John Ellis Martineau
John Ellis Martineau (2 December 1873–6 March 1937) was the Democratic Governor of Arkansas, U.S., from 1927 to 1928. John Ellis Martineau was born in Clay County, Missouri. He graduated from the University of Arkansas in 1896 and obtained his law degree there in 1899. After graduation he served as a school administrator.
Martineau was elected Governor of Arkansas in the 1926 election. The Martineau administration established a Confederate pensions board and authorized state aid to cities for highway construction through the Martineau Road Plan. In 1927, Martineau was forced to deal with the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. Martineau was named president of the Tri-State Flood Commission. In the May of 1927, Martineau called out the National Guard in response to the lynching of an African-American prisoner by a mob in Little Rock.
Martineau resigned from office on 2 March 1928 to accept an appointment to the Federal District Court of Eastern Arkansas, where he served until his death in 1937 in Little Rock, Arkansas.
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Several global companies are headquartered in the northwest corner of Arkansas, including Wal-Mart (the world's largest public corporation by revenue in 2007), J.B. Hunt and Tyson Foods. This area of the state has experienced an economic boom since the 1970s as a result.
In recent years, automobile parts manufacturers have opened factories in eastern Arkansas to support auto plants in other states. Additionally, the city of Conway is the site of a school bus factory.
Tourism is also very important to the Arkansas economy; the official state nickname "The Natural State" was originally created (as "Arkansas Is A Natural") for state tourism advertising in the 1970s, and is still regularly used to this day.
The Fine Arts Complex was designed by Fayetteville native Edward Durell Stone, who also designed Radio City Music Hall and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. The buildings are indicative of Stone's idiosyncratic modern style which included patterns of ornament. The recently demolished campus apartment complex Carlson Terrace was also designed by Stone.
All computers with internet access on the University's campus have IP addresses beginning with 130.184. Also, all non-residence hall telephone numbers begin with 479-575 and most postal addresses include the zip code 72701.
This flood affected not only Arkansas, but also Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Mississippi. Thirty six counties in Arkansas were affected and 13 percent of the entire land area. The flood was caused by a number of factors, including heavy rains in the central basin of the Mississippi River during the summer of 1926 and early snow melts in Canada during this same time, heavy rains in central Arkansas which caused the Arkansas River to be in flood stage in 1927, and bursting of earthen levees both along the Mississippi River and the Arkansas River.
The waters finally had receded by August of 1927, leaving a death toll estimated by some as high as 127 in Arkansas. Thousands of families were homeless and agriculture and industry in the state suffered major losses in the millions of dollars.
People living along the Mississippi River have seen many spring floods – like those of 1903, 1912, 1913, 1922 – but authorities agree that the 1927 flood was the worst in recorded history. From May to August of 1927, despite the best efforts of man, the river reclaimed its alluvial flood plain.
Source: J. Michael Howard, Geology Supervisor
