The Arkansas Traveler is an honorary title bestowed on notable individuals who, through their actions, serve as goodwill ambassadors for the US state of Arkansas. A certificate is signed by the governor, secretary of state and the recipient's sponsor, and given to the honoree during a ceremony attended by the signers. [1] [2]
The Arkansas Traveler story is connected to Colonel Sandford C. Faulkner, who was very active in Arkansas politics. He was also involved in banking and farming during the 19th century. As oral history has relayed it, Faulkner had gotten lost in the Ozarks during one of his many political campaigns. Looking for a place to stay overnight, he wandered by a small, log cabin where he was given lodging and hospitality. Faulkner, who was known for retelling the event, explained that the settler was at first bad tempered and uncommunicative but became more welcoming when Faulkner proved able to complete playing the tune that the settler had been playing on the fiddle. [3] Generally when Faulkner told the story, only he and the settler participated in the conversation.
Faulkner's story of the "Arkansas Traveler" rapidly became part of the state's folklore, leading to the creation of a famous painting by Edward Payson Washbourne which depicts the event. [4] [5] Later, in 1870, Currier and Ives created a lithograph of the famous painting. [6] [7] Faulkner was also known to perform the tune often on the fiddle, which he would play as part of his narrative. [8]
The award was approved in a resolution by the Arkansas Legislature. The award was created in early 1941 with the first certificate granted May 20, 1941, to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. [9] [10] While Governor of the state, Bill Clinton conferred the title upon numerous individuals. [2]
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Pope County is a county in the U.S. state of Arkansas. As of the 2020 census, the population was 63,381. The county seat is Russellville. The county was formed on November 2, 1829, from a portion of Crawford County and named for John Pope, the third governor of the Arkansas Territory. Pope County was the nineteenth county formed. The county's borders changed eighteen times in the 19th century with the creation of new counties and adjustments between counties. The current boundaries were set on March 8, 1877.
Faulkner County is a county located in the Central Arkansas region of the U.S. state of Arkansas. As of the 2020 census, the population was 123,498, making it the fifth most populous of Arkansas's 75 counties. The county seat and largest city is Conway. Faulkner County was created on April 12, 1873, one of nine counties formed during Reconstruction, and is named for Sandford C. Faulkner, better known as Sandy Faulkner, a popular figure in the state at the time.
The Ozarks, also known as the Ozark Mountains, Ozark Highlands or Ozark Plateau, is a physiographic region in the U.S. states of Missouri, Arkansas, and Oklahoma, as well as a small area in the southeastern corner of Kansas. The Ozarks cover a significant portion of northern Arkansas and most of the southern half of Missouri, extending from Interstate 40 in central Arkansas to Interstate 70 in central Missouri.
Cephas Washburn was a Christian missionary and educator who worked with the Cherokee of northwest Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma. He later worked to establish churches in Arkansas.
Edward Payson Washburn also known as Edward Payson Washbourne, was an American painter. He was the son of Christian missionary Cephas Washburn. He is best known for his painting, The Arkansas Traveller (1856). During the Antebellum era, he was one of the most notable painters in the state of Arkansas.
Sandford C. Faulkner, better known as Sandy Faulkner, was an American planter, raconteur and fiddler who personified the mid-19th century folk song "Arkansas Traveler," for which he received writing credit. It has since gone on to become the official state historic song of Arkansas.
John Sevier was an American soldier, frontiersman, and politician, and one of the founding fathers of the State of Tennessee. A member of the Democratic-Republican Party, he played a leading role in Tennessee's pre-statehood period, both militarily and politically, and he was elected the state's first governor in 1796. He served as a colonel of the Washington District Regiment in the Battle of Kings Mountain in 1780, and he commanded the frontier militia in dozens of battles against the Cherokee in the 1780s and 1790s.
A log cabin is a small log house, especially a minimally finished or less architecturally sophisticated structure. Log cabins have an ancient history in Europe, and in America are often associated with first-generation home building by settlers.
Arkansas Traveler or Arkansas Traveller may refer to:
Arkansas is a Southern state of the United States. Arkansas's musical heritage includes country music and various related styles like bluegrass and rockabilly.
James White was an American pioneer and soldier who founded Knoxville, Tennessee, in the early 1790s. Born in Rowan County, North Carolina, White served as a captain in the county's militia during the American Revolutionary War. In 1783, he led an expedition into the upper Tennessee Valley, where he discovered the future site of Knoxville. White served in various official capacities with the failed State of Franklin (1784–1788) before building James White's Fort in 1786. The fort was chosen as the capital of the Southwest Territory in 1790, and White donated the land for a permanent city, Knoxville, in 1791. He represented Knox County at Tennessee's constitutional convention in 1796. During the Creek War (1813), White served as a brigadier general in the Tennessee militia.
The Watauga Association was a semi-autonomous government created in 1772 by frontier settlers living along the Watauga River in what is now Elizabethton, Tennessee. Although it lasted only a few years, the Watauga Association provided a basis for what later developed into the state of Tennessee and likely influenced other western frontier governments in the trans-Appalachian region. North Carolina annexed the Watauga settlement area, by then known as the Washington District, in November 1776. Within a year, the area was placed under a county government, becoming Washington County, North Carolina, in November 1777. This area covers the present day Washington County, Carter County, and other areas now located in the northeast part of the state of Tennessee.
"The Arkansas Traveler" is an American folk song first published by Mose Case, a humorist and guitarist from New York, in 1863. The song was based on the composition "The Arkansas Traveller" by Sandford C. Faulkner and is the Arkansas official historic song.
The history of Arkansas began millennia ago when humans first crossed into North America. Many tribes used Arkansas as their hunting lands but the main tribe was the Quapaw, who settled in the Arkansas River delta upon moving south from Illinois. Early French explorers gave the territory its name, a corruption of Akansea, which is a phonetic spelling from the Illinois language word for the Quapaw. This phonetic heritage explains why "Arkansas" is pronounced so differently than the U.S. state of "Kansas" even though they share the same spelling.
The dogtrot, also known as a breezeway house, dog-run, or possum-trot, is a style of house that was common throughout the Southeastern United States during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Some theories place its origins in the southern Appalachian Mountains. Some scholars believe the style developed in the post-Revolution frontiers of Kentucky and Tennessee. Others note its presence in the South Carolina Lowcountry from an early period. The main style point was a large breezeway through the center of the house to cool occupants in the hot southern climate.
The culture of Arkansas is a subculture of the Southern United States that has come from blending heavy amounts of various European settlers' cultures with the cultures of African slaves and Native Americans. Southern culture remains prominent in the rural Arkansas delta and south Arkansas. Arkansans share a history with the other southern states that includes the institution of slavery, the American Civil War, Reconstruction, Jim Crow laws and segregation, the Great Depression, and the Civil Rights Movement.
John Gray Lucas was a lawyer and a state legislator in Arkansas during the early 20th century. He was appointed Assistant U.S. attorney in Cook County in 1934. Born in Marshall, Texas, in 1864, he eventually moved to Pine Bluff, Arkansas. He graduated from Branch Normal College of Arkansas Industrial University. He then got his law degree from Boston University School of Law in 1887, graduating with honors as the only African-American student in his class. He moved to Chicago.
The 1916 Arkansas gubernatorial election was held on November 7, 1916.
The Arkansas Traveler, or Arkansas Traveller, is a figure of American folklore and popular culture from the first half of the 19th-century. The character is said to have originated with Sandford C. Faulkner.
Archibald Hamilton Rutherford was a public official, state legislator, and Treasurer of Arkansas.