Every county in the state has a story to tell relating to the 1861-1865 Civil War, and those tales need to be noted for history before the war’s 150th anniversary period is over, members of the Arkansas Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission say.
A stated goal of the state-supported commission is to place a Civil War sesquicentennial historical marker in all 75 counties that tell of a Civil War event there or some aspect of the war’s effect on the area.
However, more than halfway through the sesquicentennial observation, 34 counties neither have a marker in place nor an active application asking for commission approval for one.
As it was for the Confederacy 150 years ago this month - having just suffered turning-point defeats at Gettysburg and Vicksburg - time is getting short. The commission will cease to exist in mid-2015.
With the 20-member commission to meet next week, Chairman Tom Dupree of Jacksonville said he plans to prod commissioners to contact officials in the 34 counties to work with their state representatives and senators on obtaining funds to help sponsor markers.
To get a marker, a community must pay $1,030 to the sesquicentennial commission as a local match. The match amount is $1,300 if text is placed on both sides of the marker.
“We’re going to push to try to get all of the counties before it’s over with,” Dupree said. “There are sources available for getting that money. It doesn’t have to be hard out-of-your pocket. Trying to get people who are interested in trying to get a marker up is a big thing.”
Counties lagging in the marker race are: Ashley, Baxter, Bradley, Chicot, Clark, Cleveland, Conway, Craighead, Crawford, Desha, Drew, Faulkner, Franklin, Fulton, Garland, Grant, Hempstead, Hot Spring, Howard, Johnson, Lafayette, Lawrence, Montgomery, Newton, Perry, Poinsett, Polk, Pope, Randolph, Saline, Sevier, Sharp, St. Francis and Stone, according to commission member Mark Christ of the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program.
“We have been contacted by several of the counties on that list that say they’re working on applications,” Christ clarified. “I might get five tomorrow. … Generally they’ve trickled in, one, maybe two a month.”
It isn’t that commission members in those areas haven’t tried, said Commissioner Dr. Blake Wintory, assistant director of the Lakeport Plantation in Lake Village, in Chicot County, one of the counties without a marker so far. Lakeport Plantation, built in 1859, is the state’s only remaining antebellum house on the Mississippi River.
“It is kind of embarrassing being on the commission and my county does not have one,” said Wintory, who joined the commission in January 2012. “The easiest thing for me to do is to get one at Lakeport.
“I have asked some people if they wanted to get involved,” Wintory continued. “There are a lot of different stories we can tell in Chicot County and about Lakeport. It’s just a matter of trying to figure out what the best ones would be. … There are things that aren’t written about that the local people know about.”
Christ said that a unique part of the historical-marker program is “having the local folks decide what they want to commemorate in their area.”
“There are a lot of stories we just don’t know about, but are well-known in the counties,” Christ said. “There are some of them, too, that are not accurate stories, and we’ve had to reject a couple of applications because there was not adequate documentation to say the event actually occurred.”
Misunderstandings about the marker program and a lack of historical societies in every county are big contributors to having so many counties without markers in the works, Dupree said. The markers aren’t just about relating history of battles and skirmishes, he said, but can tell about the raising of troops, wartime life in a county or the war’s effect on its residents.
“It could be something that had to do with education or religion during that time,” Dupree said. “It can be about all the ways people lived during that period. … If that’s the case, there ought to be something in every county that you can hang your hat on.
“I think a lot of it has to do with folks thinking that not anything significant happened in their county” during the Civil War, Dupree added. “We just have to dig and try to get some people who will respond and help them come up with those funds that they need to get it done.”
Arkansas, Pages 13 on 07/21/2013