Through the Cabin Window – June, 2016

100 YEARS AGO, April 13, 1916

♦  Col. G. W. Bruce called attention to the forty-third birthday of Faulkner County yesterday. The act of creating the county was signed April 12, 1873, and Colonel Bruce located at Conway, named as the county seat, the following day. He said the population of Conway was only about 60 when he arrived.

75 YEARS AGO, April 7, 1941

♦  The man who has lived in Conway longer than any other citizen and his wife — Charles A. and Virginia Simmons Harrison — celebrated their golden wedding anniversary Sunday at the home of their daughter, Mrs. Lewis Hall, and Mr. Hall, 1813 Scott Street.

Mr. Harrison came to Conway when the place was virtually an uninhabited prospective town site. He was brought here by his parents, Dr. R. T. and Mary Gregory Harrison, on December 28, 1869, only five months after his birth July 11, 1869, at Judsonia, White County.

Dr. Harrison homesteaded a 40-acre tract of land just north of the town site and established his home there. This tract is now the Harrison addition to Conway, inhabited by many families. He also bought a lot from Colonel Robinson on the east side of the square, now the site of Frauenthal & Schwarz’s department store, built a small frame building and opened Conway’s first store.

When the railroad was completed to Conway and a post office established here he was appointed Conway’s first postmaster.

As that time, Mr. Harrison said he had heard his father recall, Green Evans operated a small store and post office just north of the present limits of Conway, and he refused to surrender the post office equipment. It was necessary for several weeks for Dr. Harrison to take the mail pouch up to the Evans store and unlock it with Mr. Evans’ Key.

Dr. Harrison, who was a native of North Carolina, moved to Arkansas in early life and was living at Mr. Vernon when the Civil War broke out. He served as a surgeon in the Confederate Army during the conflict.

Charles A. Harrison began an active business career at the age of 21. He has operated some of the largest shingle mills in the state and spent most of his life in the timber, lumber and shingle business. As a boy he worked for two years as a printer for Volney Jamison, editor of the Conway Democrat.

The marriage of which the fiftieth anniversary was celebrated yesterday occurred at the old Harrison home two miles south of Conway, now the Russ dairy farm, on April 9, 1891. The bride, Virginia Lula Simmons, a daughter of P. H. and Missouri Simmons, was born February 15, 1871, at Old Lewisburg, Conway County, came with her parents to Conway at the age of 7 and was reared and educated here. Her father, a brother of the late W. B. Simmons, another Conway pioneer, was a farmer and was a partner of Dr. R.T. Markham in one of Conway’s first livery stables.

Eight children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Harrison, of whom six are living. One died in infancy and the other, Mrs. Herbert Simmons, died in 1930. The children are Homer of Prescott, Carl of Baton Rouge, La., Hubert of Camden, Mrs. Eugene Prince of Camden and Mrs. Tillman Jones and Mrs. Hall of Conway. The Harrisons also have 12 grandchildren.

50 YEARS AGO, April 25, 1966

♦  Conway’s oldest drugstore – Greeson’s – was up for sale. Mrs. Marguerite Wilkins, the owner, said she was putting the business up for sale to pursue her personal interests and hobbies. Greeson Drug Co. at Front and Oak Streets dated back to the early 1890s.