Lots has changed in the years the Berryville Library has been in our current building. We expect lots will change in the years the library will be housed in the new building we are hoping to break ground on soon. That’s why we think it is so important as we move towards this bigger, better future to remember our roots. To that end, we have created the Berryville Library Legacy Project, which lets donors highlight a piece of local history of their choice by selecting photographs to be displayed on the end of a shelving unit at the new library. We also remain committed to helping create a sense of place through our collection, so we are going to highlight our Arkansas section this year. Each month, we’ll look at some of the different books and resources in that collection that feature unique parts of the history and culture of Berryville, Carroll County, the Ozarks, and Arkansas. There’s lots to explore about this place we call home! For February, we’re looking at history.
The history featured in our Arkansas collection ranges from the very local to the state/region.
We have the local classic An Outlander’s History of Carroll County, Arkansas, 1830-1983, by Jim Lair, as well as his Mountain Meadows Massacre: An Outlander’s View. [The Mountain Meadow Massacre occurred in Utah, but the families killed were local to our area.] We also have the more general Pictorial History of Carroll County, among others.
For state history, we have a little bit of everything.
Brooks Blevins’s Arkansas/Arkansaw: How Bear Hunters, Hillbillies, and Good Ol’ Boys Defined a State chronicles state history via how the public perception of Arkansas has developed.
Carolyn Gray LeMaster’s A Corner of the Tapestry: A History of the Jewish Experience in Arkansas, 1820s-1990s, comprehensively explores the history of the state’s Jewish community. Jacqueline Froelich’s Arkansas Ozarks African Americans: 1820 to 1950, which we have as an audiobook, covers a relatively similar time span but focuses on the historic Black communities in Carroll, Benton, Boone, and Washington Counties.
David Hill’s The Vapors: A Southern Family, the New York Mob, and The Rise and Fall of Hot Springs, America’s Forgotten Capital of Vice chronicles Hot Springs’s lively (and notorious) heyday as America’s original “Sin City.” Meanwhile, William L. Shea and Earl J. Hess’s Pea Ridge: Civil War Campaign in the West focused on the largest battle fought in Arkansas during the Civil War.
For more offbeat or niche histories, we have Priscilla McArthur’s Arkansas in the Gold Rush, which chronicles Arkansans in the California Gold Rush and the families they left behind in the Natural State. Another contender is Donald Harington’s Let Us Build Us a City: Eleven Lost Towns. In it, he and his eventual wife tour eleven small towns in Arkansas that were originally envisioned as much-larger cities than they ever became.
We also have books devoted to the Ozarks at large, including Milton D. Rafferty’s quintessential The Ozarks, Land and Life.
Stop by and visit our Arkansas section next time you’re in the library!
Are you a frequenter of our Arkansas section? Did you even know we had an Arkansas section? What do you think is the most interesting part of our local history? Tell us in the comments! As always, please follow this link to our online library catalog for more information on any of our items or to place them on hold.
Berryville Book Buzz 