Primary Sources: Historical Sources (part 2)

The year is 1940, and Martin H. Blankenship is stripping arrows at the Ben Pearson plant. Blankenship worked for the company for 51 years. He died in 1991.

The abundance of forests around Pine Bluff was a major factor in the success of Ben Pearson, Inc. By the time this photo of the plant at 2912 West 2nd Avenue was taken for a 1940 catalog, the company's archery products had an international market.

A spacious archery field was part of the Ben Pearson complex on West 2nd Avenue, and a popular place for competitions when this photo was taken for a 1941 catalog. Pearson was an avid sportsman and proficient in the use of the bow and arrow for hunting. He achieved international recognition as a manufacturer of archery equipment, and local acclaim as a savior of some once fine old homes.

This 1948 photo was taken of Vanalee Harrison at the Ben Pearson plant.

In this 1952 picture, John Rust, the inventor of the first commercially successful cotton picker, is talking to a farmer about the one-row picker which could be mounted on any tractor. The machine moved at about three miles per hour, and could pick a bale of cotton in that length of time. The Ben Pearson company entered into an agreement with Rust in which Pearson would produce the Rust pickers.

The Norton/Wheeler stave mill provided employment for a number of residents, including Arthur McKay Nicholson, who was first a foreman and then superintendent from 1926 to 1962. Nicholson is pictured in the white shirt.

This picture was taken from the Norton/Wheeler office looking east. The road between the sawmill on the right is Princeton Pike before it was paved. The horizontal pikes carried sawdust to a rooftop cyclone, which fed it into a boiler that fueled the two mills.

The timber industry was one of the first in Pine Bluff, and continued to play a major role in the economy. This aerial view in 1940 shows Norton-Wheeler Lumber Company. E.R. Norton and A.G. Wheeler operated its two mills at this Princeton Pike site.

Small bridges cross portions of the Oakland Park duck pond, popular spots for feeding the pond's friendly families. The pond was occasionally stocked for children's fishing derbies.

The last major structure erected at Oakland Park was Oakland Tavern, which cost $25,000 and was constructed of brick and lumber from old buildings razed in the city with Civil Works Administration labor. The tavern has a sixty-by seventy foot ballroom with a large fireplace at each end and cooking facilities. The clubhouse was opened on April 12, 1937.

Today, the tavern is used principally as a senior citizens' activity center operated by the Area Agency on Aging. Oakland Tavern is seen here across the south lake of the park about 1937.

Oakland Park's Kiddieland offered fun for little riders-- and a bench or two for their parents.

This is a view of the original clubhouse, the rustic Oakland Tavern.

Mother and child enjoy a stroll along the duck pond at Oakland Park, which was dedicated in 1935 on the city's northwest side. In addition to playground and picnic areas, park features have included a clubhouse called the Tavern, various log huts, a public swimming pool, a ball field, a small zoo, mechanized rides for a children, a miniature golf course, and a nine-hole course for the full-size game.

Oakland Park was a civic venture of the Pine Bluff Kiwanis Club, which was successful in getting the Oakland Real Estate Company of Atlanta, Georgia, to donate 35 acres of land about a mile northwest of the city limits as a park. The entrance of the park in about 1945 was marked with this rustic sign.

In the Roman Catholic cemetery at North Cedar Street and Pullen Street are the graves of many early settlers, including some of French blood; and also the grave of Sarasen, a highly respected Quapaw chief who died in 1832 at the age of 97.

A picture of an early grave in the Roman Catholic cemetery.

Old graves in the Roman Catholic cemetery.

Sarasen's grave in the Roman Catholic cemetery.

The bell tower at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff (formerly Arkansas Agricultural, Mechanical, and Normal College [AM&N]) dates to the mid-1940s. This picture was taken shortly after construction.

The auditorium of Branch Nornal in an 1895 photograph.

A group in the mid-1890s gathers outside a dormitory at Branch Normal at the Arkansas Industrial University, which had occupied westside property between Second and Fourth Avenues since 1881. The building was torn down after the school moved to property now occupied by the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff.

An aerial view of the Arkansas A M & N College campus in the 1950s shows new buildings-- and some that no longer exist on the present campus of UAPB.

The occasion is a President's Ball at Arkansas AM&N College, and then-student (now University Chancellor) Lawrence A. Davis, Jr., beams as William Randall presents a student gift to longtime college president Lawrence A. Davis, Sr. (The president's wife is by his side.)

Members of an Arkansas AM&N baseball team are taking this 1935 photo session seriously.

John Howard, longtime head of the art department at Arkansas AM&N College, teaches a class. The year is 1940.

The Golden Lions take a photographic stance for this 1930s photograph.

The modern building for health, physical education and recreation serves students at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff. It contains a basketball arena, a swimming pool, weight rooms, handball courts, and a dance studio, as well as classrooms and offices.

The 1946-47 Arkansas AM&N Band marches in a homecoming parade on Pine Bluff's Main Street.

This brick structure, between Second and Fourth Avenues, was the college's first permanent home, conferring ten bachelor's degrees between 1881 and 1894.

UAPB (formerly Arkansas AM&N) continues to improve facilities with a new student housing complex, located north of the HPER Compex, completed in the summer of 1992.

This marker was erected by the Jefferson County History Commission as part of the bicentennial celebration of Pine Bluff, to identify the original location of Branch Normal School on the southeast corner of West 2nd Avenue and Oak Street.

The first permanent brick buildings of Branch Normal of the Arkansas Industrial University were constructed by contractors Harding and Bailey in 1881 on twenty acres of land the trustees purchased between West Second and Fourth Avenues, with Plum Street as the eastern boundary.

Taken in 1895, this photograph of the auditorium of the Branch Normal with the School Choir on the stage depicts the financial problems of the institution during its early years. The paper is peeling from the ceiling and the walls are in need of repair and painting.

In order to build a new library, Arkansas AM&N College (now the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff) applied from a grant from the Federal Emergency Administration of Federal Works in 1939. The Fisher Building, as seen in this picture (circa 1950), served the college as the library until the John Brown Watson Library was built in 1968.

This group was described as a faculty working committee at Arkansas AM&N (now the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff) about 1944. They are, from the left, front row: Ruby Fisher, Vhaness McHenery, and Mrs. John B. Watson. Rear: John Howard, Butler Henderson, Rufus Caine, and Ray F. Russell.

Established in 1875 as a branch of the Arkansas Industrial University at Fayetteville (now the University of Arkansas), the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff (formerly Arkansas AM&N College) was first a preparatory school with some college training, and then became autonomous as a four-year college offering a degree.

Ben Pearson Bow and Arrow Company

The year is 1940, and Martin H. Blankenship is stripping arrows at the Ben Pearson plant. Blankenship worked for the company for 51 years. He died in 1991.

PRIMARY SOURCES Set 1: Historical Sources, Part 2

PRIMARY SOURCES
Set 1: Historical Sources, Part 2