Tag Archives: Arkansas State Fair

History of Arkansas State Fair focus of December Legacies & Lunch at noon

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ark state fairThis month’s Legacies & Lunch program focuses on the Arkansas State Fair.

Numerous state fairs and livestock shows have been held in Arkansas since the 1860s.  The Arkansas Livestock Show Association has existed for 75 years. While early fairs promoted agriculture and tourism, these events struggled financially.  Following the social upheaval caused by the Great Depression, a group of businessmen, farmers and educators led by oilman T. H. Barton envisioned a new Arkansas economy not dependent on cotton farming.

Deb Crow, museum and archive director for the Arkansas State Fair, and Dr. Jim Ross, professor of history at UALR ,will share details about the fair’s rich history, including rare photographs.

Legacies & Lunch is a monthly program of the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, a division of the Central Arkansas Library System.  The program, sponsored in part by the Arkansas Humanities Council, takes place at 12 noon.  This month’s program will be at the Darragh Center of the main library.

Little Rock Look Back: TR in LR

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TheodoreRooseveltOn October 25, 1905, President Teddy Roosevelt, recently elected to a four year term in his own right, made an appearance in Little Rock.

He was greeted at the train station by Governor Jeff Davis and was the guest of honor in a parade up Main Street to City Park (now MacArthur Park) in where a public meeting was held featuring remarks by the President.  During this remarks, speaking to a largely Democratic crowd, the Republican Roosevelt noted: “The candidate is the candidate of a party; but if the president is worth his salt he is the president of the whole people.”

According to media reports at the time, Main Street from Markham to Tenth was a solid mass of cheering spectators for the parade.  This was the first time a sitting President had spent time in Little Rock away from a train station. The only other incumbent President to visit had been Benjamin Harrison.

He would make three more visits to Arkansas.  In 1910, he spoke at the Arkansas State Fair in Hot Springs.  In April and September 1912, he made several campaign stops in the state as he was running to reclaim the presidency, this time heading the Progressive (or Bull Moose) ticket.  Though Roosevelt’s successor, William Howard Taft, would visit briefly once in office and once after leaving office, it would not be until Roosevelt’s cousin Franklin Delano Roosevelt visited in 1936 that another sitting President spent much time in the state after TR’s 1905 visit.