It was one of those television news items that give you a jolt early in the morning as you sip that first cup of coffee. It wasn't news of the death of an individual, but it was like losing an old friend.
Early on the morning of Tuesday, May 30, Arkansans heard that the iconic restaurant Cotham's at Scott had burned. Only the stilts that held the old building above Horseshoe Lake were left following a fire that had begun late that Monday, which had been Memorial Day.
The wooden building was constructed in 1917 as a general store to serve an area of Pulaski and Lonoke counties where cotton was king. Sharecroppers and tenant farmers kept the store busy at all hours. The structure later served as a military commissary and even a jail for those awaiting trial by a circuit-riding judge. It was a store again in 1984 when a few tables were added to serve lunch to area farmers. It wasn't long before politicians discovered the place.
I was working in Washington for the Arkansas Democrat in the late 1980s when then-Sen. David Pryor told me that I had to go there for lunch the next time I was in Arkansas. I took his advice and quickly became a fan of the restaurant's plate lunches and its large cheeseburgers known as "hubcaps." After moving back to Little Rock in 1989, I often would spend Saturdays at Scott, not just to eat at Cotham's but also to take in the other things the community has to offer.
The joy of living in Arkansas is the ability to experience the various cultures that come together within the state's boundaries. The culture of the Ouachita Mountains differs from that of the Ozark Mountains, just as the culture of the Gulf Coastal Plain differs from that of the Delta.
Living in west Little Rock, I can travel 30 minutes in one direction and be in a mountain culture at Perryville and then travel 30 minutes in the other direction and be in a Delta culture at Scott. It's almost like being in two states. A skilled linguist could point out differences in the accents of the natives.
Scott is where I take visitors from outside the state when I want to explain the cotton economy. One needn't go all the way to Forrest City or Lake Village to get a dose of the Delta. Take Arkansas 161 out of England. The highway will take you due west toward the Arkansas River, passing an oxbow known as Clear Lake along the way. When you reach the levee, you'll take a hard right and find yourself heading north with the Arkansas River on the other side of the levee to your left. Before reconnecting with U.S. 165 at Scott, you'll drive through a tunnel of pecan trees more than a century old. It's among the most Southern places on earth. The trees signal that you've reached the Land's End Plantation, long home of the Alexander family. The family, originally from Scotland, has been in the United States since the 1700s.
James Alexander was a captain during the American Revolution, Nathaniel Alexander was governor of North Carolina, and President James K. Polk was an Alexander descendant. Some of the Alexanders eventually made their way to Arkansas. Chester Ashley, a prominent early Arkansas settler who served in the U.S. Senate from 1844-48, acquired a large tract of land in the area and maintained a residence known as the Ashley Mill Plantation. In 1898, part of that property was purchased by Arthur Lee Alexander, who had come to Arkansas with three cousins in the 1880s. That was the beginning of the Land's End Plantation, which would cover almost 5,000 acres within a few years.
The plantation name came about in 1901 when J.R. Alexander married a Virginia native named Evelyn May Crump. Arkansas must have seemed like a foreign land to a Virginia blue-blood. She declared that this "must be the end of the land." J.R. Alexander became a nationally recognized agricultural expert and spoke across the country about cotton and livestock. The family home, which can be seen from Highway 161, was designed in 1925 by noted Arkansas architect John Parks Almond and completed in 1927.
The best-known plantation home in the Scott area is Marlsgate, which was designed by architect Charles L. Thompson and completed in 1904 as the centerpiece of the Dortch Plantation. The home at Bearskin Lake recently was purchased by Beau and Martha Ellen Talbot from David P. Garner Jr. and can be rented for private events.
The Dortch Plantation once was home to more than 100 tenant families. When William Dortch died in 1913, his holdings covered about 7,000 acres. His sons and grandsons continued to operate the plantation during the 20th century. Robert Dortch became a famous seed developer.
The main part of the state's Plantation Agriculture Museum is housed in a brick building that was built in 1912 by Conoway Scott Jr. to house a general store. In 1929, a wing was added to house the Scott post office. In the 1960s, Robert Dortch bought the building and turned it into a museum that would help visitors experience life on a cotton plantation. Dortch died in 1972, and the museum closed in 1978. A powerful member of the Arkansas Legislature, Rep. Bill Foster of England, went to work to have the state take over the museum. Foster's legislation passed in 1985, and the state museum opened in 1989.
Cotham's and its hubcaps might be gone, but Scott still offers plenty for those intrigued by the cotton culture that dominated Arkansas for so long.
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Senior Editor Rex Nelson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. He's also the author of the Southern Fried blog at rexnelsonsouthernfried.com.
Editorial on 06/10/2017