Thomas Stevenson Drew
Thomas Stevenson Drew (25 August 1802 -- January 1879) was a Democratic Governor of the U.S. state of Arkansas. He was born in Wilson County, Tennessee. Drew moved with his family to Louisiana and then in 1818 to Arkansas. He worked as a traveling salesman and school teacher. Drew settled in the area around Batesville, Arkansas.
In 1824 Drew was appointed county clerk. In 1836 he was chosen as a delegate to the Arkansas constitutional convention. He was elected Governor in 1844, where his administration concentrated on the state's financial solvency and attempted to repair the state's credit. Drew was reelected in 1848 but only served a year of his term before resigning due to the low salary. He moved to Weatherford, Texas and later moved to Hood County, Texas. Drew died in January 1879 at Lapin, Texas.
Drew was originally buried in the Old Baptist Cemetery in Lapin, Texas but his body was removed in 1923 by Arkansas officials and moved to the Masonic Cemetery in Pocahontas, 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.
In early days, Batesville was an important port on the White River and served as an entry point to the interior of northern Arkansas. Batesville played a large role in the settling of the Ozark Mountains region and served as the central land office for northern Arkansas.
The first known settlement of the Batesville area was in 1810 near the mouth of Polk Bayou, and by 1819 the town had a ferry across the White River and about a dozen houses. The town was partially laid out in early 1821, and on March 3, 1822 a bill of assurrance was recorded and executed and the town's plat was laid out. Batesville became the county seat in 1821. In January 1822, Judge Richard Searcy opened the town's first state circuit court. The town's first post office was established in 1822, and in 1830 became the home of a county court. On 25 September 1836, shortly after Arkansas was granted its statehood, Governor Conway incorporated Batesville Academy, the state's first academy. In the past, the area in and around the city had extensive quarries of manganese ore, phosphate rock, sandstone, limestone, and marble.
Batesville currently has only one high school within the city limits, Batesville High School. Also, Batesville is the home of Lyon College, a private college affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), and noted for the annual Arkansas Scottish Festival each spring. In addition, the city is home to the University of Arkansas Community College at Batesville, and NASCAR driver Mark Martin. It contains two National Register Historic Districts and many properties separately listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It was listed in Norman Crampton's 1992 book The 100 Best Small Towns in America, ranking at #74.
