Category Archives: History

Little Rock Look Back: Election Day 1966

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The Britts, Rockefellers and Hammerschmidts

Fifty years ago today was Election Day 1966. It was a seismic election for Arkansas. Winthrop Rockefeller was chosen as Arkansas’ 37th Governor, defeating Jim Johnson. (An earlier version of this incorrectly listed Jim’s wife, Virginia.  She would run for the Democratic primary in 1968, losing to Marion Crank.) In addition, Maurice “Footsie” Britt was elected Lieutenant Governor, Joe Purcell was chosen as Attorney General, and John Paul Hammerschmidt & David Pryor were both new faces in the Arkansas congressional delegation.

Rockefeller, Britt, and Hammerschmidt made waves as the first Republicans to hold those offices since Reconstruction.  But perhaps more importantly, when joined by Pryor and Purcell, the five represented a new face and outlook on Arkansas politics. They were progressive and centrist. They saw a different role for government in social and moral questions.

This election set the stage for Arkansas of the 1970s and 1980s. It was a repudiation of the overtly racist Faubus-era political old guard.  It was certainly not the end, however. In the 1968, 1970 and 1972 elections, Faubus and his cronies would try to reassert themselves in statewide races and would continue to see allies win local races.

But it would be the 1966 election which marked a turning point in Arkansas politics.

Little Rock Look Back: Airport Commission Created by LR Voters

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lr-airport-commission-electionOn November 7, 1950, Little Rock voters approved the creation of the Little Rock Airport Commission.  This was an extremely rare initiated ordinance.

Local business leaders had tried two times prior to get the City Council to create an Airport Commission.  At the time, the Airport was managed by the Council’s Airport Committee, composed of aldermen.  Both times, the Council rejected the measure.  This prompted an organization called the Private Flyers Association to begin the drive to collect the signatures to place the ordinance on the ballot.  Mayor Sam Wassell was in favor of the creation of the separate commission to oversee the airport and was a member of the Private Flyers Association.

At the general election on November 7, 1950, the ordinance was on the ballot.  It passed with an overwhelming majority: 13,025 voters approved of it, and only 3,206 opposed it.  The Arkansas Gazette had been a proponent of the switch, endorsing it with a front page editorial entitled “An Airport for the Air Age.”

In many ways this movement was a precursor to Little Rock’s switch to the City Manager form of government later in the decade.  Where once the business leadership and city council had been one and the same, over the 1940s the two diverged.  Business leaders were less interested in party politics (and at the time the city races were partisan affairs) and more interested in professionally run government.  The main argument for a separate commission was that it would allow the airport to be run more efficiently and removed from party politics.  These would be the same arguments used by the Good Government Committee in 1956.

Also on the ballot in 1950 was a GOP challenger to a Democrat for one of the aldermen positions.  George D. Kelley, Jr., ran against incumbent Lee H. Evans.  Kelley was the first GOP contestant for a city race since Pratt Remmel ran unsuccessfully for City Council in 1938.  Remmel would be back on the ballot in 1951, this time for the position of mayor in a successful effort.

RobinsoNovember: E. E. “Ned” Beaumont

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e-e-beaumontOnce Mayor J. V. Satterfield was ready to appoint a new Auditorium Commission, he chose longtime banker E. E. “Ned” Beaumont to lead it.

After graduating from Little Rock High School in 1910, Beaumont entered the banking world. His first stop was with State National Bank. In 1914, he moved to Exchange National Bank.  Four years later, he was hired by Bankers Trust Company. After sixteen years there, he joined Commercial National Bank.  He would be with them from 1934 until his death in 1968.

In January 1940, Mayor Satterfield appointed him to be chairman of the reconstituted Auditorium Commission.  As such, he took a leadership role as a spokesman for the facility during its opening in February 1940.  Beaumont served as chairman of the Commission from January 1940 until his death in July 1968.  During his tenure the building saw the touring industry change.  With the rise of Las Vegas and Miami and longterm performance destinations, fewer top name singers were touring by the mid-1950s.  The music scene also changed in content as it went from Big Band to rock and roll.  (No word on his thoughts of Elvis Presley.)

On August 19, 1968, the City Board of Directors adopted a resolution memorializing Beaumont’s contributions to Little Rock civic life.  In addition to his long service on the Auditorium Commission, he had also served as treasurer of the Little Rock School District and of the Pulaski County School District.

Little Rock Look Back: Happy 185 to LR

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lr185With the stroke of Territorial Governor John Pope’s pen, Little Rock was officially chartered as a town on November 7, 1831. This followed approval by the Arkansas legislature a few days earlier.

As a chartered, officially recognized municipality, the Town of Little Rock was authorized to create a government and to plan for a Mayor and Aldermen to be elected. That election would take place in January 1832 with the initial council meeting later that month.

There are several earlier and later days which could be used to mark Little Rock’s official birth (La Harpe sighting in 1722, first settler in 1812, permanent settlement in 1820, selection of trustees in 1825, chartered as a City in 1835, chartered as a City of First Class in 1875) — but it is November 7, 1831, which has been the officially recognized and accepted date.

In 1931, Little Rock celebrated her centennial with a series of events.  Likewise, in November 1981, Little Rock Mayor Charles Bussey signed and City Clerk Jane Czech attested Resolution 6,687 which recognized the Little Rock sesquicentennial.

Little Rock Look Back: Clinton selects Little Rock as library site

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ClintonCenterConstruction-48

Refuse littered the future site of the Clinton Presidential Center

On November 7, 1997, President Bill Clinton announced his intentions to locate his presidential library in Little Rock at the end of a warehouse district.

The Little Rock City Board met in a special meeting that day to rename part of Markham Street, which would lead to the site, as President Clinton Avenue.

While the announcement was met with excitement in many quarters, there were still some skeptics who had a hard time envisioning a presidential library and park in the middle of a wasteland worthy of a T. S. Eliot poem.

There would be many hurdles between the November 1997 announcement to the December 2001 groundbreaking. But for the moment, City of Little Rock leaders, celebrated the achievement.  Then Mayor Jim Dailey had appointed City Director Dean Kumpuris and City employee Bruce T. Moore to lead the City’s efforts.  Moore and Kumpuris worked with Skip Rutherford and others to narrow the potential sites.

In September 1997, the Clintons were in town for the 40th anniversary of the integration of Central High School.  They surprised Kumpuris and Moore with a decision for a Sunday afternoon visit to the warehouse district proposed site. Secret Service would not let the limousine drive in part of the property, so the Clintons, Moore, Kumpuris, and Rutherford walked up a path to the roof of the abandoned Arkansas Book Depository.  It was there that the Clintons could see the Little Rock skyline which would be visible from the library.

Of course by the time the library had opened in November 2004, the Little Rock skyline was different. Spurred on by the library, several new highrises had been constructed in downtown.

RobinsoNovember: Grady Manning

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h-grady-manningIn 1938, the first Auditorium Commission was appointed to oversee the administration of Robinson Auditorium.  At the time, it was anticipated that the auditorium would be ready to open by no later than September 1939.  (Actually, the building was originally supposed to have been opened by June 1938 in order to fulfill a funding request.)

The first chairman of the Auditorium Commission was H. Grady Manning.  He was founder and president of Southwest Hotels, which included the Hotel Marion, Ben McGehee, Albert Pike, and Lafayette Hotels in Little Rock as well as the Arlington and Majestic Hotels in Hot Springs.

Manning was a native of Scott County. He moved to Fort Smith to attend a business college. To help defray expenses, he started working at the hotel in which he was staying. Enjoying this, he decided to make hotels his career.  Manning then moved to Hot Springs and worked at the Eastman Hotel before moving to Niagara Falls to work at the Queen Royal Hotel.  He returned to Arkansas in 1917 and became the assistant manager at the Hotel Marion.  In 1919, he became the manager of the Basin Park Hotel in Eureka Springs before moving to Fort Smith and managing the Goldman Hotel.

In the 1920s, he founded Southwest Hotels, Inc. which then started building and acquiring existing properties.  He and his wife, Ruth, resided in the Hotel Marion.  His daughter, Joy, grew up at the hotel.  With the proximity of his hotels to the forthcoming auditorium and his understanding of the convention business, Manning was a natural fit to lead the new auditorium commission.  As construction woes delayed the opening of the building, Manning struggled to keep the commission together.  The commission, by state statute, was not charged to oversee a construction project, but instead to administer a functioning building.

On Labor Day, 1939, Manning and his wife were enjoying the day at Lake Hamilton with some friends.  The boat they were in capsized, and Manning drowned at the age of 47.  The City was in mourning.  A City Council resolution was passed to memorialize his contributions.  In addition to being signed by Mayor J. V. Satterfield, it was signed by three members of the City Council–Aldermen E. W. Gibb, S. Major Dent, and Charles Davis.

Later in September, the remaining four members of the Auditorium Commission resigned. Since they had no building to manage and no leader, they decided it was best to disband.  Mayor Satterfield declined to name their replacements until the building got closer to opening.

A few years after his death, the Ben McGehee was renamed the Grady Manning Hotel.  That hotel, and the Hotel Marion were imploded in February 1980 to make way for the Statehouse Convention Center and the Excelsior Hotel.

RobinsoNovember: Mayor J. V. Satterfield Jr.

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Satterfield AuditUpon taking office as mayor in April 1939, J. V. Satterfield felt he was getting a handle on Little Rock’s precarious financial situation. He would soon discover that it was more unstable than he had imagined.  Included in this was Robinson Auditorium, currently under construction across the street from his office in City Hall.  Mayor Satterfield disclosed that he had voted against the auditorium in 1937 because he felt the finances were not sufficient. But as the mayor, he promised to open the building.

By the summer of 1939, it was becoming apparent that there would not sufficient money to finish the construction.  Even with the issuance of the final round of approved bonds (which had been held back as a reserve), there would not be enough money.  The Mayor and Harvey Couch made plans to go to Washington DC to try to get more money from the federal government.  Mr. Couch was a personal friend of President Roosevelt as well as head of Arkansas Power & Light.  The pair made the trip but returned with no additional money.

At the same time, the Auditorium Commission, which had been appointed by Mayor Overman to oversee the governance of the building, resigned as a group. They said they had been appointed to administer a building, not a construction site. Since it was uncertain as to when the building would open, they stepped down.

Mayor Satterfield was able to negotiate a series of deals to get the necessary work completed for construction of the building to be completed. Part of it involved issuing another round of bonds after the building had been officially opened to finish furnishing the building as well as complete the landscaping.  In January 1940, with a new opening date becoming a stronger possibility, the mayor appointed a new Auditorium Commission.

At the same time, regular events started to take place in the lower level exhibition hall.  There had been a few in November and December, but with a lack of utilities and ongoing construction upstairs in the music hall, those were curtailed.

On February 16, 1940, Joseph Taylor Robinson Memorial Auditorium officially opened. Mayor Satterfield was joined onstage for the ribbon cutting with Senator Robinson’s widow and her sister-in-law, who was a member of the Auditorium Commission.

In April 1940, Little Rock voters approved the final round of bonds which allowed for the building to be finished.

After only two years in office, Mayor Satterfield chose not to seek another term. He left City Hall in April 1941 with finances in order and a new municipal auditorium across the street.