Stories by Rex Nelson

OPINION | REX NELSON: Remote from Arkansas Richard Florida is a well-known adviser to cities and urban initiatives, including one in Oklahoma known as Tulsa Remote. He's a professor at the University of Toronto's School of Cities and Rotman Sc... April 11, 2021

OPINION | REX NELSON: Fueling the boom The Walton Family Foundation of Bentonville has announced a new strategic plan for the next five years. The plan includes $2 billion in philanthropic support. That money will be deployed around the wo... April 10, 2021

OPINION | REX NELSON: A woman of consequence The study of Arkansas history traditionally has centered on the accomplishments of male politicians and business leaders. But one of the most significant 20th century figures in Arkansas was a women, ... April 7, 2021

OPINION | REX NELSON: The northwest boom A recent scan of the newspaper gave me a sense of the economic boom in northwest Arkansas and the planning being done there to accommodate continued growth. Mike Jones of the Northwest Arkansas Democ... April 4, 2021

OPINION | REX NELSON: Saving a house Little Rock's Pike-Fletcher-Terry House has been in the news lately as preservationists attempt to convince officials at the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts (formerly the Arkansas Arts Center) to do some... April 3, 2021

OPINION | REX NELSON: Eating with Cuz Unlike our boastful Texas neighbors, Arkansans quietly prepare good food, enjoy eating it and then move on with our lives. Because we don't brag, Arkansas food has never received the national recognit... March 31, 2021

OPINION | REX NELSON: Savoring our pitmasters My heart sank when I opened the text message on that final Sunday morning of February. It was from Kim Williams of Marianna, the talented travel writer whose father is the city's mayor. Kim is the pe... March 28, 2021

OPINION | REX NELSON: Ten for the road Many restaurants have taken a beating financially during the pandemic. Never has it been more important to support independently owned businesses that provide a sense of community across Arkansas. One... March 27, 2021

OPINION | REX NELSON: DeValls Bluff dreaming When I was a boy visiting my grandparents at Des Arc, we often traveled from the northern part of Prairie County south to DeValls Bluff. The purpose of those trips was to pick up barbecue from Craig's... March 24, 2021

OPINION | REX NELSON: The future of Arkansas In 2010, the Conway Area Chamber of Commerce developed a strategic plan for the rapidly growing central Arkansas city. That plan led to roundabouts, additional parks, more efficiency in financing city... March 21, 2021

OPINION | REX NELSON: City of colleges Memories of the Civil War were still vivid in Arkansas in 1876. During the Reconstruction period following the war, pastors of various denominations worked to establish colleges to train ministers and... March 21, 2021

OPINION | REX NELSON: The hall of famers This year marked the fourth time in five years that Feltner's Whatta-Burger in Russellville made the list of finalists for the Arkansas Food Hall of Fame. When a group started the Hall of Fame almost ... March 20, 2021

OPINION | REX NELSON: The authoritative guide I became interested in Arkansas trees and shrubs at an early age. My father would allow me to tag along while he was quail hunting. He delighted in teaching me what was what in the woods and fields of... March 17, 2021

OPINION | REX NELSON: The final float It has been 10 years since my father died. Robert L. "Red" Nelson, who had been in declining health for quite some time, was 86 when he passed away at 6:10 p.m. on the first Thursday of March 2011. M... March 14, 2021

OPINION | REX NELSON: Neil Compton's battle In the late 1950s and early 1960s, there was increased interest across Arkansas in preventing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from building a dam on the Buffalo River. On May 24, 1962, the first memb... March 13, 2021

OPINION | REX NELSON: The Wandering Weevils Jim Brewer grew up at Rogers and then spent four decades deep in southeast Arkansas as a member of the staff at the University of Arkansas at Monticello. Brewer became one of the nation's top sports i... March 10, 2021

OPINION | REX NELSON: Chasing Willie Morris It's amazing what you can find when stuck at home due to a pandemic and winter storms. I was organizing my books (my wife claims I have too many, but of course, you can never have too many books) when... March 7, 2021

OPINION | REX NELSON: Hot Springs' Majestic Park When play begins next year at Majestic Park in Hot Springs, I plan to be there. I have two sons who played youth baseball and enjoyed following them across the state. They're grown now. I probably won... March 6, 2021

OPINION | REX NELSON: Coming back downtown A given concerning this pandemic is that there will be a glut of retail space across the country once it ends. Consumers have become accustomed to shopping online, and it's a habit that will stick. Th... March 3, 2021

OPINION | REX NELSON: Mr. Baseball March begins this week. It was Mike Dugan's favorite time of the year. March means baseball spring training, you see. It means the start of baseball season is just around the corner. And it means tha... February 28, 2021

OPINION | REX NELSON: Rockefeller and Stone Once VIPA Hospitality finishes renovations on what was most recently the Frederica Hotel in downtown Little Rock, I hope the company will name rooms after Edward Durell Stone and Winthrop Rockefeller.... February 27, 2021

OPINION | REX NELSON: Revitalizing Capitol Avenue The stretch of Capitol Avenue near the state Capitol in downtown Little Rock is normally quiet during the pandemic, but on this day there was plenty of activity in front of what had most recently been... February 24, 2021

OPINION | REX NELSON: Lessons from Pine Bluff My list of places to visit grows longer as the pandemic drags on. I need to spend significant time in northwest Arkansas, which has become one of the most dynamic areas of the country and is set to so... February 21, 2021

OPINION | REX NELSON: A city goes forward George Makris Jr. watched for years as the number of business and civic leaders who called Pine Bluff home declined. Makris' father had started a beer distributorship in 1964 when Pine Bluff was a th... February 20, 2021

OPINION | REX NELSON: Leadership Pine Bluff When I was young and Pine Bluff was a happening place, I associated that city with great leaders. I joined the board of the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame almost 30 years ago, and I was in awe of the p... February 17, 2021

OPINION | REX NELSON: Pine Bluff rising It was a natural spot for a town to thrive, this place called Pine Bluff. The Arkansas River provided a transportation route connecting the interior of the state to the Mississippi River and thus to c... February 14, 2021

OPINION | REX NELSON: Pine Bluff a reclaimed regional center The headline atop the Arkansas section of this newspaper in December 2015 said it all: "Collapsed-building cleanup in downtown PB on slow track." For years, it seemed that the only news coming out of... February 14, 2021

OPINION | REX NELSON: Salty old editor As newspapers close across rural America, the greatest loss might be the voices of the courageous men and women who once edited these publications. The population of rural America declines, and so doe... February 13, 2021

OPINION | REX NELSON: The Camden Expedition In two cover stories for this newspaper's Sunday Perspective section last month, I detailed a trip I took on U.S. 67 from Benton to Texarkana. Because I've long been fascinated by this state's Civil W... February 10, 2021

OPINION | REX NELSON: A gift for Arkansas When Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art opened at Bentonville on Nov. 11, 2011, it was a great gift for the people of Arkansas and the region. Though not on the scale of Crystal Bridges, which is... February 7, 2021

OPINION | REX NELSON: Bite of Arkansas When the pandemic made its way to Arkansas last March, those of us who travel the state for a living had to make major adjustments. Few were affected more drastically than Kat Robinson, the Little Roc... February 6, 2021

OPINION | REX NELSON: Federal attitude adjustment The horses are running again at Oaklawn. Farther north on Central Avenue, Hot Springs business and civic leaders continue their downtown revitalization efforts. Those who follow the tourism industry ... February 3, 2021

OPINION | REX NELSON: The path forward In a column earlier this month, I quoted extensively from an article by Arkansas historian Guy Lancaster, who spelled out how the attack on the U.S. Capitol had many of the same characteristics as the... January 31, 2021

OPINION | REX NELSON: Winter at Wingmead My grandfather from Des Arc, who died during the hot summer of 1980 at age 96, was once the Prairie County judge. Having served in several county offices -- and having owned both a funeral home and ha... January 30, 2021

OPINION | REX NELSON: Claypool's and Wingmead Another Arkansas duck season comes to an end Sunday. Each winter, I enjoy researching and writing about storied Arkansas duck clubs. They're an important part of this state's heritage. Two names stan... January 27, 2021

OPINION | REX NELSON: Ducks and Dunklin With masks firmly in place to set a good example, some of the state's top education leaders gathered on the Grand Prairie in Arkansas County last month to sign an agreement that could pay dividends fo... January 24, 2021

OPINION | REX NELSON: A trip to Washington Earlier this month, I wrote two cover stories for this newspaper's Sunday Perspective section about a trip down U.S. 67 from Benton to Texarkana. I didn't venture off the highway much, but I did have ... January 23, 2021

OPINION | REX NELSON: The boat ditches Dozens of drainage districts across the state were created by the Legislature and local governments from 1907-27. During the period of Arkansas history known as the Big Cut, which lasted from the 1880... January 20, 2021

OPINION | REX NELSON: The lynch mob Historian Guy Lancaster is an expert on racial violence in Arkansas. His book "American Atrocity: The Types of Violence in Lynching" is scheduled for release this fall by the University of Arkansas Pr... January 17, 2021

OPINION | REX NELSON: Home of the Hoo-Hoo On Jan. 21, 1892, six men formed an entity with an unusual name: The Concatenated Order of Hoo-Hoo. The organization's birthplace was Gurdon, which I passed through on the trip down U.S. 67 that was ... January 16, 2021

OPINION | REX NELSON: The rival colleges Only three cities in Arkansas--Little Rock, Conway and Arkadelphia--have multiple four-year institutions of higher learning. Little Rock now has almost 200,000 residents. Conway has more than 65,000 r... January 13, 2021

OPINION | REX NELSON: A place called Hope The Harry Thomason film that introduced nominee Bill Clinton to the Democratic National Convention in 1992 helped make Hope famous. For those my age who grew up in Arkansas, Clinton was always though... January 10, 2021

OPINION | REX NELSON: The road rolls on I cross DeRoche Creek and enter Clark County on my trip from Benton to Texarkana on U.S. 67. Clark County was one of the original five counties in the Arkansas Territory. "Clark County included all o... January 10, 2021

OPINION | REX NELSON: Athens of Arkansas When I was growing up at Arkadelphia, the Southern Standard newspaper proclaimed on its masthead that the city was the Athens of Arkansas. I always took pride in that moniker. As south Arkansas loses ... January 9, 2021

OPINION | REX NELSON: Bauxite mining country In Sunday's column, I wrote about the monumental changes seen in Saline County since my father grew up there during the Great Depression. In the 1940 census, when my dad was still in high school at Be... January 6, 2021

OPINION | REX NELSON: Memories of Benton It has been almost half a century, but I still have fond memories of those walks to downtown Benton from my grandparents' house at 111 Olive St. My grandmother didn't drive. Benton and Saline County ... January 3, 2021

OPINION | REX NELSON: Rockin' down the highway U.S. 67 enters the state near Corning in the north and heads southwest, crossing into Texas at Texarkana. It's the old road that I'll take from Benton to Texarkana, remembering a time when I was grow... January 3, 2021

OPINION | REX NELSON: Remembering Big Arkie In last Saturday's column, I wrote about a swampy area of 18,000 acres in southwest Arkansas near where the Little River empties into the Red River. The area is mostly owned by five exclusive hunting ... January 2, 2021

OPINION | REX NELSON: The 2021 wish list Our fondest hope for 2021 is for successful vaccines and an end to the pandemic. In Sunday's column, I listed other things I would like to see happen next year. I ran out of room, so here are addition... December 30, 2020

OPINION | REX NELSON: Hopes for 2021 Most Arkansans will join me in saying good riddance to 2020. Our fondest hope for 2021 is that the vaccines are a success. Let's pray that they're widely distributed by spring and that life is getting... December 27, 2020