Category Archives: History

Free movie tonight at MacArthur Museum of Ark. Military History – Alive Day Memories: Home from Iraq

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MacMus IraqIn partnership with AETN, the MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History will host a screening of the documentary Alive Day Memories: Home from Iraq. The screening starts at 6:30pm tonight at the museum in MacArthur Park.

Free admission. Free popcorn and beverages provided.

From executive producer James Gandolfini, this 2007 HBO documentary about wounded soldiers surveys the physical and emotional costs of war through memories of their “alive day,” the day they narrowly escaped death in Iraq. In a war that has left more than 27,000 wounded, Alive Day Memories looks at a new generation of veterans.

*Disclaimer: This documentary features adult language and adult content. Parental discretion is advised.

The MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History is a program of the City of Little Rock’s Parks and Recreation Department.

Creative Class of 2015: Chris Hancock

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ChrisHancock_K0A1139-webSocial media at history museums may seem to be a paradox. But Chris Hancock proves that it can be a successful way to increase outreach and awareness.   As Communications Manager at Historic Arkansas Museum, he uses cutting edge technologies (and old school methods) to spread the word about Arkansas’ earliest days.

A native of Russellville and graduate of UCA, he joined HAM in September 2014.  Prior to that he was Public Information Officer at one of HAM’s sister museums – Mosaic Templars Cultural Center.

In addition to getting ready for HAM’s Candlelight Gala on November 7, he is also co-chair of Pop Up in the Rock’s Pop Up West 9th which takes place on October 24.

Hancock is a member of the City of Little Rock’s City Beautiful Commission and is on the Board of studioMAIN. He is also active in the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce’s Create Little Rock initiative.

Tales of the Crypt tonight at Mount Holly Cemetery

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talescryptThe ghosts of Little Rock past will arise tonight at Mt. Holly Cemetery for the 21st Annual Tales of the Crypt.

Held the second Tuesday of October, Tales of the Crypt is an annual Mount Holly event.  Founded by Fred Boosey and Judy Goss, it is now under the direction of Tamara Zinck.  Drama students from Parkview Arts & Science Magnet High School are each given a person buried in the cemetery to research. They then prepare short monologues or dialogues, complete with period costumes, to be performed in front of the researched person’s grave.

Award-winning local costumer Debi Manire will once again provide the wonderful historical characters’ costumes.  Audiences are led through the cemetery from grave to grave by guides with candles. Although it takes place around the same time as the American holiday Halloween, the event is meant to be historic rather than spooky.  Many local teachers award extra credit to students who attend.

Student tour guides will escort groups of approximately 15 from grave site to grave site to learn more about those who shaped central Arkansas in to what it is today.

The Mount Holly residents will greet you are:

  • Dr. Isaac Folsom (Peyton Hooks)
  • Mrs. Sallie Folsom (Rahlea Zinck)
  • David O. Dodd (Cameron Minor)
  • Mary Dodge (Delaney Robertson)
  • Dovenia (Dovie) Kirby (Emily Gardner)
  • Samuel B. Kirby (Brock Tittle)
  • Captain Benjamin Shattuck (Micah Patterson)
  • Anne Warren (Isha Horton)
  • Quatie Ross (Michelle Mora Dominguez)
  • Katherine Eller Henderson (Mikala Hicks)
  • Juliet Neill Peay  (Emorie Mansur)
  • Mary E. Gaines Belding (Abigail Mansur)
  • Albert Stocking (Tre’Vaughn Whitley)
  • Mollie Stocking (Taylar Hasberry)
  • George Borland (Harrison Wyrick)
  • Eleanor Counts (Stephanie Schoonmaker)
  • Edward Payson Washburn (Will Frueauff)
  • Lillian Scott (Sidney Kelly)
  • James Robbins (George Patterson)
  • Maria Rebecca Craigen (Angelique Camper)

(The names of the Parkview students portraying the residents are in parentheses.)

The Twenty-first Annual “Tales of the Crypt” is sponsored by Mount Holly Cemetery Association and Parkview Arts-Science Magnet High School.

The event will be held  at Mount Holly Cemetery, 1200 South Broadway, Little Rock, from 5:30 pm until 8:30 pm.  Admission is free to the public, however donations to Mount Holly Cemetery are appreciated and aid in the maintenance of the cemetery.

Legacy of Civil War topic of seminar at Old State House today

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cw-seminarThe Arkansas Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission and the Old State House Museum are sponsoring a seminar on the legacy of the Civil War on Saturday, October 10.

ACWSC Chairman Tom Dupree described it thus: “As we near the end of the commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, we wanted to address the lingering influences of the war,” Dupree said. “Each of our speakers will look at different aspects of the war and how they continue to affect us today.”

Speakers at the “Legacy of Arkansas’s Civil War” will be:

•Dr. Elliott West – University of Arkansas at Fayetteville on “Arkansas: Where One War’s Edge Was Another War’s Center”

•Dr. Carl Moneyhon – University of Arkansas at Little Rock on “Conflicting Civil War Memories and Cultural Divides in Arkansas”

•Dr. Jeannie Whayne – University of Arkansas at Fayetteville on “The Civil War and the Burden of Arkansas History”

•Dr. Cherisse Jones-Branch – Arkansas State University on “’How Free is Free?’: African Americans in Post-Civil War Arkansas”

•Dr. Kelly Houston Jones – Austin Peay University on “Women After the War: Profiles of Change and Continuity”

•Dr. Tom DeBlack – Arkansas Tech University on “’What Is to Become of Us?’: The Postwar Lives of Major Figures in Civil War Arkansas”

For more information on this and other sesquicentennial events, visit http://www.arkansascivilwar150.com/events/.

Documentary on LR native Florence Price screened tonight at Mosaic Templars

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Florence-PriceTonight at 6 p.m. Mosaic Templars Cultural Center will play host to the premiere of the new documentary, The Caged Bird. Produced, written and edited by Dr. James Greeson, professor emeritus of music composition at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, The Caged Bird presents an in-depth look at the life and music of Florence Price, the first African American woman to have her music performed by a major symphony.

Born in Little Rock in 1887, Price and her family were the elite of black society or as historian Willard Gatewood referred to them, “Aristocrats of Color.” Through her travels, Price came into contact with some of the most influential African Americans in our nation’s history, including abolitionist Frederick Douglass, writer W.E.B. DuBois,one of the founders of the NAACP, author Langston Hughes and dancer Katherine Dunham. Price became a favorite composer of the great soprano Marian Anderson, whose 1939 concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial was a seminal moment in the civil rights movement.

In 1933, the world-famous Chicago Symphony, consisting entirely of white men, premiered Price’s “Symphony in E minor” at the Chicago World’s Fair. Even today this would be a huge achievement for any composer; but during the era of segregation it was a unprecedented feat for a women, in particular an African American woman, to have her music presented on the world stage by a prestigious orchestra. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with Dr. Greeson.

The Caged Bird is free and open to the public.

Mosaic Templars Cultural Center is a program of the Department of Arkansas Heritage.

Little Rock Look Back: Mayor W. E. Lenon, father of LR City Hall

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OMayor Lenonn October 8, 1867 in Panora, Iowa, future Little Rock Mayor Warren E. Lenon was born.  He was one of eleven children of John D. and Margaret M. Long Lenon.

Lenon came to Little Rock in 1888 after finishing his schooling in Iowa.  He helped set up an abstract company shortly after his arrival.  In 1902 he organized the Peoples Savings Bank.  Among his other business interests were the City Realty Company, the Factory Land Company, the Mountain Park Land Company, and the Pulaski Heights Land Company.

From 1895 to 1903, he was a Little Rock alderman, and in 1903, he was elected Mayor of the city. A progressive Mayor, he championed the construction of a new City Hall which opened in 1908.  At the first meeting of the City Council in that building, Mayor Lenon tendered his resignation.  His duties in his various business interests were taking up too much of his time.

Mayor Lenon had been a champion for the establishment of a municipal auditorium. He had wanted to include one in the new City Hall complex. But a court deemed it not permissible under Arkansas finance laws at the time.  He also worked to help establish the first Carnegie Library in Little Rock which opened in 1912.

Mayor Lenon continued to serve in a variety of public capacities after leaving office.  In the 1920s, he briefly chaired a public facilities board for an auditorium district. It appeared he would see his dream fulfilled of a municipal auditorium.  Unfortunately the Arkansas Supreme Court declared the enabling legislation invalid.

In 1889, he married Clara M. Mercer.  The couple had three children, two of whom survived him.  A son W. E. Lenon Jr., and a daughter Vivian Mercer Lenon Brewer.  Together with Adolphine Fletcher Terry (also a daughter of a LR Mayor), Mrs. Brewer was a leader of the Women’s Emergency Committee.

Mayor Lenon died June 25, 1946 and is buried at Roselawn Cemetery.  Lenon Drive just off University Avenue is named after Mayor Lenon.

Arkansas Sounds Gone By – a special Butler Center Legacies and Lunch today at noon

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arkansas_swingerToday at noon in the CALS Darragh Center, “Arkansas Sounds Gone By” will be a special musical Legacies & Lunch program.  It will showcase songs about Arkansas or written by people from the state, drawn from the Butler Center’s Ron Robinson Sheet Music Collection.

Musical guests – including David Austin, Bob Boyd, Susan Gele, Dent Gitchel, Richard Hunter, Herb Rule, Stephanie Smittle, George West, and others – will perform songs from the famous fiddle tune “Arkansas Traveler” to Arkansas native Floyd Cramer’s big hit “Last Date.” Vocalists will be accompanied by piano and fiddle.

Learn about the remarkable variety of songs from or about Arkansas, about the extraordinary music collection donated by Ron Robinson, and about the Tin Pan Alley songwriters who created songs about Arkansas without ever visiting the state.

Legacies & Lunch, the Butler Center’s monthly lecture series, is free, open to the public, and supported in part by the Arkansas Humanities Council. Programs are held from noon-1 p.m. on the first Wednesday of each month. Attendees are invited to bring a sack lunch; drinks and dessert are provided. For more information, contact 918-3033.