 when the foundation joined forces with the Arkadelphia-based Southern Bancorp to establish the Arkadelphia Promise, which ensures that college tuition is paid for graduates of Arkadelphia High School.

J.G. Clark had begun his empire in the forest products industry in the late 1800s. After her father’s death in 1955, Jane Ross managed her family’s business interests. She remained chairman of the Ross Foundation until her death in 1999. In 1979, Ross relinquished much of the control over the daily operations of the foundation to Ross Whipple, a relative. Whipple, who founded and later sold both Horizon Bancorp and Summit Bancorp, proved to be a shrewd manager of the foundation’s assets. He once described the foundation lands as being “like a mini-national forest. … I cut my teeth in the woods. Those trees don’t talk back to you. Here in Clark County, the strong history of the forest industry as well as the future growth excites me.”

In her article for Arkansas Life, Steadham described the Ross Foundation offices this way: “The circular silo-like centerpiece I saw from the outside is actually an atrium in the center of the building, its glass ceiling throwing the midday light onto a floor made from concentric wood rings fashioned like a cut tree stump. The walls are rock, and vines crawl up wood support beams. I immediately know I am in a place of uncommon thinking.”

In writing about the Arkadelphia Promise, Steadham said: “Since the scholarship program began in 2011, the Arkadelphia Promise has awarded almost $2 million in scholarships. It awards an average of more than $3,000 per student per year, and Arkadelphia students have attended more than 45 institutions of higher education in 10 states. What I find especially remarkable is how things are looking at the high school level: The retention rate at Arkadelphia High School was up to 87.1 percent for 2014. … Athens of Arkansas, indeed.”

At the same time Whipple was building his banking business, then-Gov. Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Mack McLarty, Rob Walton and other well-known Arkansans were teaming up with nonprofit organizations such as the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation to create the state’s first community development bank holding company in the 1980s. The goal was to use the proceeds from commercial banks to fund rural development activities rather than paying dividends to stockholders. The first bank purchased was Arkadelphia’s Elk Horn Bank & Trust Co. in 1988. Since then, additional banks have been purchased in Arkansas and Mississippi. Those acquisitions have made Southern Bancorp the largest rural development banking organization in the country.

On the day the Arkadelphia Promise was announced in 2010 by then-Gov. Mike Beebe, Whipple described it as “one of the best economic events to ever happen in Arkadelphia as well as being a tremendous educational benefit for every graduate of Arkadelphia High School.”

The announcement of Sun’s $1.3 billion investment was the biggest economic event in the city since the Arkadelphia Promise unveiling more than five years earlier. And, I can promise you, the existence of the Arkadelphia Promise is an incentive for companies such as Sun to locate facilities in the area.

In my weekly column for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, I wrote about Bill Clinton’s visit to Arkadelphia three days after the F4 tornado on March 1, 1997, that destroyed all or parts of 60 city blocks. During a reception following his walking tour of the destroyed downtown business sector, the president said to me: “I can’t say this publicly, but most towns in the south half of the state would never bounce back from something like this. But Arkadelphia will come back because it has strong banks and two colleges.”

Now, add to the mix one of the largest private-sector investments in Arkansas history.

Arkadelphia appears to be south Arkansas’ shining star, living up to the prediction made by President Clinton in those dark days of March 1997.

Posted in Building Arkansas, Business | 1 Comment »

Greeks in Arkansas

Thursday, May 5th, 2016

On the day that my column about the history of Greeks in Arkansas ran in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, I received a text from my old friend Sam Stathakis in Hot Springs.

“From all the Greeks, thanks for the shout out,” he wrote. “Opa!”

The history of Greeks in Arkansas is fascinating, and James and Helen Hronas did yeoman’s work in pulling it together through the years.

“Because so few single women were among the first immigrants, men would return to Greece or to a larger U.S. city where they had relatives so they could be introduced to eligible women,” Helen Hronas writes for the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture. “Partly because of the scarcity of eligible Greek-American females, about half of the marriages took place with local women who were not Greek. With the first generation, much more intermarriage with non-Greeks occurred, though non-Greek spouses often became active members of the Greek Orthodox Church.

“The Balkan Wars that preceded World War I inspired many immigrants to return to Greece to help free it from the Ottoman Turks. Among those who saw action there were Theo Stathakis and Harry Hronas of Little Rock and Andrew Makris of Pine Bluff, all of whom returned safely to the United States. Newspaper clippings from the Arkansas Gazette and the Pine Bluff Daily around 1911 described how dozens of patriotic young men from Pine Bluff, Texarkana and Little Rock departed from Union Station in Little Rock for New York to offer their services to ‘overthrow barbarism’ in their native land.

“The contingent of Greek immigrants in Arkansas grew quickly through the 1920s until laws were passed to limit immigration. By then, the Greek population was quite large in Little Rock, probably more than 200. Afterward, it slowed considerably, but those who stayed in Little Rock remained united by their Orthodox faith, common culture and native language.”

Based on the Hronas’ research, here’s a breakdown on Greek immigration to several Arkansas towns:

Little Rock — Most early Greek families who came to Arkansas settled in Little Rock. The first Greek immigrant known to have arrived in Little Rock was Anastasios Stathakis in 1892. New immigrants often would stay at the home of Pelopida and Eugenia Kumpuris. The Homer Society was formed in Little Rock in 1905 to bring Greeks together, and what’s now Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church began meeting in 1913.

Helen Hronas writes: “Annunciation in Little Rock bought its first building in 1919 from Winfield Methodist Church at 15th and Center streets. The congregation outgrew this facility and in the 1970s bought land to build a new church on Napa Valley Drive. It was completed in 1983. The first Greek Food Festival was organized in 1984. Held on the church grounds, it has become a popular event that benefits the church and local charities. The Greek Folklore Society was organized in 1989 to promote Greek folk dancing and to perform at the festival.”

El Dorado — During the oil boom of the 1920s, William Photioo and his wife, Johanna Theoharis Photioo, moved to Union County to open a pharmacy and soda fountain. A plan by the Ku Klux Klan, which was active in south Arkansas at the time, to burn down their business was thwarted by friends of the couple. These friends spoke up on their behalf, and the KKK changed its plans.

Fort Smith — By the 1940s, there were about 40 Greek families in Fort Smith. Many of them were in the restaurant business. St. George Greek Orthodox Church was established after World War II, but it became inactive in the 1990s.

Hronas writes about Fort Smith: “The cafes were so busy that they had to close for several hours a day to catch up with washing huge stacks of dishes, cleaning the premises and cooking more food. The Nick Avlos family entertained Greek-American servicemen stationed at Fort Chaffee. In Fort Smith, all but about five families were composed of Greek husbands and non-Greek wives. They did not have a full-time priest or church services, but occasionally a priest would arrive from Little Rock for a sacrament, funeral or liturgy.”

Pine Bluff — Andrew Makris came to the United States in 1906 and helped begin the OK Ice Cream & Candy Co. in Pine Bluff in 1912.

Hronas writes: “When Makris returned to Greece to fight in the Balkan Wars, he married and then returned to Arkansas with his bride and sponsored relatives, George and Peter Zack and Gus Pappas, who became partners at OK. Pappas first sold ice cream as a street vendor and later became proficient in candy making, which became a part of OK. In 1930, the OK founders had a grand opening of their new, modern plant on Main Street, which employed 35 people making ice cream. An upstairs room was devoted to candy making. George Zack headed the milk and Angel Food ice cream department. As the company prospered, they invested in a liquor distributorship. Andrew Makris’ sons, Pete and George, were each named Outstanding Young Men of the Year by the Junior Chamber of Commerce, and each served as president of the Junior Chamber.”

Because Pine Bluff did not have a Greek Orthodox church, most Greek families there attended the Episcopal church and then traveled to Little Rock for holidays at Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church.

Hot Springs — Greeks have a long history in the Spa City, having become doctors and leading business owners. In 1954, a movement headed by the American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association began with the goal of establishing a Greek Orthodox church in Hot Springs. In 1959, the first building ever constructed in Arkansas specificially for an Orthodox congregation was completed, and the parish of Zoodochos Peghee (commonly known as St. Mary’s) opened with a dedication ceremony on Jan. 30, 1960.

Hronas writes: “The Greeks and their families who settled in Hot Springs in the early 1900s were entrepreneurs and worked long hours to support their families. One enduring company was the Pappas Brothers Confectionary. Peter Pappas arrived in Hot Springs in about 1903 and his brothers — John, Angelo and William — later joined him in business. During the Depression, Pappas Brothers, the Deluxe Café (owned by George Gabriel) and other Greek eateries served countless needy people, including students at nearby schools who had no lunch money.”

Texarkana — About 10 Greek families settled in Texarkana. Most of them were in the restaurant business. A priest would come once a month from Shreveport, La., to celebrate the liturgy. People from the Greek Orthodox church in Shreveport also would come during the summer to teach the Greek language to children.

The Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese established a mission in Little Rock known as Holy Trinity Orthodox Church in the 1990s. Another mission was established in Fayetteville. Out of the Fayetteville mission grew St. Nicholas Orthodox Christian Church in Springdale. Noted architect Marlon Blackwell designed a facility for St. Nicholas in 2010.

“During the Great Depression in the 1930s, several families had great financial troubles, losing property and investments,” Helen Hronas writes. “Others lost most of their bank savings. Some families were evicted from their homes and lived in their businesses or elsewhere. Few, if any, Greek families went hungry since their principal occupations were most ofen associated with food. Some local banks and investors worked with small business owners and allowed them leeway in paying their rent so that they did not lose their businesses entirely.”

Many of the male children of the first Greek immigrants to Arkansas served in World War II. Hronas notes that for years after the war, Arkansas Greeks “shipped supplies to Greece and helped financially with the recovery there.”

Posted in Building Arkansas, Traveling Arkansas | 2 Comments »

The Greek connection

Wednesday, May 4th, 2016

It’s May, the month for what’s now known as the International Greek Food Festival at Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church in Little Rock.

The festival long has been among my favorite annual events in Arkansas.

Almost 30,000 people turn out each May for the three-day event (May 20-22 this year), which began in 1984 to raise money for the church.

Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church was founded in 1913 to serve a growing Greek population in the state. The congregation purchased its first building (at 15th and Center streets) a few years later from Winfield Methodist Church and stayed at that location until moving to the current location at 1100 Napa Valley Drive in west Little Rock in 1983.

“Thanks in part to the money we raised from the food festival, we had the mortgage paid off on the new building by 1989,” said Little Rock construction executive Gus Vratsinas, one of the event’s founders. “At that point, we began giving to various charities. Those charities, in turn, started supplying us with volunteers for the festival.

“We’ve got this thing pretty well figured out after 32 years, but you’re always tweaking things. When we designed the current church, we put in a big kitchen that could handle our baking needs. The ladies who make the pastries now start work in December. Last year, we made 24,000 pieces of baklava and sold out. This year, we’ll have 30,000.”

In addition to food, there’s music, dance and other activities. It’s a way to celebrate the rich Greek heritage in Arkansas.

Vratsinas’ father came to the United States in 1912 at age 12 but later went back to Greece. He eventually returned to the United States and wound up in Little Rock, where an uncle operated a downtown café. Vratsinas’ mother came to this country from Greece in 1939. Gus Vratsinas is quick to list the Little Rock restaurants once owned by those who came from Greece — the Post Office Café, the Maxell House Café, Miller’s Café, the Palace and others.

Helen Hronas has a well-documented history of Greeks in Arkansas on the website of the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture.

“Though small in number compared to other immigrant groups, Greeks and Greek-Americans in Arkansas have had a notable impact upon the state,” she wrote. “From their beginnings as laborers, Greeks in Arkansas quickly became entrepreneurs and business owners, and many of the children and grandchildren of these original immigrants went on to business, academic and medical careers. Many Greeks who come to Arkansas today are in the medical or research fields. Emblematic of the acceptance of Greeks by the state has been the popularity of the Greek Food Festival, one of the most well-attended culinary fetes in the state.

“Immigrants from Greece began arriving in Arkansas in the late 19th century. Most were single young males who left their homeland for the United States full of hope for a more prosperous life. Greece was very poor at the time, and some parts of northern Greece had not yet won their freedom from the Turkish Ottoman yoke. It was a dangerous and difficult three-week voyage, and many left with little more than the clothes on their backs and a few coins. The first priority of those who were married was to earn enough money to send for their wives and children. Most immigrants became permanent residents, but others saved their money and returned to Greece.

“Most families settled in Little Rock. The earliest immigrants to Little Rock came mostly from villages and small towns of the Peloponnesus (southern Greece), particularly from Olympia and Sparta, and usually headed to places where they knew someone who could help them get established. The first to reach Little Rock was Anastasios Stathakis, who arrived in 1892 from Sparta. In 1902, Pete Peters was the first child born of Greek immigrants in Little Rock. Pelopida and Eugenia Kumpuris frequently housed new immigrants at their Little Rock home.”

The Stathakis family name is still well known in Hot Springs.

And the Kumpuris family name is still well known in Little Rock.

“The newly arrived usually worked for a time for those who came earlier while picking up enough English to get by,” Hronas wrote. “Few had an opportunity for formal schooling, although some were well educated in Greece before immigrating. Many did hard labor such as building railroad tracks, and as was common with immigrants who spoke little or no English, sometimes the employer refused to pay once the job was done. Such discrimination and abuse provided the Greeks an incentive to go into business for themselves as well as educate their children. The Greeks were soon running fruit and vegetable markets, hot dog stands, candy shops, grocery stores, cleaners and shoeshine parlors. Most gravitated toward food service.”

In 1905, a group of Greek immigrants in Arkansas created the Homer Society, which served both religious and cultural purposes.

Hronas wrote: “At first, visiting priests from Memphis were invited to celebrate the divine liturgy and perform sacraments. In 1913, members arranged for a permanent priest, Father Kallinikos Kanellas, and services were held in an upstairs meeting hall over a high-end grocery store near Ninth and Main streets for the next eight years. A small chapel was arranged for liturgies and sacraments, and another area was used for social gatherings. Research by Rev. Father George Scoulas in the 1960s indicated that Kanellas probably was the first Orthodox priest of Greek ancestry to come to the United States. He died in 1921 and is buried in the historic Oakland Cemetery in Little Rock, where most of the early Greek immigrants were interred. Early church leaders included P.G. Johnson, Pelopida (Peter) Kumpuris, Joe Stathakis, Anastasios Stathakis, Peter Stathakis, George Lianos, Basil Peters, Sam Stathakis, George Stathakis and Harry Hronas.”

A 1952 story in the Arkansas Democrat stated that the first Orthodox church in Arkansas was a Russian Orthodox church at Slovak in the southern part of Prairie County. Two Russian priests founded the church in 1894.

“Annunciation in Little Rock is the oldest continuous Orthodox church in Arkansas,” Hronas wrote. “The parish of the Annunciation, under the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan of Detroit, the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North America and the Ecumenical Patriarch in Constantinople, received a state charter on June 8, 1920. A church building at 1500 Center Street was purchased from the Winfield Methodist congregation in 1919. The parish outgrew this building.”

Now, only about 30 percent of the Annunciation congregation is of Greek ancestry. Other members are descended from immigrants from Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, Russia, Romania and elsewhere.

The chairman of this year’s food festival is Jason Chacko, a financial adviser for Morgan Stanley whose name central Arkansas residents will recognize from his morning financial reports on the radio.

Chacko’s family came to this country from India. The family history has been traced back to the first century when the apostle Thomas converted the Pakalomatom family to Christianity.

“I’m standing on the shoulders of the giants who built this festival,” Chacko said during a recent breakfast. “I was five months old when the first festival was held. It has changed a lot since then. Our goal is to be among the best family events of the spring in Arkansas.”

With 22 nationalities represented at Annunciation, the name word “international” was added to the International Greek Food Festival.

“It has truly become an international event,” Chacko said. “You can eat Mediterranean food while watching Russian dancing.”

Vratsinas was the president of the parish council at Annunciation when the new facility was built in 1983.

“It was a no-brainer,” he said of the decision to create the food festival. “This kind of thing had been going on in other cities for decades. Our church had been selling gyros since they started Riverfest so we decided to create our own festival. We bounced around with the dates on which to hold the event and finally settled on the weekend before Memorial Day weekend. It keeps getting bigger. Last year was our largest event yet with about 30,000 turning out over three days. That’s obviously more than a 200-family church can handle, so now we rely a great deal on volunteers.”

Chacko said the organizers like to “show off the church.”

“We have icons painted by priests out of Greece,” he said. “People can walk through on their own, and we also offer formal tours during the festival.”

The hours for this year’s festival are from 11 a.m. until 9 p.m. on Friday, May 20; 11 a.m. until 9 p.m. on Saturday, May 21; and 11 a.m. until 3 p.m. on Sunday, May 22.

Food can be eaten at the festival or picked up at a drive-through location. The foods offered range from gyros to calamari to Armenian pizza.

There’s also a market at which visitors can buy items such as Greek olive oil, hummus, stuffed grape leaves, salad dressing and cheeses. The market also will offer Russian collectibles such as nesting dolls and eggs along with ceramics, scarves, stained-glass lamps, jewelry, Middle Eastern coins, European artwork, wooden toys, rolling pens and other gift items.

Do you know what pastitsio is (long macaroni layered with seasoned ground beef and then topped with a thick cheese sauce)?

Do you know what tiropeta is (cheese puffs)?

Do you know what spanakopita is (spinach cheese puffs)?

You can learn all of that at the festival.

The festival again will team up with Chef Shuttle, which will allow people to have meals delivered to their homes and offices. The menu will be posted at chefshuttle.com the weekend of the festival.

Volunteers for the festival, such as ROTC students from Catholic High School for Boys (who clean the grounds), will earn about 4,000 hours of volunteer credits.

Among the charities that will benefit from this year’s event are Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Arkansas, Community Connection, Easter Seals of Arkansas, the Harmony Health Clinic of Little Rock, Literary Action of Central Arkansas, Youth Home and the Wolfe Street Foundation.

“It’s truly a community event,” Vratsinas said.

Posted in Little Rock, Traveling Arkansas | No Comments »