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Eldridge Cleaver, famed Black Panther and writer, had a Jefferson County connection. Who knew?

Before the Reconstruction period after the Civil War, cotton gins dumped millions of pounds of cotton seeds into nearby rivers. In the meantime, cotton seeds had been valued in the West Indies for over a century for their medicinal properties and their use as an oil in cattle feed and oil lamps.

Col. John M. Gracie was known throughout Arkansas and the world in the late 1800s and early 1900s for being the largest cotton plantation owner in the state. Intent on finding his own means of solving the plantation labor crisis brought about by the mass exodus of Black slaves from plantations throughout the South after the Emancipation Proclamation, Gracie visited Italy.

Amanda Beardsley Trulock is remembered for being an unconventional Arkansas woman of her time. She held nuanced conflicted views about slavery, politics and the Civil War that took place during her time.

Born almost two centuries ago, Wild Bill Hickok is still remembered as a great lawman and a feared gunslinger, sometimes with either foot firmly planted on opposite sides of the law. Pine Bluff even served as the setting for some of his colorful exploits.