Category Archives: History

Sandwich in History today (6/7) at the Irv Daniel House

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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 (June 7) at 12 noon, this month’s tour is at the Irv Daniels House, located at 1622 Waterside Drive.

Constructed in 1965, the Irv Daniel House in North Little Rock is one of only 10 designs created by architect Frank Doughty in the state of Arkansas. The architecture of the house was heavily influenced by the work of Frank Lloyd Wright and E. Fay Jones, whom Doughty worked for at one time.

IMPORTANT NOTE: There is very limited parking available along Waterside Drive. There is an area of public parking located to the northeast of the house, along Waterside Drive, and additional parking is available along streets to the east and at the park at the intersection of Waterside Drive and Avondale Road

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

The CALS Butler Center for Arkansas Studies is seeking photos, video of historic 2019 flooding for future historians

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Have you taken photographs or video footage of the Arkansas River flood?

The Central Arkansas Library System’s Butler Center for Arkansas Studies would love to have your help preserving and remembering this historic event.

CALS is collecting photos and video of the 2019 Arkansas River flood to document the impact on our region.

Submissions will be preserved as part of the archival collection at CALS.

Thank you in advance for your contribution to this project!

SUBMIT YOUR PHOTOS here.

Night at the Museum tonight (6/6) at the Old State House Museum

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The next Nights at the Museum will be June 6, 6-9 p.m. Join the Old State House Museum for a fun take on history, with plenty of games and activities.

As always, there will be plenty of food and libations available to purchase.

Nights at the Museum is an event for ages 21+ on the museum’s iconic front lawn that takes place the first Thursday of each month seasonally, March-October. (In case of inclement weather, the event will be indoors at the museum.)

Nights at the Museum is hosted by the Arkansas State House Society – Friends of the Old State House Museum, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting OSHM and its programs.

Admission is $5; food and beverages will be available for purchase at the event. Tickets may be purchased in advance at https://squareup.com/store/ArkansasStateHouseSociety/ or at the gate.

The museum can validate parking at the DoubleTree hotel; metered parking near the hotel is free after 6 p.m.

15th season of Movies in the Park starts with THOR: RAGNAROK

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Thor Ragnarok poster.jpgSummer nights are the perfect escape from the hot days, especially when the River Market’s outdoor film series returns to the First Security Amphitheater.

This annual event returns for the 15th season on June 5. Every Wednesday at sundown in June and July, family and friends unroll their blankets and unfold their chairs to relax and enjoy award-winning films ranging from animated to action and everything between.

Tonight’s film is THOR: RAGNAROK (PG-13).

In this 2017 release, Imprisoned on the other side of the universe, the mighty Thor finds himself in a deadly gladiatorial contest that pits him against the Hulk, his former ally and fellow Avenger. Thor’s quest for survival leads him in a race against time to prevent the all-powerful Hela from destroying his home world and the Asgardian civilization.

It stars Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Cate Blanchett, Idris Elba, Jeff Goldblum, Tessa Thompson, Karl Urban, Mark Ruffalo, and Anthony Hopkins.

Prior to the screening, from 6pm to 7:30pm (while supplies last), UA Little Rock Downtown is offering free popcorn inside their new facility. Come and grab your free Pop Pop Shoppe popcorn at UA Little Rock Downtown before Movies in the Park!

Families, picnics, and leashed pets are invited to the park to enjoy movies under the stars, but no glass containers. Don’t forget the bug spray! An adult must accompany all children under the age of 18 and an ID is required. Chaperoned youth, sports, church and other groups are welcome! The amphitheater will open an hour before film showings (approx. 7:30) and movies with begin at sundown each week (approx. 8:30).

For more information about Movies in the Park and to see which films will feature live performances or other activities before the showings, visit www.rivermarket.info or find us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/lrrivermarket

Restoring Taylor House in Drew County is subject of today’s CALS Legacies & Lunch Lecture

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Tommy Jameson, lead architect for the restoration of the Taylor House (among many other restoration works in Arkansas), will discuss the past, present, and future of the dogtrot-style home built in 1846 at Hollywood Plantation in Drew County, one of the few remaining examples of Arkansas vernacular architecture built before the Civil War.

The program takes place today (June 5) at noon in the Darragh Center at the Central Arkansas Library System Main Library in Library Square.

The house was donated in 2012 to the University of Arkansas at Monticello (UAM) for historical research and interpretation, and UAM began restoring the house and adjacent grounds to how they appeared in the earliest known photographs.

About Legacies & Lunch

Legacies & Lunch is a free monthly program of CALS Butler Center for Arkansas Studies about Arkansas related topics. Program are held from noon to 1 pm on the first Wednesday of the month. Attendees are invited to bring a sack lunch; drinks and dessert are provided. A library parking discount is available upon request. For more information, call 918-3030.

51 years of continuous community art classes at the Arkansas Arts Center

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AAC classes in the 1960s

Though it was not yet officially called the Museum School, the Arkansas Arts Center’s first day of community art classes started on June 3, 1968.

To call it the first day of community art classes is a bit of a misnomer.  Even before the institution opened in May 1963, there were community art classes.  But once the degree-granting program launched in autumn 1964, the consistent, regular offering of those classes went away.

With the January 1968 announcement that the degree-granting program would end by May 31, 1968, plans were underway to bring back community arts classes.  Monday, June 3, 1968, started that program. Since that day, the Arkansas Arts Center has consistently offered arts classes to the community.

The session which began on June 3, 1968, was six weeks in length.  There were fourteen faculty members teaching 48 different classes for both adults and children.  The registration ranged from $10 to $22, depending on the course.   Among the course topics were painting, drawing, print-making, sculpture, crafts, design, children’s and teenage theatre, and art appreciation.  The faculty came from local artists.

Plans were already underway to offer twelve week sessions in the autumn of 1968 and spring of 1969 in a variety of art and dramatic disciplines.

As the Arkansas Arts Center prepares to vacate the space in MacArthur Park for the re-imagining of the building, Museum School classes will not go away.  They are continuing (along with the AAC summer academies) in MacArthur Park through August. Then they will move to the Arkansas Arts Center at Riverdale for the next several quarters.

Final Horace Mann High School Graduation – June 2, 1971

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Ms. Wordlow and Mr. Wilkins

On Wednesday, June 2, 1971, the final graduation took place for Horace Mann High School. Opened in the spring of 1956, it had served as Little Rock’s all African American high school for fifteen years. (Since the high schools reopened in August 1959, Central and Hall High had both been gradually increasing the number of African American students each year but students zoned for Mann continued to have the opportunity to attend that school.)

Two-hundred and forty students made up the final class. The graduation took place at Barton Coliseum on June 2.  Three days earlier, the Baccalaureate service took place at the school. The top graduate of the class was Samuel Ray Wilkins, with Eloise Wordlow ranked number two.

1971 marked the first graduating class at Little Rock’s newest high school, Parkview. The presence of that school helped hasten the end of Mann.  This was supposed to be the penultimate year for Mann, under the Little Rock School District’s plan. But in the summer of 1971, a federal court order mandated that Mann no longer serve as a one race high school effective the start of the 1971-1972 school year.

Because of the court order hastening the end of Mann as a high school, there was no opportunity to reflect on Mann’s legacy or note the final graduation.

So the group which thought they would be the final Mann class was instead split up to attend Central, Hall, and Parkview.  Mann was made into a junior high effective that new school year. The students who were supposed to be Mann’s last class have called themselves the 1972 Horace Mann Transitional Class and still have reunions.

Mann had followed Paul Laurence Dunbar High School as Little Rock’s African American high school. That facility had opened in 1929 with a junior high and junior college also in the same building.  Following the opening of Mann, Dunbar became solely a junior high.  The junior college component was dropped in 1955 with no publicly stated reason.

Prior to Dunbar, there had been Gibbs School which served as a primary and secondary school for Little Rock’s African American students beginning in the early 1900s. Eventually the elementary students were located in another building, which was the precursor to today’s Gibbs Elementary School.

Before Gibbs School, Capitol Hill and Union schools both existed at roughly the same time. Both included elementary, junior high, and high school students. After Gibbs School opened, they continued to serve as schools. Capitol Hill lasted as an elementary school into the 1940s.