Category Archives: Government

Little Rock Look Back: First documented theatrical performance in Little Rock

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On January 8, 1835, the Little Rock Town Council passed an ordinance granting the Society of Thalians a one year franchise to conduct performances in Little Rock.

That same day, the Thalians performed She Stoops to Conquer, Oliver Goldsmith’s 1773 comedy.

The following week, on January 17, they performed the comedy Ways and Means (by George Colman, Jr.) and David Garrick’s farce The Lying Valet.

The cost of the license to perform was $10 for the year. That would be the equivalent of $287 today. The ordinance also instructed the Town Constable to attend, by himself or a deputy, all theatrical performances to keep and preserve order.

There may well have been theatrical troupes come through Little Rock prior to January 1835, but records do not exist to any performances they may have given.  The performances by the Thalians are the first documented theatrical productions in Little Rock.

Little Rock Look Back: John Gould Fletcher, patriarch of Little Rock civic and cultural leaders

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Future Little Rock Mayor John Gould Fletcher was born on January 6 in 1831.  He was a mayor and civic leader at a crucial time in Little Rock’s 19th century life. But his lasting legacy is probably more his remarkable children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren. (Undoubtedly his great-great-great-grandchildren will be equally remarkable.)

The son of Henry Lewis and Mary Lindsey Fletcher, he later served as a Captain in the Capital Guards during the Civil War. One of his fellow soldiers was Peter Hotze. Following the war, he and Hotze began a general merchandise store in Little Rock. They were so successful that they eventually dropped the retail trade and dealt only in cotton. Peter Hotze had his office in New York, while Fletcher supervised company operations in Little Rock. In 1878 Fletcher married Miss Adolphine Krause, sister-in-law of Hotze.

John Gould Fletcher was elected Mayor of Little Rock from 1875 to 1881. He was the first Mayor under Arkansas’ new constitution which returned all executive powers to the office of the Mayor (they had been split under a reconstruction constitution). Following his service as Mayor, he served one term as Pulaski County Sheriff. Mayor Fletcher also later served as president of the German National Bank in Little Rock.

Mayor and Mrs. Fletcher had five children, three of whom lived into adulthood. Their son was future Pulitzer Prize winning poet John Gould Fletcher (neither father nor son used the Sr. or Jr. designation). Their two daughters who lived to adulthood were Adolphine Fletcher Terry (whose husband David served in Congress) and Mary Fletcher Drennan.

In 1889, Mayor Fletcher purchased the Pike House in downtown Little Rock. The structure later became known as the Pike-Fletcher-Terry House. It was from this house that Adolphine Fletcher Terry organized the Women’s Emergency Committee which worked to reopen the Little Rock public schools during the 1958-1959 school year.

In the 1960s, sisters Adolphine Fletcher Terry and Mary Fletcher Drennan deeded the house to the City of Little Rock for use by the Arkansas Arts Center. For several decades it served as home to the Arts Center’s contemporary craft collection. It now is used for special events and exhibitions.

Mayor Fletcher died in 1906 and is buried in Mount Holly Cemetery along with various members of his family. Several of his descendants still reside in Little Rock.

42 bar and table, Clinton Museum Store remain open during government shutdown

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While the government shutdown continues, two spaces inside the Clinton Presidential Center remain open.  Both 42 bar and table as well as the Clinton Museum Store are open.  They have “Shutdown Specials” for the duration of the shutdown.

42 bar and table is open for lunch from 11am to 2pm Mondays through Saturdays. It is open for dinner Thursdays through Saturdays from 5pm through 10pm.  Bar hours are Thursdays through Saturdays from 4:30pm to midnight.

The Clinton Museum Store is open 9am to 5pm Mondays through Saturdays and from 1pm to 5pm on Sundays.

This is also a good time to highlight recent staffing additions at 42 bar and table.

In November 42 bar and table, the full-service restaurant located inside the Clinton Presidential Center, announced new additions to its culinary team. André Poirot has assumed the role of executive chef over restaurant, banquet, and catering operations; Jeremy Pittman joins the team as a pastry chef; and Jason Morell will serve as the new chef de cuisine at 42 bar and table.

“We are thrilled to welcome these talented team members to the Clinton Presidential Center and look forward to working together to continue to provide our guests with excellent cuisine and spectacular service,” said Chef Michael Selig, director of Food, Beverage, and Events. “Our staff is already top shelf; these additions will further enhance the presidential experience that our guests have come to expect from us.”

Chef André Poirot was born and raised in France and received his culinary diploma in 1977. He then began his traditional European apprenticeships, serving as a commis at the Ets Blache restaurant in Remiremont, France, and in the kitchens of The Savoy on the Strand in London. In 1989, Poirot began a 14-year career at the Royal Sonesta Hotel in New Orleans as gourmet chef at the celebrated Begue’s restaurant. In 2004, The Peabody Hotel Little Rock recruited him to serve as executive chef to supervise food and beverage operations at the hotel and at the Statehouse Convention Center. In 2013, when The Peabody Hotel rebranded to a Marriott property, Poirot was asked to join the food and beverage team at the Crowne Plaza Hotel Little Rock and then the Capital Hotel.

Poirot won the title of Arkansas Iron Chef at the 2006 and 2009 Arkansas Hospitality Association celebrity Iron Chef competitions; gold (2009), silver (2010), bronze (2011), and people’s choice award (2011) medals at the Culinary Classic competition; and was awarded first place at the Little Rock Regional Chamber’s Taste of the Rock four years in a row (2008-2010). He was the recipient of the Arkansas Hospitality Association’s Salut au Restaurateur award in 2011 and mentor of the year in 2012. The American Culinary Federation also recognized him as a leading advisor to young people starting in the culinary profession.

Jeremy Pittman joins the staff as a pastry chef. He was the co-owner and chef of Pizzeria in the Heights and previously owned Palette Catering and Gourmet To Go. Pittman is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America.

Jason Morell is the new restaurant chef at 42 bar and table. He was the chef and owner of Starving Artists Café from 2006 to 2014 and was previously chef at Sonny Williams’ Steak Room, Simply the Best Catering, and Philander Smith College. Morell graduated from the Florida Culinary Institute.

Little Rock Look Back: Voters annex Pulaski Heights into Little Rock

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On January 4, 1916, voters in Little Rock and Pulaski Heights voted overwhelmingly to annex the latter into the former.

First platted in 1890, Pulaski Heights had been incorporated as a city in August 1905.  By 1915, Pulaski Heights was booming.  It was growing so fast, that its infrastructure and public safety needs were far outpacing the city’s ability to pay for them.  Though there was a ribbon of commercial businesses along Prospect Avenue (now Kavanaugh Boulevard), it did not produce enough sales tax revenue to pay for City services. Then, as now, property taxes were also an important part of city revenue sources but not sufficient without sales taxes.

The City of Little Rock, likewise, was looking for ways to grow physically. At the time, the City was hemmed in by a river to the north and low, marshy land to the east. Current development was to the south, but even that presented limits in the foreseeable future. The best option was to grow to the west, but Pulaski Heights was in the way.  In 1915, Little Rock Mayor Charles Taylor (after failing in a previous attempt to re-annex North Little Rock into Little Rock), approached Pulaski Heights leadership about the possibility of annexation.

010516 PH electionIn November 1915, there were public meetings in Little Rock and Pulaski Heights to discuss the issue.  As a part of the annexation, Little Rock promised to build a fire station in the area and to install traffic lights, sidewalks and pave more streets.

On January 4, 1916, Little Rock voters approved the annexation of Pulaski Heights by a ten-to-one margin. The majority of Pulaski Heights residents also approved the deal.  The suburb became the city’s ninth ward.

This established a couple of precedents for the City of Little Rock which are in effect to this day.  The first is that Little Rock would not be a central city surrounded by a variety of small incorporated towns (in the manner that St. Louis and other cities are).  It was this thought process which has led the City to continue to annex properties.

Sandwich in History at noon today at St. Luke’s UMC in program sponsored by @SavingARPlaces

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The Arkansas Historic Preservation Program each month sponsors a Sandwiching in History tour which familiarize people who live and work in central Arkansas with the historic structures and sites around us.

The tours take place on Fridays at noon, last less than an hour, and participants are encouraged to bring their lunches so that they can eat while listening to a brief lecture about the property and its history before proceeding on a short tour.

Today (January 4) at 12 noon, this month’s tour is at St. Luke’s United Methodist Church, located at 6401 West 32nd Street.

Founded in 1956, St. Luke’s United Methodist was one of the first congregations created in the Broadmoor development of Little Rock.  The sanctuary, bell tower, and prayer chapel are early examples of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Organic Architecture in a church.

The Arkansas Historic Preservation Program is an agency of the Department of Arkansas Heritage.

18 Cultural Events of 2018 – UA Little Rock unveils restored Joe Jones mural from 1930s

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As curator Brad Cushman said at the unveiling of the Joe Jones mural, “There is absolutely no reason this mural should still exist.”  But it does.  And now fully restored Jones’s 1935 mural The Struggle in the South is a centerpiece of the new UA Little Rock Downtown Campus in the heart of the River Market.

First painted in the 1935 to be placed at Commonwealth College in Mena, it spent many years lining two closets in a house after it had been taken down from its original location. When that house was being torn down, someone called Bobby Roberts because they thought it might be something worth saving.

Dr. Roberts drove to west Arkansas, picked it up, and brought it back to Little Rock.  For years it sat in storage at UA Little Rock. While that probably stopped its deterioration, it did nothing to restore it.

In 2009, the St. Louis Art Museum restored one panel of it to include in an exhibition on Jones, a native of the Gateway City.  That prompted Cushman to push even harder to have the rest of it restored.  In 2012, the Arkansas Natural and Cultural Resources Council provided a grant which made restoration possible.  Additional funding came from the University and the National Endowment for the Humanities.  The 29 pieces of the mural were sent to Helen Houp Fine Art Conservation in Dallas.

The mural consists of three sections that brutally but honestly tell tales of the South in the first third of the 20th Century.  The first section depicts coal miners about to go on strike, the middle section shows a lynching of an African American man, and the third shows an African American family in fear inside a wooden shack – both in the shadow of the lynching and an impending tornado set to destroy the land they are working.

It is a difficult piece. It is intended to be disquieting. But UA Little Rock also sought to put the piece in context. They did not do this to explain away or make excuses. But they did it to relate it to events in Little Rock both during that time period and other times in the City’s history.  It is designed to encourage dialogue, scholarship, and collaborations.

The space in which the mural is displayed was designed by architect Steve Rousseau.  Credit goes to the UA Little Rock Board of Visitors, Chancellor Andrew Rogerson, and many other faculty and staff at the campus for making the UA Little Rock Downtown campus a reality and a showcase for this important mural.

18 Cultural Events from 2018 – First Arts Advocacy Day at the Arkansas State Capitol

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On Wednesday, November 7 at the Arkansas State Capitol, Arkansans for the Arts and the new Arkansas General Assembly Legislative Arts Caucus participated in the first Arkansas Arts Advocacy Day.

That morning there were sessions on the Creative Economy 101 (Dr. Lenore Shoults of the Arts & Science Center for SE Arkansas), Arts Education Advocacy (Steve Holder, Vice President of Arkansans for the Arts), and Arts Funding Opportunities 101 (Dr. Gayle Seymour of the University of Central Arkansas).  It was followed by a Creative Economy Networking Business Exchange.

Mid-day, the Legislative Arts Caucus was introduced.  The inaugural members of the caucus come from each of the Arkansas Arts Council’s eight districts. The members are: Senators Ron Caldwell, Eddie Cheatham, Breanne Davis, Joyce Elliott, Scott Flippo, Missy Thomas Irvin, Matt Pitsch, and Larry Teague. The House members are Representatives Sarah Capp, Carol Dalby, Janna Della Rosa, Deborah Ferguson, Vivian Flowers, Michael John Gray, Monte Hodges, Reginald Murdock, and Les Warren.

In addition to the sessions, there was an Arts Talent Showcase on the front steps as well as in the rotunda.  Performers came from Alma, Ashdown, Conway, Dover, Earle, Hamburg, Hot Springs, Jacksonville, Little Rock, Morrilton, Russellville, Searcy, Van Buren, and Walnut Ridge,