MARKING HISTORY: A dedication for a marker in Mount Holly Cemetery in Little Rock takes place Friday. The honor has been a long time coming - 130 years.
Former Little Rock Chief of Police George A. Counts, who died in 1884 at 35, will finally have a tombstone for his unmarked resting place.
Counts’ great-grandson, Jim Counts; Little Rock Police Chief Stuart Thomas; and the Little Rock Police Department bought the tombstone. According to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas, George Counts was tapped to be chief in 1879 by former slave Isaac Taylor Gillam, who served as a jailer, police officer and City Council member during Reconstruction years. Counts was 29 when he became chief, says Kay Tatum with the Mount Holly Cemetery Association, but in 1883, he contracted tuberculosis and resigned.
SAVING HISTORY: Speaking of monuments, there’s an Arkansas connection to the film The Monuments Men, written and directed by George Clooney, who stars with Matt Damon and Bill Murray. The movie chronicles the true story of seven men who risked their lives during World War II to locate, rescue and preserve great works of art and architecture in war-torn countries.
The story was earlier recounted in Robert Edsel’s 2009 book, The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History.
In the film, Murray portrays Richard Campbell, a composite character based, in large part, on one of the Monuments Men, Capt.
Ralph Warner Hammett.
Hammett, born in 1896 in Mankato, Minn., majored in architecture at the University of Minnesota and received a master’s degree from Harvard University.
He worked as a university professor and wrote books on architecture. After attending Army Civil Affairs Training School at Harvard in 1943, he was stationed in Paris, where he created a card catalog arranged by department, town and city, listing each monument, art collection, chateau and library.
Hammett died in 1984, but today, his grandson, Ralph Hammett Allen, an attorney with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, lives in Maumelle.
At first, Allen was hesitant about Murray portraying his grandfather.
“I was afraid he might be too comedic,” he says. “But he wasn’t, he really nailed it.”
Hammett’s wartime diary was recently discovered by Allen’s brother in Connecticut among their grandfather’s possessions.
His diary chronicles much of what appears in the film, including the group’s securing a German staff car.
Those interested in more information on Hammett can visit Allen’s website, monumentman.org.
TV WATCH: For those who missed an earlier item in this paper, KATV, Channel 7, news anchor Christina Munoz is now working as communications director for the University of Central Arkansas in Conway.
BACK TO REALITY: An open casting call for the 16th season of the CBS reality show Big Brother is set for 1-6 p.m. next Sunday at the Benton Events Center at 17322 Interstate 30.
Arkansas, Pages 13 on 03/23/2014