Ocr Sample of booklet
| ARKANSAS FACTS AND FIGURES The State Flower of Arkansas is the fragrant Apple Blossom, the State Bird is the Mocking Bird, and the State Tree is the Pine. An eagle in the State Seal holds in its beak a scroll inscribed "Regnat Populis" (The People Rule). Its 53,225 square miles of area places it 26th among the states in size, while its 1950 population of 1,904,511 makes it 30th in population. America's only diamond mine is found in southeastern Arkansas. Dis- covered in 1906 near the town of Murfreesboro, the mine turned out 48,000 gems and cutting stones, one of 40 carats. Another "wonder" of this state is the fresh-water pearl that comes from mussels whose mother-of-pearl shells are the basis for a pearl button industry in the state. The world's largest archery manufacturer, Ben Pearson, turns out bows and arrows in Pine Bluff. Arkansas produces 95% (2 million tons annually) of the nation's bauxite, or aluminum ore, and ranks first in the output of barite (422,- 000 tons), syenite, a granite-like building stone, novaculite, from which whetstones are made, and is 2nd in manganese. Its oil, natural gas, and "smokeless coal" are valued at $90,000,000 annually. The state's 72 million broilers make it the, second chicken-eatingest state; it ranks 4th in cotton, cottonseed, and rice, and 5th in strawberries. There are 22 million acres of lumber in Arkansas, and, although a billion and a half board feet are cut annually (8th greatest total in the United States), the state grows more than it cuts. The state's lumber companies were the first in the nation to practice forest management. They perpetuate the forest by scientific cutting and planned re-seeding, and make use of the once-thrown-away tops, crooked limbs, and light- ning-splintered trees in wood by-products. The state's 1,600 woodworking plants make everything from wooden animals to furniture. THE STATE AND ITS PEOPLE A line drawn diagonally from the northeast to the southwest corners would divide Arkansas into two totally different regions. The rich farmlands and forests of the plains touching Louisiana to the south, and across the Mississippi from Tennessee and Mississippi on the east form one region. The other consists of the highlands running into Missouri on the north, and into the plains of Texas and Oklahoma to the west. This latter area is divided into the Ozark Plateau and the Ouachita Mountains to the south by the Arkansas River. Strangely enough, this wide river valley contains the state's highest peaks—Nebo, Petit Jean and Mount Magazine. The people of the two regions are as different as the land. Up in the high Ozarks, you find only whites, although over 400,000 Negroes live in the state, and the housewives do their own work. On the vast plantations along the Mississippi, the leisurely, almost-feudal society still exists on cotton plantations of from 5 to 60 thousand acres in extent. Arkansas is proud of their native sons who have become famous. The city of Hope once sent Arkansas-born Dick Powell, the movie actor, a giant, 195-pound watermelon. Little Rock honors Gen. Douglas MacArthur, who was born there in 1880, and large signs in Van Buren inform the visitor that it is the home of Bob Burns, who gained radio fame with his bazooka and tall tales of his Van Buren relatives. The people of the Ozark Hills are not the typical Arkansan, but do represent America's last surviving glimpse of the life of our pioneering forefathers. Some Ozarkians still speak of New Christmas and Old Christmas because many of their ancestors were deep in the American wilderness when the adoption of the Gregorian calendar changed the date of that holiday from January 6th to the present calendar date. A mountaineer's cabin is his castle and visitors, unannounced by baying hounds, are supposed to "holler" from a distance so they can ; be looked over before being invited to "light down and set a spell." "Moonshine" whiskey is still a thriving industry in the hills, and "furriners" must explain themselves. HIGHLIGHTS OF HISTORY Over 400 years ago, Ferdinando De Soto invaded the green forests of Arkansas in search of gold. He found the waters of Hot Springs healthful and spent the winter of 1541 in the Ouachitas. Dying, in 1542, he ordered his men to bury his body in the Mississippi at night so that the Indians would not know that the Spaniards were mortal. A century and a third passed before white men again saw Arkansas. In 1673, Marquette, a Jesuit priest, and Louis Joliet, a fur trader, smoked with the Quapaws, the mispronunciation of whose name some- how came out "Arkansas." The first white settlement was established in 1686 at Arkansas Post on the Arkansas River by Henry De Tonti, a member of La Salle's party. De Tonti had an artificial iron hand with which he used to knock out the teeth and crack the heads of offending Indians. Arkansas Post was the first Territorial capital after the land, as part of the Louisiana Purchase, became a part of the United States. Soon after a separate Arkansas Territory was formed in 1819, the capital was moved to Little Rock. In the era of growing steamboat and stagecoach transportation, Arkansas, in 1836, became the 25th state of the Union. A victim of the cotton economy of the south and the squirrel gun economy of the north, the state's development has, until recent years, been retarded. However, under the leadership of men like "Ham" Moses, the state has in the last decade made great industrial strides, in- creasing its per capita income, once the lowest in the nation, 225%. SCENES OF ARKANSAS AK1-1 ARKANSAS STATE CAPITOL This gray limestone building is the third statehouse to be built in the city of Little Rock. The minaret which caps the dome has a small dome that glitters with a covering of 24-carat gold leaf. At night, |
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