Boom Town
Boom Town

Author: Marjorie Rosen

Publisher: Chicago Review Press

Published: 2009-10

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 1569763704

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Investigating the personal stories behind the headquarters of the Wal-Mart empire, this examination focuses on the growth of Bentonville, Arkansas--a microcosm of America's social, political, and cultural shift. Numerous personalities are interviewed, including a multimillionaire Palestinian refugee who arrived penniless and is now dedicated to building a synagogue, a Mexican mother of three who was fired after injuring herself on the job, a black executive hired to diversify Wal-Mart whose arrival coincided with a KKK rally, and a Hindu father concerned about interracial dating. In documenting these citizens' stories, this account reveals the challenges and issues facing those who compose this and other "boom towns"--where demographics, the economy, and immigration and migration patterns are continually in flux. In shedding light on these important and timely anecdotes of America's changing rural and suburban landscape, this exploration provides an entertaining and intimate chronicle of the different ethnicities, races, and religions as well as their ongoing struggles to adapt. Emerging as subtle sociology combined with drama and humanity, this overview illustrates the imperceptible and occasionally unpredictable movements that affect the nonmetropolitan environment of the United States.

Rock Island Railroad in Arkansas
Rock Island Railroad in Arkansas

Author: Michael E. Hibblen

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 1

ISBN-13: 1467125385

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For nearly 80 years, the Rock Island was a major railroad in Arkansas providing passenger and freight services. A decline in rail travel after World War II and an increase in trucks hauling freight over government-subsidized interstates were among factors that left the railroad struggling. Efforts to merge with other railroads were stalled for years by federal regulators. The Rock Island filed for bankruptcy in 1975 and attempted a reorganization, but creditors wanted the assets liquidated, with a judge shutting it down in 1980. Most of the tracks that traversed the state were taken up, but a few relics, like the Little Rock passenger station and the Arkansas River bridge, remain as monuments to this once great railroad.

Racial Cleansing in Arkansas, 1883–1924
Racial Cleansing in Arkansas, 1883–1924

Author: Guy Lancaster

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2014-07-30

Total Pages: 167

ISBN-13: 0739195484

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Even before the end of Reconstruction in Arkansas, the state already possessed a long-standing reputation for violence, including lynchings, duels, and feuds. However, the years following Reconstruction witnessed the creation of new forms of mob violence. All across the state, gangs of whites sought to drive African Americans from their homes, their jobs, and their positions of authority, creating communities shamelessly advertised as “100% white.” This happened not only in the highland regions, the Ozarks and the Ouachitas, where the expulsion of African Americans created so-called “sundown towns,” but it also occurred in the low-lying Delta lands of eastern Arkansas, where cotton was king and where masked mobs of landless “whitecappers” and “nightriders” regularly dealt terror and murder to black sharecroppers. Racial Cleansing in Arkansas, 1883–1924: Politics, Land, Labor, and Criminality by Guy Lancaster is the first book to examine the phenomenon of racial cleansing within the context of one particular state, illustrating how violence relates to geography and economic development. Lancaster analyzes the wholesale expulsion of African Americans and the emergence of “sundown towns” together with a survey of more limited deportations, including those with blatant political goals as well as vigilante violence. The book has broader implications not only for the study of Southern and American history but also for a deeper understanding of ethnic and racial conflict, local politics, and labor history

Arkansas in Ink
Arkansas in Ink

Author: Guy Lancaster

Publisher: Butler Center Books

Published: 2014-09-01

Total Pages: 199

ISBN-13: 1935106740

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In 1837 Representative Joseph J. Anthony stabs the speaker of the house to death during a debate about wolf pelts. In 1899 Hot Springs police shoot it out with the county sheriffs over control of illegal gambling. In 1974 President Richard Nixon resigns in part due to the outspokenness of Pine Bluff native Martha Mitchell. In this special print project of the online Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture, legendary cartoonist Ron Wolfe brings these and many other stories to life. Accompanied by selected entries from the encyclopedia, Wolfe’s cartoons highlight the oddities and absurdities of our state’s history. Seriously, you couldn’t make up this stuff.

Rogers
Rogers

Author: Marilyn Harris Collins

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 132

ISBN-13: 9780738543017

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Early Rogers settlers witnessed the Butterfield Overland Stage moving West, the agony of the Trail of Tears, Civil War soldiers heading for battle at nearby Pea Ridge, and later greeted the arrival of the railroad just 28 days before the town incorporated on June 6, 1881. Readers will encounter Capt. C. W. Rogers, the town's namesake; "Coin" Harvey's dream of a pyramid; Betty Blake, who married world-renowned Will Rogers; and William Henry Kruse's vision of gold under an old apple tree. More importantly, this book is full of everyday people who built a town, erected churches and schools, and provided a livelihood for their families. Historic downtown has remained largely unchanged, with wide, brick streets and buildings listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Rogers is home to the Rogers Historical Museum, the Daisy Airgun Museum, the restored Victory Theater, and the first Wal-Mart store.