Note: The documentary referenced is a four-part series produced by KATV for the nation's Bicentennial in 1976. Clips are hosted and narrated by Bob Gregory.
Kellams: It's Monday. It's time to talk with Randy Dixon from the Pryor Center about Arkansas history.
Dixon: I'm back.
Kellams: You're back. And you brought with you —
Dixon: Well, more Arkansas history. That was "The Arkansas Traveler." Last week we heard two of the state songs, one official, one kind of official. But this is the historic song, the official historic song. And we're doing that because this month we are looking at the history of Arkansas through a four-part docu-series produced by KATV for the Bicentennial. So do the math, or know the term, and you'll know that it was produced in 1976.
Now, before we go on, I want to mention Marla Dollar, who emailed and said, "I heard your interview on Monday about the four-part documentary. Is it available at the Pryor Center to watch? It was so interesting. I'm from Heber Springs. Thanks so much." Yes, as a matter of fact, part one is up now on our front page, and we're about to switch it over to part two, and we'll eventually have all four available for viewing. We're kind of releasing them bit by bit.
Kellams: Marla Dollar, you can see part one now and eventually you'll see all of them. But let's have some highlights.
Dixon: Let's do. And I want to point out that we're doing this because of the Semiquincentennial. I'm getting to kind of like the way that rolls off. By July 5, we'll be able to all say it.
Or we could just change it to, I don't know, quasi partial centennial.
Kellams: There you go.
Dixon: But no, I kind of like the Semiquincentennial. But that is the summer and that's why we're doing this. The reason I played that song is, well, let's just give you a little background. It was written in 1847 by a guy named Sandford Faulkner, who was a wealthy Arkansas planter. And he based the lyrics on an experience he had getting lost up in the Boston and Ouachita mountains and some dialogue he had. It was just kind of a funny little — but, you know, the tune. It's been used for several children's songs, but a New York humorist named Mose Case reworked the song and added some dialogue a few years later for his comedy act. And apparently it wasn't a real good reflection on the people of Arkansas. So let's check in with Bob Gregory, who hosted and wrote this documentary for KATV.
Gregory: "The Arkansas Traveler" by Faulkner, which led, incidentally, to one of the most famous pictures in state history. Not great art, not even authentic history. What Faulkner did was to take a series of stories, incidents that were isolated, and then exaggerate them, often humorously, and the country accepted them as an accurate, a very true depiction of what life was like in Arkansas. Well, the state came off as a collection of ruffians, or a series of people who did nothing but engage in duels with Bowie knives, backwood frontiers type that were, on the whole — and this is putting it gently — uncivilized. Well, that impression stuck, and the state had a hard time shaking it, and more than a few years passed before history really could catch up with legend.
Kellams: Well, here we are, 180 years or so after that song was written, there's still an Arkansas stereotype, especially an Arkansas Ozark stereotype.
Dixon: Barefoot, you're gonna smoke a corn cob pipe or something like that. And up until Bill Clinton came along, that's kind of what Arkansas was known for — that and Central High, which we'll be talking about later on.
So last week we ended with the Civil War. Let's go back to Bob Gregory to tell us about when the war came to Arkansas.
Gregory: After a few minor skirmishes in late 1861 and early 1862, the Confederate and Union forces west of the Mississippi joined in their first major battle in Arkansas. 15,000 southern troops against 20,000 from the North. It started at dawn in early March 1862, an attack by Confederate Gen. Van Dorn. He was hoping to smash the federal troops commanded by Gen. Samuel Curtis. If he could do it, Van Dorn would secure Missouri for the Confederacy. The only other federal army from Missouri had already moved into Tennessee, commanded by Ulysses S. Grant. Van Dorn's strategy: if he could win here at Pea Ridge, he would then cross the Mississippi and trap Grant's army. For three days, artillery thundered across this valley. Cavalry charges clashed in the middle and infantry collided with fixed bayonets. Yet there was no clear-cut winner. But two Confederate generals, McCulloch and McIntosh, were killed in this general area by northern snipers. The battle was a stalemate until a regiment of Cherokee Indians, led by Albert Pike, now a general, broke rank at Elkhorn Tavern. The Cherokees were excellent fighters, but in their own way — they were just not accustomed to military fighting, and they were terrified by the explosions of cannon. After that, the federal lines, now on high ground, couldn't be cracked. So Van Dorn and his army retreated, and the Union Army did not pursue. Jefferson Davis looked upon this as a major Confederate loss, for it meant the chance was over of ever capturing Missouri.
Dixon: The other major engagement in the war was the Battle of Prairie Grove, which left northwest Arkansas in the hands of the Union. But there were other notable battles — Arkansas Post, Helena, Pine Bluff, Camden and Jenkins Ferry.
As the war ended, the South entered that difficult period of Reconstruction.
Gregory: The great Civil War was over. And Arkansas's Confederate Gov. Harris Flanagin said from his headquarters in Washington, Arkansas: "The Confederate States of America are now extinct." He then beseeched the people of this state to, in his words, "reaffirm your allegiance to the United States of America."
The people of Arkansas, on balance, were eager to rejoin the Union, but that would have to wait. There were members of Congress who first wanted their pound of flesh. The South would be divided into five military districts. Former Confederate leaders would have no part in any of the governments. There would be forced acceptance of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. And this is what brutalized, emotionally, the South more than any other thing. The governments would be totally controlled by carpetbaggers — northern Republicans who had moved into the state after the Civil War — along with scalawags, native Southerners with northern or Republican tendencies. They were going to be very bitter, very violent years.
Kellams: And again, we are listening to segments from a four-part documentary KATV produced about the history of Arkansas, made for the Bicentennial 50 years ago.
Dixon: We're mainly talking about war in this episode, but I did come across this interesting segment of the documentary about the story of the University of Arkansas.
Gregory: Several good things did come from Reconstruction. One began somewhat humbly in the town of Fayetteville. The construction of University Hall, known as Old Main, started in 1873 and was completed in 1875. It was modeled after the main building at the University of Illinois. The building plans had been destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 and had to be reproduced later at the cost of $1,000. The first students entered Jan. 22, 1872. Enrollment grew rather slowly at the university during the early years, but in 1876 degrees were finally awarded — the first baccalaureate degrees — to five men and four women. But within two years there were 256 students, although most were doing preparatory work, and by 1884 the number had grown to 363. Today, with an enrollment of more than 20,000, the university has come a long way from what the second president of the University of Arkansas described as "a place where there was nothing to start from but a farmhouse, 160 acres of land. A hillside surpassingly beautiful, indeed — a location the finest in the state. But the soil alone to build upon."
Kellams: You mentioned we're talking a lot about wars. We've gone through the Civil War.
Dixon: Yes and Arkansas didn't quite feel the full brunt of the battles and much of the hardships in the Civil War. And it was the same in World War I. There were casualties, yes, but not all were on the battlefield.
Gregory: By 1917, the state of Arkansas and the United States found themselves in a world war. When the people of Arkansas learned that Army bases were going to be constructed throughout the United States, a group of businessmen in Little Rock offered 3,000 acres to the government if the camp would be built near Little Rock. Well, the Army took them up on the deal, coughed up $3 million, and it was built. Almost 200,000 men from Arkansas registered for the draft. Less than a third would serve. The first troops from Arkansas got to France just three months before the armistice was signed on Nov. 11, 1918. There were almost 2,700 casualties, many of those from disease, but only about 500 were actually killed in battle. While on the home front, because of the great influenza epidemic of World War I, 7,000 persons would lose their lives in this state, leading to the expression that it just might have been safer over there than over here.
Dixon: As far as World War II, Arkansas benefited financially from the war, as I think did every state. But one thing that it did do is it put us on the map as an aluminum producer.
Gregory: The coming of the Second World War had enormous economic impact on the state of Arkansas. Heavy industries geared themselves for production and secured contracts totaling more than $400 million. Although the allocation to Arkansas may seem large, in truth, it was small compared to other states, many of which got more than a billion dollars. The state also got revenue from Army camps. The two largest were Camp Chaffee, near Fort Smith — construction on it had begun before the Second World War, in September 1941 — and Camp Robinson, near Little Rock. They were two primary training centers for armed forces personnel. Industries which also had peacetime value were situated in Arkansas during the war. They included chemical plants and aluminum plants. For example, Jones Mill, near Hot Springs.
Bauxite, the ore from which aluminum is obtained, had been mined in Arkansas before 1900, but up until World War II, all bauxite mined in Arkansas was shipped out of the state for processing, because Arkansas did not produce the electricity necessary to process it into aluminum. The war plants built at Jones Mill and also at Hurricane Creek secured the necessary electricity from 12 power companies in six states and from the TVA. To produce more electricity in Arkansas, electric plants were constructed on several of the rivers in the state, and when the war ended, the aluminum plants, which cost the government $78 million, were leased back to private industry. The same was done with other industries throughout the state.
Dixon: My family grew up around Sweet Home, which is around Bauxite. My great-uncle had a couple of bauxite mines back then, and that's kind of where the Dixon clan — there's a Dickson Road out near Sweet Home. You can see the exit when you're driving to Pine Bluff.
Kellams: So you're a bauxite mogul?
Dixon: No. A couple of generations removed. I think he kind of squandered his fortune. He was a bachelor. Livin' large.
Kellams: There you go. You know, you bring up bauxite. Let's go all the way back to the Arkansas Traveler at the start and how Arkansas has been the butt of centuries of jokes. To somewhat battle that, when I took Arkansas history in eighth grade, we were given a pretty severe dose of Arkansas exceptionalism — which, if you're from outside of Arkansas, you go, "Wait, what?" And one of the things we were told in eighth grade Arkansas history was that if you carved Arkansas out and took it away from the United States and put it somewhere else, not only would it be able to be self-sufficient, it's the only state that would be self-sufficient. That's what we were told. We had everything we needed: water, livestock, wild game, cotton, soybeans and bauxite. And bauxite — we were told to celebrate Arkansas's bauxite history. So you had, on one hand, 49 other states making fun of you, and then in eighth grade a teacher saying, "Don't worry about it.”
Dixon: “We don't need them." But we had a conversation with one of our new researchers at the Pryor Center. She's from Texas, and she said she was taught the same thing. So I wonder if every state.
Kellams: I want to hear from someone who grew up in Vermont. Were you told that your syrup and your rivers were enough? But it's an interesting self-identity that Arkansans have dealt with for a long time.
Dixon: That's true. I do want to plug a project that the Pryor Center is working on — it's a 250 project, in celebration of 250 years. John Davis, our executive director, has gotten together with several schools of higher education around the state, and they are conducting interviews about living in Arkansas and what your feelings are about 250 years of being an American.
Kellams: I like that. How does someone participate?
Dixon: If you go to our website, you can contact us at the Pryor Center and we will set up a way to do an interview.
Kellams: All right. What are we going to end with? I bet it's music.
Dixon: Next week we are going to continue this — I'm going to milk it for another episode. But this is about a specific period from post-World War II, 1946, to what was present day at the time, 1976. And it's mainly politics, and we'll look at the governors. We're going to listen to "The Arkansas Traveler" again, but this is a little different version. I'm a big fan of Béla Fleck and the Flecktones. He's a banjo player, but it's not really bluegrass music. It's whatever Béla wants it to be — kind of jazz fusion. But this is his version of "The Arkansas Traveler." I'll see you next week.
Kellams: Randy Dixon is with the David and Barbara Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History. Thank you, Randy.
Dixon: Thank you.
Ozarks at Large transcripts are created on a rush deadline and edited for length and clarity. Copy editors utilize AI tools to review work. KUAF does not publish content created by AI. Please reach out to kuafinfo@uark.edu to report an issue. The audio version is the authoritative record of KUAF programming.
