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Photo via Lawrence T. Jones III Texas Photography Collection, at SMU Central University Libraries, DeGolyer Library

“In the small northern Arkansas town of Des Arc, dozens of local boys in the fall of 1862 came under the influence of a young Confederate recruiter named Howell A. Rayburn. His delicate physique and long tawny hair made him look innocent, like a child. But a streak of darkness lurked in his wild blue eyes, which, as one historian noted, “seemed at times to have lost every vestige of tenderness, compassion and mercy, especially for those who differed with his views.”

..Rayburn’s irregular company of partisan rangers would go down in history as the “Phantom Unit,” which had a reputation for lightning-quick raids into Union-occupied Arkansas near the White and Mississippi Rivers. ..They called him “Yellow Doc” or simply “Doc,” perhaps a reference to his hair color or the illness that had sickened him. His enemies labeled him a bandit, or “banditti.”

- via “The Yellow Doc Raiders” By RONALD S. CODDINGTON – New York Times

Location: Little Rock, circa 1910
Vantage Point: Main Street, looking north, between 7th and 6th Streets
Photo Source and additional discussion on Shorpy..

“The State National Bank Building is a twelve-story historic office building on the southwest corner of West Capitol and Main streets in downtown Little Rock. The tower was designed by local architect George R. Mann, and constructed between 1909 and 1911. The building was called the State National Bank Building until World War I when the bank declared bankruptcy. The building, now known as Boyle Tower gets its name from real estate tycoon and cotton trader Johnny Boyle who purchased the tower on December 6, 1916.

The original tower stood eleven stories tall; the twelfth floor was added in 1949. State National Bank endured as the tallest building in Arkansas until 1925, when it was surpassed by the thirteen story Lafayette Hotel.”

Source – Frana Wiki

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Bill Clinton seated with Orval Faubus, Febraury 23, 1991.

Vintage Politics: An Aging Orval Faubus Challenges Bill Clinton in 1986 Democratic Primary:

“Clinton, who was an eleven-year-old boy in nearby Hot Springs when Gov. Faubus stood his ground against the federal authorities in September 1957, had always been ashamed of that controversial and ugly episode in Arkansas history.

I hated what Faubus did,” recalled Clinton, who as a young politician had once sought the ex-governor’s advice. “We’ve paid a terrible price for that over the years.”

..Orval E. Faubus mounted a long-shot bid to unseat three-term Gov. Bill Clinton — arguably the state’s most popular governor since Faubus himself — in the state’s 1986 Democratic primary.

..Faubus, who grew up in an impoverished Ozark Mountain community, never had much money. During the Great Depression, his family trapped rabbits — they called them “Hoover hogs” — for subsistence.

It was a difficult period for everybody, including young Orval whose teacher’s salary had been cut to forty dollars a month, forcing him to hop freight trains to the Pacific Northwest where he supplemented the family’s meager income by working in Washington’s big timber during the summer months, piling brush after logging crews cut down the trees, for 47 ½ cents per hour.

..On the twentieth anniversary of the tense standoff at Central High School, for example, it was widely reported in the national media that one of the original “Little Rock Nine” was working as a $50,000-a-year assistant labor secretary in the Carter Administration, while Faubus — the longest serving governor in Arkansas history — had been forced to supplement his modest state pension by taking a job as a lowly-paid bank teller in Huntsville, a sparsely-populated mountainous community not too far from Fayetteville.

Aside:
Video: Dale Bumpers saves the life of Orval Faubus

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Source: Library of Congress
Photographer: Ben Shahn

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Porter at the Fayetteville Depot, back of image states “A#1 Frisco Line Fyv. Depot Sept 1965,”

Photograph scanned as part of the Fayetteville Digital Image Archive Collection.

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Public burning of whisky at Fayetteville, Arkansas by order of the court, V. N. Tilman, Circuit Judge seized October 25, 1902, by sheriff Wm. Rollins.
Photograph courtesy of the city of Fayetteville, Arkansas. – Scanned as part of the Fayetteville Digital Image Archive Collection.

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Source: The Hot Springs of Arkansas – Published in 1877

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Map via David Rumsey Map Collection

“A Map Of North America, Constructed According To The Latest Information: By H.S. Tanner.”

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Henry S. Tanner was one of America’s foremost engravers and map makers in the first half of the 19th century. By the time he began producing his own maps he had engraved many notable maps for cartographers Aaron Arrowsmith, Samuel Lewis and John Melish. In his Geographical Memoir, Tanner claimed he had devoted nearly ten years of his life to his monumental map of North America.