David Simmons (davidsimmonsphotos@gmail.com) submitted Beechwood Valley Church in Lost Valley to the Photograph contest.

I am afraid that I couldn’t really find any info on this on the internet so if someone can point me in the right direction, I will be glad to add links.  Also some dates and history would be good.

Don’t forget to enter your photograph in the contest, you can’t win unless you submit a photograph.

PRESERVATION SOCIETY TO MEET ON FEBRUARY 7^th

EL DORADO – The Preservation Society of the South Arkansas Historical Foundation (SAHF) is pleased to announce that Mr. Gary Looney of the Arkansas Oil & Gas Commission will make a presentation to the Preservation Society at 5:15 pm on Monday, February 7, 2011.  The program will be held in the Newton House Museum, located at 510 Jackson Street in El Dorado and is free and open to the public.

Mr. Looney’s presentation is titled “Changes in the Oil and Gas Industry”. The lecture will cover the oil industry in South Arkansas with an emphasis on the forces that have changed the industry in the late 20^th century.  The Preservation Society looks forward to the special program by Mr. Looney and encourages the public to attend this free event.  “The oil industry is vital to South Arkansas and we are excited about this presentation.  This lecture will discuss the changing forces that have shaped the present industry over the past 30 to 40 years” stated SAHF director Patrick Hotard.

Gary Looney, a graduate of El Dorado High School, received his degree in Petroleum Engineering Technology from Louisiana Tech University.  Mr. Looney has worked both in the private sector of petroleum engineering and in state government oil and gas regulation for the past 27 years.  Currently he serves as Assistant Director of the El Dorado Regional Office of the Arkansas Oil & Gas Commission.  Mr. Looney is a member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers and holds multiple certificates in natural gas pipeline safety and underground injection control.

The Preservation Society is the support organization for the SAHF and Society membership forms are available at the SAHF offices.  The Newton House was constructed circa 1849 and is a premier example of antebellum Greek Revival architecture.  Tours are available and may be arranged by calling 870-862-9890.

Hat’s off to the Lawrence County Historical Society for a job well done on their new website!  This is how we should be moving into the future.  Linking, posting, mapping, facebooking….AND membership, only $10 a year.  Love it!

Lawrence County Historical Society: http://lchsar.org/

Here’s your invitation to see Dreamland Ballroom this Saturday! Local band, The Big Cats, will be performing LIVE at DREAMLAND this Saturday, January 22, at 3pm, $5 cover, all ages show. Take the opportunity to invite your friends, family, anyone, to see historic Dreamland Ballroom, the new floor and hear a great band performing on our stage – we’ll add their names to a long list of Dreamland performers that include Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Louis Armstrong, Redd Foxx, Sammy Davis, Louis Jordan, Ray Charles…join us as we celebrate nearly a century of performing arts at Dreamland.

Dreamland Ballroom is located on the top floor of Taborian Hall, 800 West Ninth Street, home of Arkansas Flag and Banner. 501-375-7633

Music Video of The Big Cats, you’ll recognize some local places

Amber Jones
Executive Director
Friends of Dreamland
amber@dreamlandballroom.org
501-607-0954

My friend Shelli Russell has been listed in Sync Magazine as one of the top 10 movers and shakers in Arkansas for 2011.Shelli maintains a couple of websites…

MySaline.com

and

Arkansite for the whole state.

If you are looking for current news in central Arkansas, she has it.  She is THE Social Queen for keeping her websites, facebook and twitter with the latest Arkansas news.

Drop in and see what she is moving and shaking today!

“To Prevent the Effusion of Blood”

The Arsenal Crisis of 1861

10:00—

MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History

503 E. 9^th St., Little Rock, AR

www.arkmilitaryheritage.com

February 12, 2011

Free Admission

In February of 1861, two months before the start of the Civil War, a confrontation with federal authorities at the Little Rock Arsenal brought Arkansas to the brink of armed conflict.  After years in which the Federal Army had maintained a minimal presence at the arsenal, the arrival of seventy-five U.S. soldiers, commanded by Capt. James Totten, along with news of South Carolina’s secession and the formation of the Confederate States of America, caused concern and speculation statewide.

As Arkansans anxiously prepared for a special election to decide the state’s future, Little Rock residents faced a more immediate crisis.  On the morning of February 5, approximately one thousand armed men from southern and eastern Arkansas arrived in Little Rock to demand the arsenal’s surrender along with its weaponry.  Sensing an opportunity to push the state toward secession, Governor Henry Rector formally called for the removal of Federal troops.  One week later, Capt. Totten withdrew his soldiers from Little Rock “to prevent the effusion of blood.”  Arkansas had narrowly averted armed conflict with the Federal government.

To commemorate the 150th anniversary of the end of the Arsenal Crisis, the museum will host a symposium on the impact the crisis had on the Little Rock Arsenal, the secession convention and Governor Rector.

10:00 – 10:45              “Arsenal Arms”            Ian Beard

11:00—12:00              “To Prevent the Effusion of Blood: The Little Rock Arsenal Crisis of 1861”                                                                                    Tom Ezell

12:00—1:00               Lunch On Your Own

1:00—2:00                  “A Contrary Effect: The Arsenal Crisis and the Calling of the Secession Convention”                                                            Dr. Michael Dougan

2:15—3:15                  “Oh Hell! The Arsenal Crisis and Downfall of Governor Henry Massie Rector,”                                                                            Dr. Michael Dougan

Join Civil War re-enactors on the museum’s north lawn for demonstrations throughout the day.

After the Civil War, many soldiers struggled with poverty, mental health issues, and physcial disabilities.  The federal government, along with concerned citizens, provided pensions and group homes for Union soldiers.  In the former Confederate States, however, those responsibilities fell on the impoverished state governments.

Postcards like this one highlight the home’s popularity among tourists. – Courtesy The Hermitage

The Jackson family sold 500 acres of The Hermitage to the state of Tennessee in 1856, including the mansion.  In 1889, the Tennessee General Assembly gave 475 acres for the Tennessee Confederate Soldier’s Home, while the remaining 25 acres around the Hermitage mansion went to the Ladies’ Hermitage Association to preserve as a “shrine” to Jackson.  The Soldiers’ Home stood about one-half miles southwest of the Confederate Cemetery.

This image shows one of the two remaining cottages originally built to house Confederate veterans that still stand at The Hermitage.  - Courtesy The Hermitage

Finished in 1892, the main building of the Tennessee Confederate Soldiers’ Home typically housed 125 men during its peak years. The wings contained the veterans’ rooms, with dining and community space in the center section.  Former Confederate captain and architect William C. Smith designed the building, which had steam heat and running water.  Soon after the home closed in 1933, the Ladies’ Hermitage Association tore down all but one wing of the building, which was converted into employee housing.  The remaining wing was demolished in 1953.  - Courtesy Tennessee State Library & Archives.

In forty-one years of operation, the Soldiers’ Home housed more than 700 veterans.  The state provided an annual appropriation, and employees of the home farmed the land to help pay expenses.  Initially, the home’s trustees planned to house the men in small cottages, but the expense of building and maintaining cottages compelled the construction of a large dormitory-style home instead.

Confederate Soldiers’ Home

Caring for the Veterans

Residents of the Tennessee Confederate Soldiers’ Home gained admission by proving that they served in the Confederate army honorably and that they could no longer provide for themselves.  For most, an approved pension application or military record satisfied the service requirement, while letters from physicians, concerned citizens, or commanders established the veteran’s need.  The Soldiers’ Home accepted most applicants but rejected several who could not prove honorable service.

The trustees hoped that the veterans would build self-esteem by working on the home’s farm, but most were too frail.  The veterans who lived here did find comradeship among other men with similar experiences.  Medical need, whether physical, mental, or addiction-related, compelled many veterans to enter the Soldiers’ Home.  Impoverished veterans also came to the home simply because their age limited their ability to work and make a living.  Often, these men had families they left behind because they had become a financial burden to them.

When a resident died, the state paid for his funeral and burial unless family members made other arrangements.  Of the 700 veterans who lived in the Soldiers’ Home almost 500 are buried in the Tennessee Confederate Soldiers’ Home Cemetery.

Currently, one of the most easily recognizable faces in Arkansas belongs to Arkansas eccentric Peter Miller, the attorney with a smile and familiar face on the back of every phone book in Arkansas.  This is what Peter had to say on the start of his well-known advertising:

“25 years ago, when I first started advertising on TV, I used a spokesperson. A very lawyerly looking guy whose tag line was ”We help injured people… we get results”.   Periodically, people would call me and ask to speak to “the other Peter Miller” meaning the spokesperson. I would tell them that he was an actor and I was the lawyer. I came to realize that I should be the one on screen.

My first commercial was very stiff and formal… mimicking the spokesman. When I’d see it on TV, it just didn’t feel right.

There were other lawyers starting to advertise. One portrayed himself as a “tough guy” lawyer. In reality he was a tough guy, so the image fit. Another lawyer portrayed himself as a teacherly intellectual, which , in fact, he was. I realized that my effectiveness as a lawyer was based upon my ability to put people at ease… clients, adversaries, juries. The fact is, I am generally happy and satisfied with my life and I do smile a lot.

My ad agency did a commercial in which one actor says to another “call the man with the smile” and before I knew it, people were calling and asking to speak to “the man with the smile”, so that’s how it happened.”

What you may not know about Peter is that he graduated from Hartford in Connecticut with a bachelors in English, he worked on a masters in photography at the University of Iowa, traveled Europe and later settled in New York and did a stint with the United Artists Motion Picture Group.  Some time later he moved to Heber Springs and published the Arkansas Sun newspaper where he discovered and bought the world-renown Disfarmer Collection. Had he not had the background in photography, Peter might not have recognized the value of the collection and it may have been broken up into pieces or thrown out.

He became licensed to practice law in 1980 and has been located in Little Rock for a number of years. His law office is located in the historic Faulkner – Leiper House at 1601 South Broadway in Little Rock.  Peter Miller is certainly one of those people who make Arkansas what it is.

• Disfarmer.com
• Disfarmer.org
• Peter Miller Law Firm

This crude unhewn piece of everlasting granite is here to mark the resting peace of manly men.  Men like it, firm, solid, true men who, in support of principle, uncomplainingly endured hunger, cold and privation which history cannot recrod the sturdy men grouped about this rugged stone died in the Tennessee Home for Confederate Soldiers.  This stone will stand the test of time.  The soulds of the tried men grouped about it will endured throughout eternity.