1940s
An aerial view of Newport shot in 1940 shows the bend in the White River on the north side of town, with the blue bridge spanning the river and leading into the business district. Clearly, the devastation of the 1926 fire has been overcome, and a prosperous little...
1930s
Born a slave in Alabama about 1861, Pickens Black Sr. moved to Arkansas as a teenager, worked on the railroad, and started buying land, eventually amassing more than 8,000 acres. Black and his sons ran a plantation that included a cotton gin, sawmill, and grain...
1930s
These schoolchildren of Jacksonport pictured in 1939 with their teachers, Charles and Thelma Warlow, are identified by last names only. They are, from left to right, (first row) Seymore, Gullett, unidentified, and Davis; (second row) Dyke, Turner, Wilson, Dunham,...
1930s
The workers outside one of the button factories in Newport ham it up for the camera, perhaps aware that they will soon appear on postcards that will travel all over country. They seem blissfully unaware that their industry is over harvesting the White River’s...
1930s
Robert Monroe rigged his flatboat with suspended hooks for harvesting mussel shells in the White River about 1936. Hooks were suspended from a pole and dragged along the bottom of the river. The work was tedious and usually beset by mosquitoes and the vagaries of the...
1930s
Newport had discovered a new source of wealth in the early 1900’s. Beautiful irregular freshwater pearls from the White River became a national and international sensation, bringing new riches to those who had the technology and the tenacity to harvest them....
