William Meade Fishback
William Meade Fishback (5 November 1831 – 9 February 1903) was a Democratic Governor of Arkansas and selected to be a member of the United States Senate but was not allowed to serve.
Fishback was a delegate to the 1874 Arkansas Constitutional Convention. He served as a member of the Arkansas House of Representatives from 1871 to 1881. Fishback introduced what came to be known as the "Fishback Amendment", now known as Amendment 1 (codified as Article 20) of the Arkansas Constitution. This amendment prohibited the state authorities from paying the Holford railroad aid and levee bonds. Failure to pay the Holford debt created credit problems for the state that lasted well into the 20th century.
On 5 September 1892, Fishback was elected Governor of Arkansas. Fishback's administration focused on changing the national image of the state. During his term, the St. Francis River levee district was formed. William M. Fishback died of a stroke. Fishback is buried at Oak Cemetery in Fort Smith, 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.
During the Civil War Fishback left Arkansas for Missouri, where he took an oath of allegiance to the U.S. government. He worked for a time as an editor of the St. Louis Democrat, but in 1863 he returned to Arkansas with the aim of raising a regiment of Federal infantry. Instead, he established a newspaper, the Unconditional Union, and was active in promoting the formation of a loyal government under President Lincoln's plan of reconstruction. He did help to recruit the Fourth Arkansas Cavalry, U.S. Volunteers, but did not enter the field with the unit. In 1864 he was elected to the U.S. Senate but was not seated because Congress refused to recognize the Lincoln government established in Arkansas. At the end of the war he served as a special agent of the Treasury Department.
After the war, Fishback moved to Fort Smith to practice law. There he married Adelaide Miller in April 1867; they had six children. During Congressional Reconstruction, he abandoned politics until he became active in the Democratic opposition to the Republican government that was in power. He was elected to the Arkansas legislature in 1872, but the Republican-dominated body refused to seat him after his opponent contested the results. He served in the constitutional convention of 1874 as a delegate from Sebastian County and thereafter was elected as a Democrat to the state legislature in 1876, 1878, and 1884. His later career demonstrated conflicting political tendencies. A fiscal conservative, he also supported some radical agrarian measures. He became best known for his introduction of the "Fishback Amendment," which repudiated the state's Reconstruction debt that funded railroad and levee bonds as well as the "Holdford" bonds issued to the state Real Estate Bank back in 1836. The proposed legislation was designed to prevent the collection of any taxes to pay for the bonds. When the amendment was first introduced in 1879, the legislature refused to ratify it, but it was resubmitted and adopted in 1884.
Fishback was always something of an outsider within the Democratic party. He was defeated for the gubernatorial nomination in 1888 but in 1892 received the nomination and was elected governor. During his administration he worked for economic development, advertising the advantages of the state, and he supported a southern governors' conference to do the same for the entire South. Fishback also worked to reform the state prison system. He was not renominated in 1894, but he continued to practice law and remained active in Democratic politics. He advocated the direct election of U.S. senators and supported William Jennings Bryan in the 1896 presidential campaign. He died in Fort Smith, where he is buried.
Source: University of Central Oklahoma - Carl Moneyhon
Fort Smith has a sister city relationship with Cisterna, Italy, site of the World War II Battle of Cisterna fought by the United States Army Rangers commanded by Fort Smith native William O. Darby.
Fort Smith lies on the Arkansas-Oklahoma state border, situated at the junction of the Arkansas and Poteau Rivers, also known as Belle Point. The city began as a western frontier military post in 1817 and would later become well-known for its role in the settling of the "Wild West" and its law enforcement heritage.
As of 2007, Fort Smith was selected by the US Department of the Interior to be the location of the new US Marshal Service National Museum.
