People who live in Rockwater Village in North Little Rock often voice concern about vehicles speeding west along Rockwater Boulevard. The road, edged with houses on the south side and apartments on the north, is constructed to curve around a tall red brick smokestack that's in the middle.
What if somebody hits it? they wonder before suggesting speed bumps, lower speed limits, police presence, cameras, and other such fast-traffic interrupters.
As handsome as the smokestack is, it wouldn't be the first time it's been attacked.
The tapering cylinder--all that remains of Vestal Nursery--was built in the early 1930s to replace the original taller smokestack damaged by the 1927 flood. Yeah, that flood, the one that took out the 1873 Baring Cross railway bridge that spans the Arkansas River, even though it had been loaded down with 15 freight cars filled with coal in hope the extra weight would hold it steady.
The river won that battle. It also tried to take out what was then known as Vestal Nursery, based in the Baring Cross neighborhood of North Little Rock, where it operated for more than 100 years.
The nursery put up a fight.
"Every available worker as well as Vestal family members worked to stack sandbags to keep the river at bay," said Callie Williams, education and outreach coordinator with Arkansas Historic Preservation Program, during a "Sandwiching in History" tour at the Vestal Smokestack on Nov. 1, 2019. "While the main river flooding was kept out of the nursery, the overflow and backwater eventually flooded the greenhouse area, although many of the plants were saved."
Several service buildings were damaged by the flood and had to be replaced, she said. "The smokestack today is the 90-feet-tall replacement for the original smokestack that was taller."
And J.W. Vestal & Son, which cultivated and shipped flowers across the U.S., kept growing.
According to an Encyclopedia of Arkansas entry by descendant Sarah A. Vestal, the nursery was the creation of Joseph Wysong Vestal, a Quaker horticulturist who started out in Cambridge City, Ind., growing and selling plants as early as 1855.
In 1861, Vestal began publishing an annual floral and vegetable catalog, making him one of the first U.S. mail-order operations in existence. The handsomely designed and lavishly illustrated catalogs were published for 93 consecutive years.
"In 1880, Vestal relocated to the north bank of the Arkansas River. By 1880, annual sales exceeded $8,000, and plants were shipped to all states east of the Rocky Mountains, especially to Chicago and St. Louis," Vestal writes.
The catalog took on a life of its own. By 1906, it listed more than 170 varieties of strawberries. In 1914, it mailed out 50,000 80-page catalogs worldwide.
The flood threatened the Vestal lands on April 20, 1927. "The greenhouses contained plant benches several feet above the peak flood level, and the rose nursery was on high ground, saving the majority of the crops from devastation."
The company, Vestal writes, was known for roses and magnolias. "The most popular Vestal rose was the thornless David O. Dodd, developed in 1926 and honoring a local Confederate hero."
It was described as "a magnificent rich crimson, flushed scarlet with well-shaped buds, carried erect and opening into a large, beautifully shaped flower," leading it to become the official flower of the 1936 Arkansas Centennial Celebration; consequently Little Rock became known as the City of Roses.
Charles Vestal died in 1928, when the business changed from supplying mail-order retail customers to supporting the regional wholesale market of florists, nurseries, and other retailers.
"By 1957, J. W. Vestal & Son operations grossed over $1 million in annual revenue with about 80 employees," Vestal writes. "The greenhouses totaled more than 300,000 square feet under glass and were heated by steam from three large coal-burning boilers, later converted to natural gas. Hundreds of acres of nursery fields were also in production."
The annual catalogs ceased publication with the fall 1954 issue. "In 1967, third- and fourth-generation family members Ruth Vestal and Kent Vestal merged two-thirds of the existing business assets into a new corporation, Kent Vestal Company Inc., and continued in retail and wholesale florist endeavors until 1977, when the business was sold to publicly held Florafax International of Tulsa, Okla.," writes Vestal.
According to Williams, after the sale of much of the Vestal holdings, the remaining family business eventually went bankrupt in the 1980s.
"The greenhouses were torn down; all that remained by 2000 was the large brick smokestack," she told the Sandwiching in History audience. "Today, the area is again seeing a resurgence. The surrounding land was purchased by Jim Jackson and Lisa Ferrell, who have used it to start the Rockwater Village community and who helped to save the smokestack by having it integrated into the street planning as a feature of the site."
That's not all the Vestals leave behind.
"In the early 1920s, Charles Vestal's son Charles Howell Vestal planted acorns for an evergreen Southern live oak in central Arkansas," Williams reports. "Among them is the large live oak at 15th and Pike Avenue in North Little Rock."
This tree officially owns itself, she continues, and the small triangle of land on which it sits was designated as a city park, thought to be the smallest in the state.
Both the smokestack and tree are treasures in this economically, socially, and culturally diverse neighborhood. I walk by them every day.
Karen Martin is senior editor of Perspective.
kmartin@arkansasonline.com