Who's Who in Fort Smith History

Alexander, Katherine
Born in 1897 in Fort Smith, her mother, Sophronia, was part Cherokee. Her father, Josiah Alexander, farmed land nearby in the Indian Territory while living with his family on this side of the river. Katherine Alexander's father died when she was almost six years of age.
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Anderson, John S.
Confederate war veteran of a local company and a Fort Smith merchant, Anderson died Sept. 25, 1915, at the age of 85. He was born Feb. 1, 1830, in Harden County, Tennessee.
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Atkinson, Ben Franklin
Born 1838, B.F. Atkinson was the son of John C. Atkinson. John Atkinson was established in the hardware business in Fort Smith in June 1843. His business probably helped to outfit many of the wagon trains headed west during the Gold Rush and antebellum period. Ben Atkinson was a student of John Carnall before being sent away from Fort Smith for further schooling. Sometime in his late teens he entered the hardware business with his father.
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Ayers, William N.
Although we generally think of 19th century Americans as generally being a more settled people, many individuals from that time were just as peripatetic as anyone in the 21st century. Ayers is an excellent example of this wanderlust. Born in 1825 and settled for the first 20 years of his life in the village of Bristol near his birthplace, Warren, Ohio, his schooling was scant but he was an eager autodidact.
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Baer, Bernard
A German Jew who was born in Baden, Germany on April 12, 1837, Baer immigrated to this country and settled in Fort Smith in June 1867. Before then, he had spent some time as a wholesale clerk and served in the Arkansas Confederate forces. Baer was the first president of the National Bank of Western Arkansas, which later became First National Bank.
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Baer, Herman
Herman Baer came to this city in 1853 when he immigrated to America with his family. He was 14. When Arkansas seceded from the Union in 1861, he was in New York City on business. To return to Fort Smith, he had to make his way from Matamoros, Mexico on muleback. Along with Bernard Baer, he served in Company C of the Confederate, 22nd Regiment Arkansas Infantry and played in its military band.
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Ballman, Edward
Edward Ballman was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1858. He was the son of a once prosperous merchant who had fallen on hard times as a result of a bad loan made to a friend. His father died before Edward left Indiana.
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Barnes, James Kent
Born 1847 in Kentucky to a prominent lawyer, Sidney Barnes. He studied law in Lancaster, Ky., until moving to Little Rock in 1871 to practice with his father there in the firm of Benjamin & Barnes. He later was elected city solicitor. Immediately after his marriage to Mary M. Yonley, the couple traveled to Fort Smith by river steamer to make their new home.
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Birnie, Charles
Charles A. Birnie Jr. was born on a packet steamer on the Arkansas River, January 17, 1834. His father, Charles A. Birnie Sr., was an early settler and business man out of the Fort Smith area. His mother, Margaret, was the daughter of Episcopal Bishop Strebeck of North Carolina. At the time of Charles Jr.'s birth, they were en route to Fort Smith from Pittsburg, Penn.
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Blair, William
Although not a native of Fort Smith and a resident for not more than 16 years, William Blair was so well-respected and loved that the mayor of Fort Smith at the time of his death in 1903 asked that all businesses shut during the hour of his funeral. He was born in New York in 1842 but spent his early life in Wisconsin. Blair invested in the future of the city of Fort Smith by buying a large interest in American National Bank along with his son-in-law, Emory Haskett.
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Bloomberg, John P.
Born in Sweden circa 1838, he came to Fort Smith with his father, Andrew Bloomberg, in 1858. Although a lifelong Democrat, he was a messenger in the federal court under the Republican-appointed Judge Isaac Parker.
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Bonneville, Benjamin
Bonneville was born April 14, 1796, in or near Paris. His father was a French Revolutionary and Thomas Paine was a close family friend of the Boonevilles. Fleeing Napoleonic France with his mother and siblings, the family settled in New York.
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Bourland, James D.
James Bourland, father of Fagan Bourland, was born in 1826 in Lebanon, Mo. At the age of 12, he came to Fort Smith to work on a local farm. Within a few years, he had acquired enough of the right equipment to enter into the freight hauling business and doing considerable hauling for the government.
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Burns, Charles
Born in 1833 in Ireland, he came to Fort Smith in 1865 when the federal court was established in western Arkansas. He was appointed jailer for the court and served for 14 years until the election of President Grover Cleveland.
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Carnall, John
When Congress moved in 1874 to dispose of some unused federal land inside the city, John Carnall had the idea of using the money from its sale to benefit local schools and provide lots for public buildings.
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Carr, Andy
Andy Carr died April 1, 1912, from wounds received in a shooting that occurred during the apprehension of Sanford Lewis on March 23, 1912. His shooting and misunderstandings in the public mind about what had happened resulted in a mob tearing Lewis from his jail cell and lynching him on Garrison Avenue. Carr left behind a wife and five children that lived at a home at 601 S. 17th St.
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Cooper, St. Cloud
St. Cloud Cooper founded Cooper Clinic in Fort Smith on Oct. 1, 1920. In 1895, he moved to Fort Smith to practice. Born on July 13, 1861 in Jefferson, Texas, Cooper received his medical degree from Washington University in St. Louis in 1882. He received postgraduate education at Long Island College Hospital and in Boston, Chicago and Montreal.
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Cravens, William Ben
A prominent Fort Smith attorney and lifelong resident of the city, Cravens also represented western Arkansas in the U.S. House of Representatives in from 1907 to 1913 and again from 1933 to 1939.
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Darby, William Orlando
Much has been written about William O. Darby and is available at numerous Web sites, but omitting him for that reason from Fort Smith's Who Who would be negligent. Some basic facts: Bill Darby was born in Fort Smith in February 1911 to Percy and Nellie Darby.
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Dean, Bertha
Born in Kansas in 1882, Bertha Lanthrop began her career as a prostitute around 1900 when she was in her late teens or early twenties. For Bertha, unlike Laura Zeigler (Miss Laura, the first madam at 123 Firs Street), the business of commercial sex was less of a career and more of a way of life.
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Dell, Valentine
Born in Baden, Germany, and educated at Mannheim College in that same country, Dell emigrated to the United States in 1846. After serving five years in the army, then working in New Orleans and St. Louis as a clerk, Dell won some supply contracts at Fort Arbuckle in the Indian Territory.
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Dodson, John
John Dodson, was one of Fort Smith's oldest citizens when he died of pneumonia on April 12, 1889, in his late 70s. Starting as a spinner and weaver, Dodson moved up to become the manager of textile mills in the British Isles.
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Euper, John
John Euper was one of the pioneers of the city. He was born June 13, 1814 and died May 27, 1903, at the age of 89. Euper came to Fort Smith from Germany, first reaching American soil in New Orleans in 1840 then meeting up with his brother, Paul, in Fort Smith. Paul was coming from New York and had arrived in the United States four years earlier. In Fort Smith, he took up his trade as a shoemaker.
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Euper, Tony
At his death on Sept. 14, 1914, the Times Record identifies Tony Euper simply as a businessman. He was born in Prussia in 1836 and came to Fort Smith in 1849 with his father. Euper's father was a wagon maker and he learned that trade.
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Foltz, James A.
Foltz was a prominent physician in early 20th century Fort Smith. He also was a Spanish-American War veteran, helped organize the Fort Smith and Western Railway Employees Hospital Association and for several years was chief of staff at Sparks Memorial Hospital.
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Foster, Josiah
Born May 13, 1849, in Van Buren, Josiah Foster was 64 when he died in September 1912. He began his mercantile career in Cove City, Crawford County, later moving to Van Buren where he established a grocery in 1875. Over the next 10 years, Foster was successful in building his business and in the late 1880s came to Fort Smith.
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Goldstein, Davis Woolf
A founding member of Cooper Clinic, Goldstein was born Sept. 14, 1888, in Greenville, Miss. He studied medicine at Tulane University and the University of Tennessee. No resident training existed for the specialty, dermtology, in which he became interested. After completing a residency in Memphis, Goldstein studied in Vienna and London.
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Harding, Charles
Organizer and founder of the Harding Glass Co. in Fort Smith in 1917, Charles Harding first established glass manufacturing plants in Bradford, Pennsylvania and Clarksville, West Virginia. He was president of the Harding Glass Co. at the time of his death on Oct. 4, 1935 at the age of 73. The Long-Bell Lumber Co. of Kansas City made window sashes and doors in Fort Smith in conjunction with Harding Glass.
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Holt, Charles
Charles S. Holt founded the Holt Clinic in 1921, and from 1913 to 1934, he operated St. John's Hospital. A 1906 graduate of St. Louis University School of Medicine, Holt moved to Fort Smith to practice in 1908.
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Krock, Fred
Dr. Fred H. Krock was a leading Fort Smith surgeon and founder of Holt-Krock Clinic along with Dr. Charles Holt. Krock also was a gynecologist. He practiced full-time until 1970 and part-time until his retirement.
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Main, John Hanson Thomas
Main was the first civilian physician to settle in Fort Smith. Main was born in Maryland on Nov. 13, 1813. At sixteen, he moved with his father to Ohio and graduated from Starling Medical College in Columbus, Ohio, in 1836. He came to Fort Smith to attend the men who were building the second Fort Smith. Main died on Sept. 3, 1891.
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Martin, W.R.
The son of a prominent Alabama family, Wolsey Randall Martin earned his law degree at the age of 19 from the University of Virginia and came to Fort Smith to practice law in partnership with B.H. Tabor. That partnership soon dissolved, but Martin formed the second, longer lasting firm of Winchester and Martin with Col. Thomas P. Winchester. It lasted from 1887 until 1920. Winchester and Martin engaged exclusively in business law, and the firm was very active in the commercial and industrial life of the city.
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McCloud, Samuel
Born in New Rochelle, N.Y., he died at 75 on Sept. 7, 1914, in his home at 123 N. 19th St. McCloud came to Fort Smith in 1853 in charge of a government pack train from St. Louis and stayed as master of transportation at the fort.
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McCorkle, Dr. Jacoburn
McCorkle came to Fort Smith in May 1883 from Oxford, Miss. He was born in Demopolis, Ala., on Aug. 22, 1835. He attended Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia and Nashville University, graduating in Nashville, Tenn. McCorkle was a Confederate Army surgeon and served at the battle of Franklin, Tenn.
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Nakdimen, Iser
Founder of City National Bank and the Oklahoma and Arkansas Telephone company, I.H. Nakdimen died at the age of 73 on April 19, 1943 in his apartment in the Goldman Hotel. Born in Grodno, Russia on Sept. 15, 1871, he immigrated to the United States as a boy.
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O'Donohue, Michael C.
A teacher in the first Fort Smith public school, Michael C. Donohue arrived in America from Ireland on April 4, 1867. He taught school in Ozark for a while there then at a Catholic school in Fort Smith. While in the Fort Smith job, he took up an offer to instruct the students in the first Fort Smith public school in arithmetic and higher mathematics, a position he held until 1871.
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Parke, Frank
Born July 11, 1829 in County Leitrim, Ireland, he came to America in 1849, settling first in Ohio then in Fort Smith in 1853. His first business experience was work for Mitchell Sparks. A clerk and collector, he travelled throughout Indian Territory collecting on accounts in the Choctaw and Chickasaw nations.
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Ragon, Heartsill
Ragon served as federal judge, presiding over the Western District of Arkansas for seven years. At the time of his death on Sept. 15, 1940, it was the largest federal district court in the state, and it was rumored that Ragon was in line for an appointment to the eighth circuit court of appeals.
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Reutzel, Henry
Born Nov. 23, 1846 in Germany, he came to Fort Smith with the family of his father, Casper Reutzel two years later. His first business experience was working with a mercantile house on North Second Street (then Washington Street).
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Reynolds, Don W.
Donald Worthington Reynolds was not a native of Fort Smith, but the sometime resident of the city was a part of it nevertheless as the owner of the Fort Smith Times Record and Southwest American newspapers for more than 50 years.
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Rodgers, R.K.
R.K. Rodgers had a life so full of accomplishment and activity that it is difficult to summarize in a single "Who's Who" entry. He was born Dec. 21, 1895, three miles south of Cane Hill in Washington County. After finishing the sixth grade, he began work for his father as a city drayman, carrying deliveries to and from the Lincoln railroad depot to business houses. Rodgers learned telegraphy and held several rail station agent jobs in Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico.
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Smith, Thomas A.
Because it is believed that Gen. Thomas A. Smith never visited Fort Smith, he never played a decisive role in its history but the city is named for him nevertheless. Thomas Adams Smith was born Aug. 12, 1781 in Essex County, Va. He joined the Army in 1803 as a second lieutenant.
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Sparks, Anne Eliza Dibrell
Born about 1852 to Dr. James A. Dibrell Sr. in Van Buren, Anne Dibrell married George T. Sparks on March 11, 1878, at the residence of Dr. E. R. DuVal, whose wife was Miss Dibrell's sister.
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