Richard Byrd
Richard C. Byrd (1805 -- 1 June 1854) was a Democratic Governor of the State of Arkansas.
Richard C. Byrd was born in 1805 in Hawkins County, Tennessee. Byrd was a merchant and farmer. He moved to Arkansas in 1826.
Byrd became auditor for the Arkansas Territory and served in that position from 1829 to 1831. He served in the Territorial Legislature in 1833. He became a member of the Arkansas House of Representatives in 1836 and served in the Arkansas Senate in 1840, 1842, 1846, and 1848. Byrd had an unsuccessful gubernatorial run in 1844.
When Governor Thomas Stevenson Drew resigned from office in 1849, Byrd was president of the Senate and became acting governor. Byrd left the office on 19 April 1849 and returned to his store in Jefferson County, 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 University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff is located here. Pine Bluff is also the home of the Pine Bluff Arsenal, a major site for the demolition of chemical weapons.
