Kellams: There are thousands of stories from our past worth telling. We just don't know all of them. Susan Park Spencer and J.B. Hogan, writers and historians, have collaborated on the new book Forgotten Fayetteville and More Hidden Histories from Washington County. The book contains 36 stories from decades and centuries ago. They'll discuss some of those stories tomorrow morning at 10 at the Fayetteville Public Library. And they say they find these historic facts and stories from a variety of sources.
Spencer: One of the articles I wrote about was an enslaved woman named Rebecca Brown Tollett, and it is so incredibly hard finding enough information to write about enslaved people because there's just nothing out there. Her information came from the Southern Claims Commission file that she had submitted to the U.S. government. And that was great because you had to have witnesses sworn in to prove that you were loyal to the Union in order to be compensated for property that you lost during the Civil War from the Union Army. And so it was like page after page of descriptions of what she went through. And I knew then that I had just, like, it was like buried treasure, just like I need to call Jerry, tell him this is exciting, because he's about the only history nerd that would appreciate calling me a nerd.
Kellams: There are 36 different chapters in this book, and I'm looking at the titles. They're all intriguing. Help me out with the street name Kate Smith. This predates the famous —
Hogan: Yes. It's not the God Bless America lady.
Kellams: Right.
Spencer: And a lot of people in Prairie Grove, I'm sure, assumed that's who it was. I always have. Right. So I was looking at a plat from, oh gosh, maybe 1870s. It was one of the very first plats made. And there's Kate Smith. And I was like, oh my gosh, who is this woman? Because how unusual is it for a woman in the 19th century to have a street named after her in this tiny little town? So it turns out, we're pretty sure, and I've talked to Jerry about this, it's PR Smith's daughter. She was apparently gorgeous, beautiful, and she was named, like, queen of the May.
Hogan: Yeah. I can't remember that exactly.
Spencer: It was like this big thing in Fayetteville where there were the universities there, the colleges, and they would pick this one woman, and she was like the May Queen, or the Queen of May Fest.
Hogan: Yeah, something like that. I can't remember exactly when. It was Ferdinand Zellner that liked her so much.
Spencer: Oh my gosh. And he was like in his 20s and she was like a teenager. He wrote a poem about her. He liked her. It was. Yeah.
Kellams: I love that we can gossip about these people more than 100 years later.
Hogan: We're actually right now, we're sitting on... oh, no. Across the street, the library, that's Ferdinand Zellner land. Stephen K. Stone bought it from him because he defaulted during the Civil War. Stephen K. Stone bought all that land that the library is on. Yeah, it was Zellner had owned it before and defaulted on it because he went to Texas during the Civil War. And Mr. Stone bought it, you know, dime to the dollar.
Kellams: So I guess he didn't end up with Kate Smith.
Spencer: No, no, he did not.
Kellams: So, so going back to Kate Smith, so that's her maiden name?
Spencer: Yes.
Kellams: So do we know the back... I mean, why is the street named —
Spencer: Well, the thing that I kind of, and it's not 100%, is that PR Smith was very philanthropic. He liked to give to organizations, especially religious organizations. The Cumberland Presbyterian Church is right there. And so we think that he might have given a donation to that church, because that church had been there since the 1820s. And so in recognition of that, they were like, oh, we'll just name the street after your beautiful daughter.
Kellams: After your beautiful daughter. By the way, the PR Smith you're referring to is Presley R. Smith.
Hogan: He was the second sheriff of Washington County, and he's the circuit clerk of Washington County who saved the records during the Civil War. Put them in the cave. Put him in the Venture Cave and saved them. That's who that is. And I believe he lived, like, maybe in the parking lot right here, his house somewhere. Right in here.
Kellams: I didn't realize how central where we are sitting.
Hogan: Oh, yes. Exactly.
Kellams: Yeah, yeah, it's Forgotten Fayetteville, but it also includes Washington County, right, in the subtitle. Washington County is where Evansville is. And Evansville, the early violent years.
Spencer: Evansville was scary. So Evansville was named after the first sheriff of Washington County, named Lewis Evans. And he kind of started the town, and he had like a couple of businesses there. So Evansville is right on the border of Oklahoma. Back then, it was the Cherokee Nation, Indian Territory, right. And the Cherokee Nation, there were two divisions. There was the John Ross Party, and there was the Treaty Party. And they fought and fought and fought. So the Cherokee Nation was not under U.S. government jurisdiction, so people could commit crimes on the Arkansas side, run into Cherokee Nation and hide out until, you know, it kind of calmed down. So all of this violence between the Ross Party and the Treaty Party would often spill over into the Evansville area. And there were actually murders there of, in fact, of a family, the, um, well, in Vineyard —
Hogan: Oh, yeah. Are you referring to the — No, I was thinking of, Major Ridge was killed. That's what it was in the... on June 22, 1839, is when agents of the Ross Party killed all but one of the leading members of the Treaty Party: Major Ridge, John Ridge and Elias Boudinot. Stand Watie managed to escape. He was warned. He was the only one that survived.
Kellams: A lot of these are accounts of things that happened more than 100 years ago. Toward the end is Judge Wheeler's Driving. That's within the last century.
Hogan: That was on Dixon Street. Yeah, that's you. That's me. Yeah, I worked there. I was a highly skilled dishwasher.
Kellams: And Jugs is where?
Hogan: Was where Bordino's is. Right now Judge Wheeler's set, Baudino pad. I mean, it's on top of Wheeler's pad.
Kellams: What was Jugs like?
Hogan: It was actually the going place in the 1950s. Absolutely going place. A quick story I might have told you before, but in the fall of '60, the Razorbacks played football at Texas, and Mickey Cissell kicked a field goal to beat Texas there. And I was washing dishes at Jugs of a Saturday night. And within, I'd say five to 10 minutes, Dixon Street was gridlock because of all the celebration. That's the kind of thing went on. But, you know, it was a lot of fun. I don't think a lot of questions were asked about how much beer was sold to whom.
Kellams: Right. Well, didn't Jugs deliver?
Hogan: Jugs did deliver, and I have personal stories there. I like to tell my personal story. When I was about eight or nine, I became a latchkey kid. I was supposedly this little poor kid living on the street in south Fayetteville. Every night at 6:30, a Renault Dauphine, we call it a Renault Dolphin, the driver would show up with my supper every single night, because my mom was the night manager at Jugs. And so here's a little poor guy getting food delivered to him every single night. So that's pretty cool. That's the way it was.
Spencer: One of my friend's parents got engaged there at Jugs.
Kellams: Oh, cool.
Hogan: And it was a drive-in, so you could pull in, you backed in, and people backed in, had a little, almost like a drive-in, you know, and speaker, you order it inside. And my favorite story, I know you'll like this one — Is I was working, it was a Sunday night in '60-something before me and my mom moved to California. The west door opens and a guy walks in, it's Lance Alworth, maybe the greatest Razorback that's ever been, and I got to wait on him. I thought I was going to have a heart attack. My idol walked in the door. It was one of the highlights of my entire life.
Kellams: A lot of the forgotten history is violent.
Hogan: Oh, yes.
Spencer: Oh, and you get to talking about the bushwhackers. Oh, Lord. I had done some research on the Civil War. The article I wrote, called The Deadly April of 1864, and it was about two incidents in April of that year where bushwhackers went around and just murdered. There were nine Union privates that were murdered near Cane Hill. And then there was one farmer near West Fork that they killed. And in fact, it was what they were doing, and this was in like starting around January, and this was Benton and Washington County.
The bushwhackers would go around and find Union soldiers, and they would have them strip off their uniforms and take them. And in the military post report from the First Arkansas Cavalry, which was here in Fayetteville, this officer wrote, "The guerrillas who infest this section of the county drop many in federal uniform, and when so dressed and caught by our forces, are not treated as prisoners but killed on the spot."
Kellams: Oh, my.
Spencer: "As a general thing, the enemy have not harmed my men when caught, only stripping them, generally taking all the clothing, even their drawers."
Kellams: Oh!
Spencer: So, which surprised me, because I thought surely those bushwhackers had just killed those Union soldiers. But instead, I don't know if it was just the humiliating part where they would just leave them stripped naked.
Hogan: Stripping the uniform reminds me of Bloody Bill Anderson, one of his techniques up in Missouri. They would dress in whatever uniform, Union or Confederate, ride up to a farmer and ask him whose side he was on. Well, naturally he sides with that uniform, and they'd kill him anyway.
Kellams: Oh my God.
Hogan: Yeah, that's the way bushwhackers were there. They're just criminals. What they were are killers. Oh, yeah. That's all they amounted to. I was going to say, when Susan was saying that, during the Civil War here in Fayetteville, you'd be happy to have the Confederates here or the Union, rather, than have these guys, because there was no... there was no rule then. No allegiance, or — No. Yeah, they just do whatever they please, and they're dangerous people. I think the most famous ones, that Buck Brown guy, that's who that's who these, that who did that?
Spencer: Yeah.
Hogan: Yeah. Well, there you go.
Kellams: All right. You co-wrote this? Do you work well together?
Spencer: No.
Hogan: Oh, that was beautiful. That was beautiful. She'll always say that.
Kellams: Yeah, I think we've got our answer.
Hogan: Yeah, we do. I'm going to answer that question. Yes, we do. We work very well together.
Kellams: When you're at the Fayetteville Public Library, you can't speak. You're not going to be able to talk about all 36 of the hidden histories. How have you decided what you're going to talk about?
Hogan: We already did. Yeah, we got a slideshow. We have four PowerPoint presentations and different ones for everybody. On Saturday, I'm going to talk about... what am I going to talk about? Do you remember? Oh gosh, I've forgotten already. Oh, I'm going to talk about the men who named Fayetteville. And then I'm going to talk about John Rollin Ridge. I think that's the ones I'm going to do Saturday.
Spencer: And I'm going to talk about the Jonathan Selby murder and the execution of the Burnette family, and then Rebecca Brown Tollett, because that's one of my favorites.
Kellams: Do you think there are other hidden histories that are still hidden or forgotten to you?
Spencer: Probably.
Hogan: Yeah. Oh my gosh, yes. I tell people all the time, I've been researching for almost 25 years now Fayetteville history. I feel like I've barely scratched the surface, probably.
Spencer: And it's weird where some of these things pop up.
Hogan: Oh, absolutely.
Spencer: Reading a newspaper article from, you know, the mid-1800s, and all of a sudden, this thing.
Kellams: Yeah, yeah. I mean, we're in 2026. There are probably forgotten histories from the '40s, '50s, '60s. Especially if it's involving women or people of color, because they were not as chronicled.
Hogan: Yeah.
Hogan: We don't usually come up as far as Jugs, Wheeler's, because we're... I mean, there's so much stuff still in the past.
Kellams: Didn't Masters and Johnson get married in Fayetteville?
Hogan: Did that... I don't know.
Kellams: That's what I've been told by a reputable —
Hogan: Wait a minute.
Kellams: They were visiting friends and they got married. It was sometime around Thanksgiving, is what I was told. And it was basically a justice of the peace, or a —
Hogan: Yeah, some... there's some milling around in there.
Kellams: Is there anything you haven't found yet that you kind of want to find out about?
Spencer: Well, I'd like to find out more about enslaved people.
Hogan: Oh, yeah, it's really, it's really hard to do that.
Spencer: It's so hard.
Hogan: It's very difficult.
Kellams: Yeah. All right. The name of the book is Forgotten Fayetteville and More Hidden Histories from Washington County. Saturday morning at the library.
Spencer: Yeah.
Kellams: June 20, 10 a.m. in the Walker Room at Fayetteville Public Library.
Hogan: We'll be there. We're going to give away some books. And then fortunately, the new book will be here.
Kellams: Where can people find the book otherwise?
Hogan: Well, you can buy it on Amazon. I know Pearl's has been carrying my stuff before, but I don't know yet. That kind of place.
Spencer: Fox and Fable in Prairie Grove.
Kellams: Susan Park Spencer and J.B. Hogan are co-authors of the new book Forgotten Fayetteville and More Hidden Histories from Washington County. They'll talk about the book tomorrow morning at 10 at the Fayetteville Public Library.
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