Category Archives: History

Little Rock Look Back: St. Pat’s Day with Mayor Pat Robinson

Posted on by

On this date in 1900, future Little Rock Mayor Pat L. Robinson was born.  While it cannot be verified that he was indeed named after St. Patrick, it would be fairly reasonable to assume there might be a connection.  He was born in a community outside of Arkadelphia, but moved to Little Rock with his parents.

By the 1920s, Robinson was a rising star of Little Rock Democratic politics.  In April 1929, just weeks after his 29th birthday, he was elected Mayor.  He had twice been elected as City Attorney (1926 and 1928) and was one of the youngest to serve in that position.

During Mayor Robinson’s tenure, he announced plans to construct a new airport.  That project led to the creation of what is now the Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport.  Mayor Robinson was also involved in helping Philander Smith College secure the property where it is now located.  In addition, during his tenure, what is now the Museum of Discovery was folded into the City of Little Rock.  Shortly after taking office, he championed several projects for approval by Little Rock voters. The projects he supported were approved; the ones he did not support did not pass.

Single at the time he was in office and generally considered good looking, Mayor Robinson was sometimes referred to as the “Jimmy Walker of the Southwest.” Walker was the handsome and charming Mayor of New York City at the time.

Mayor Robinson ran afoul of some of the Democratic party leaders. While the extent of the discord is not exactly known, it IS known that shortly after taking office he confronted the City Council over a special election.  Mayor Robinson sat silently while the City Council voted to approve a special election with a variety of options for voters. Only after the Council approved it did he disclose he only supported three of the initiatives.  In a bit of political brinkmanship, the Council subsequently voted to cancel the election. The Mayor vetoed their vote.  The aldermen chose not to attempt an override (though they had the votes based on disclosures made to the public and the press).  It appears that the relationship between the Mayor and the City Council never recovered.

IMG_4532During this era in Little Rock, it was customary for an incumbent mayor to be given a second term. But City Clerk Horace Knowlton challenged Robinson in the primary.  It was a bitter campaign with Robinson linking Knowlton to disreputable denizens and Knowlton charging Robinson with “an orgy of spending.”  Robinson initially came out 17 votes ahead. But after a review and a lawsuit, it was found that Knowlton ended up with 10 more votes and became the nominee.  At the time, being the Democratic nominee was tantamount to election.

After he left office, Robinson practiced law for a few years in Little Rock and then left the city.  He married a woman from England, Arkansas in the 1930s, but by the 1940 census, he was listed as divorced and living as a lodger.  He later served in the Army during World War II.  Robinson died in June 1958, and is buried in Clark County.

Little Rock Look Back: THE EAGLE has landed (LR’s first steamboat)

Posted on by

On March 16, 1822, Captain Morris piloted the steamboat The Eagle to Little Rock, seventeen days after departing New Orleans.  This became the first steamboat to reach Little Rock.  The boat reached Little Rock at an early hour in the morning and Captain Morris, in order to arouse the town, fired a salute of several guns.

It did not stay in Little Rock, but headed upriver toward the community of Dwight Mission, founded by Presbyterians in what is now Pope County at the mouth of the Illinois Creek.  Due to low waters, it was unable to make it to Dwight Mission.  On March 19, 1822, it returned to Little Rock.  It then headed back to New Orleans.

Though it would be the McClellan-Kerr navigation project before the Arkansas River would become a permanent home to commercial river traffic, boats up and down the Arkansas River helped establish Little Rock as an important trading post.

LR Women Making History – Charlotte Gadberry

Posted on by

Charlotte Gadberry has long been a supporter of Little Rock’s various cultural institutions. She has both served on boards and consulted with boards in strategic planning.  Her major focus these past few years has been the founding of the ACANSA Arts Festival.

A trip to Charleston, South Carolina, amid it’s Spoleto USA arts festival inspired her to dream that Little Rock could play host to a similar endeavor.  Using her fundraising prowess and connections, she started to raise funds, friends and awareness for this idea.

In September 2013, the inaugural ACANSA Arts Festival was announced for September 2014.  Under her leadership, ACANSA (a name derived from an early Native American variation of what is now called Arkansas) incorporated both local cultural institutions as well as performers brought in for the event.

In the first four years ACANSA has featured theatre, dance, mime, puppetry, instrumental music, choral music, opera, jazz, painting, photography, history, lectures, and gallery tours.  It has worked with the Arkansas Arts Center, Arkansas Repertory Theatre, Arkansas Symphony Orchestra, Ballet Arkansas, Central Arkansas Library System, Mosaic Templars Cultural Center, and Wildwood Park for the Arts as well as numerous galleries and performance venues.

Because of her efforts to found ACANSA and lead it, Charlotte is being honored with an Arkansas Arts Council 2018 Governor’s Arts Award on March 29, 2018.

LR Women Making History – Janis Kearney

Posted on by

Janis Kearney is the only person to have held the title of U.S. Presidential Diarist. In 1995 she was appointed to that position by President Bill Clinton.

After graduating from the University of Arkansas, she was hired by the State of Arkansas as a program manager.  Nine years later, she became managing editor for the Arkansas State Press. She later purchased it from owner Daisy Bates.

In 1992, she took a leave from the paper to work on the Clinton presidential campaign.  Following the election, she worked in the transition office, the White House, and the U.S. Small Business Administration until her appointment as Presidential Diarist.

In 2001, she moved to Chicago and started working on a book, while also having fellowships at Harvard and DePaul.  In 2004, she founded Writing Our World Press and published her first book, Cotton Field of Dreams.  Her Clinton biography, Conversations: William Jefferson Clinton-From Hope to Harlem was published in 2006.  Since then she has also published a novel, a biography of Daisy Bates, and the second part of her memoirs.

She is also active in the Celebrate! Maya Project. This program seeks to honor and promote the inclusive literacy, creativity, and social consciousness of the life and work of artist and activist Maya Angelou.

LR Women Making History – Mollie Irvin

Posted on by

Mollie Irvin spent her life serving others.  She was a wife, mother, and grandmother. She was a volunteer in her church and her children’s schools.  She helped her friends.  She may have never seen herself as someone who would start spending every Tuesday night at Little Rock City Hall.

But she did.

Miss Mollie, as she came to be known at City Hall, had long been active in the Cloverhill/Pennbrook Neighborhood.  For many years, she served as president of the neighborhood association where she organized crime watches, police night outs and 4th of July celebrations.

When a young lady was injured crossing John Barrow in front of Henderson Middle School, Miss Mollie sprang into action.  She felt there needed to be a stoplight on the street.  She launched a campaign to have a stoplight installed at John Barrow Road and Cloverhill Road.  At the time the City did not have the money for the necessary widening and installation of the light, but was expecting it after the 2003 passage of capital bond improvements.  To make sure the City did not forget her request, Miss Mollie would come to every meeting. Sometimes she would be by herself, other times she would have guests. She was always polite and forceful with grace and humor when she made her plea.

Finally, the effort paid off.  She was actually tasked with flipping the switch to turn on the traffic signal.

Her goal met, Miss Mollie did not stop coming to City Hall.  After sitting through all those meetings, she had found herself interested in a variety of issues. She would attend the City Board meetings, neighborhood meetings, public budget meetings, and just about any other City meeting as a way to learn more. She was contacted by others for advice on how to lobby.   Her efforts were recognized nationally when the Cloverhill/Pennbrook Neighborhood was named Neighborhood of the Year by Neighborhoods USA.

Miss Mollie was as much a fixture at City Hall as city staff and elected officials.  When the holidays rolled around, Miss Mollie would show up at City Hall with individually prepared baggies full of baked goods for City officials.  She was also a fixture at Henderson Middle School as a volunteer.

Throughout her new career in civic engagement, she continued to be devoted to her family, her church, and her friends.  (She would regularly meet with friends she had known since elementary school.)

Following a brief illness, Miss Mollie died in 2016.  But her legacy lives on in the lives she touched and in a stoplight at John Barrow Road and Cloverhill Road.

LR Women Making History – Stephanie S. Streett

Posted on by

Stephanie S. Streett is the executive director of the Clinton Foundation. In this role she oversees the day-to-day operations of the Clinton Presidential Center, including the development and implementation of its educational programs, special events, exhibits, and services as well as staff management. She establishes and cultivates strategic partnerships and cooperative arrangements with state and local governments, the non-profit and private sector, community groups and other organizations. Stephanie also serves as the corporate secretary for the Clinton Foundation Board of Directors.

Stephanie has used her position to broaden culture in Little Rock through the wide variety of exhibits which the Clinton Center has hosted. A wide variety of styles of visual arts, design, contemporary craft, sports, science and history have been showcased in exhibits at the Clinton Center.  She also was instrumental in planning the special events in conjunction with the Clinton Center 10th Anniversary in 2014 and the 2017 celebration of the 25th anniversary of President Clinton’s election.

In addition, she has been active in promoting partnerships with the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Together with Kaki Hockersmith, she has facilitated several seminars which have brought key Kennedy Center leaders to Little Rock.  Together they lead the effort known as Fusion: Arts + Humanities Arkansas. Now in its second year, Fusion promotes heritage and culture and celebrates human achievement by weaving the arts and humanities together.

She has been the president of the University of Arkansas Alumni Association National Board of Directors and is co-chair of the Board of Directors for City Year Little Rock. She also serves on the Board of Directors for the Downtown Partnership of Little Rock and is a member of the International Women’s Forum Arkansas.  In April, she will be honored with the 2018 City Year Little Rock Lifetime of Service Award at the Red Jacket Ball.

LR Women Making History: Rev. Dr. Peggy S. Bosmyer

Posted on by

In 1977, Peggy S. Bosmyer was ordained an Episcopal priest at Little Rock’s Trinity Cathedral.  Not only was she the first woman in Arkansas to be ordained to a full priesthood in the Episcopal Church, she was the first woman south of the Mason-Dixon line.

Born in Helena, she was a graduate of the University of Arkansas and Virginia Theological Seminary.  She served as a deacon at Grace Episcopal in Pine Bluff before serving as a curate at Little Rock’s St. Mark’s Episcopal.  In 1976, the Episcopal Church approved the ordination of women to the priesthood. It was after that she was able to be ordained in 1977.  Her ordination was front page news in the Arkansas Gazette.

Following ordination, she was appointed Vicar of Little Rock’s St. Michael’s Episcopal Church, then a part-time position. She also served as a program director for the Diocese of Arkansas, which included oversight of Camp Mitchell.  In 1985, Rev. Bosmyer was appointed full-time Vicar of St. Michael’s.  Nine years later, she left Little Rock to be a professor on the faculty of the School of Theology at the University of the South.  While there she served as Co-Vicar of St. James at Sewanee. She also received her Doctor of Divinity from the University of the South in 1999.

Rev. Dr. Bosmyer returned to Little Rock in 2001 to be Vicar of St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church.  She held that position until her death in December 2008 from pancreatic cancer.  She is interred at the columbarium of St. Margaret’s.  She was survived by her husband of 24 years, Reverend Dr. Dennis Campbell, and four children.

She was not only one of the first female Episcopal priests in the U.S, she was on the forefront of women serving as ordained priests and preachers in mainline denominations.  Certainly her ordination was not without controversy. There are still those who disagree with women serving as priests (though likely few remain within the Episcopal church).  The legacy of Rev. Dr. Bosmyer continues today with the women serving as rectors, vicars, priests in charge, and associate rectors throughout the state of Arkansas.  While Arkansas has not had a woman serve as Bishop, Rev. Dr. Katherine Jefferts Schori served as Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church from 2006 to 2015.