Timeline
1857 Local Progress, National Problems
Though the Panic of 1857 affected the entire nation with higher prices, signs of progress
in Arkansas continued. The Masons completed construction of a building for Saint Johns
College and the tower was added to the Christian Church. The Arkansas Manufacturing
Company established a cotton factory in Pike County and Governor Conway appointed Dr.
Owen, a nationally respected geologist, to undertake a geological survey of the state.
Noting the increase in property now taxable due to its transfer from public to private
ownership, P.T. Crutchfield of the Federal Land Office in Little Rock said, "it proves the rapidity
with which our state is marching on to wealth and greatness, despite the croakers within her own
borders."
In September, reporters, railroad officials and other dignitaries were treated to an
excursion in the locomotive LITTLE ROCK, on several miles of track west from Hopefield.
Questionable practices of the Swamplands Commission saw the management of levee
work and swampland reclamation transferred to the governor's office. The General Assembly also
made provision for filling in gaps of the levees on the Mississippi and Arkansas Rivers.
In one of the most shocking acts to occur in the westward migration, a band of Mormons
and Indians slaughtered a group of Arkansawyers in southern Utah. The California-bound
Arkansas emigrants surrendered to their captors, only to become their victims in the "Mountain
Meadows Massacre." Of the 120 members of the wagon train, only 17 children were
spared.
The continuing problem in Kansas began to split the Democratic Party nationally as
Stephen Douglas, Senator from Illinois, found himself in opposition to President Buchanan's
support of the proposed pro-slavery constitution for Kansas.
Sectional tension was further inflamed when the Supreme Court ruled against Dred Scott,
a slave who had been taken into a free state. Scott sued for his liberty, arguing that through
residence in a free state, he had become free. Many northerners denounced the Dred Scott
decision, while some southerners used the northern reaction as further proof that the North
would be forever hostile to the southern way of life. More and more people seemed to be
hardening themselves against any peaceful solution to the sectional rivalry.
In Arkansas, one example of the anticipation of military activity was the reorganization of
the Capitol Guards militia company and a cavalry company, both in Little Rock.
| 1858 Railroad Opens for Business >
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