William Read Miller
William Read Miller (November 23, 1823 – November 29, 1887) was a Democratic Governor of the State of Arkansas.
William Read Miller was born in Batesville, Arkansas. Miller was the first native born Arkansas governor. Miller studied law and was admitted to the Arkansas bar in 1848. Miller was elected county clerk of Independence County, Arkansas and served from 1848-1854. He was appointed State Auditor in 1854 and was reelected to that position in 1858, 1860,1862, and again in 1874 after reconstruction ended.
In 1876 Miller was elected as Governor of Arkansas and was reelected in 1878. The Miller administration focused on public education and the state's financial problems. He signed legislation that funded the State Blind Asylum and the Arkansas Industrial University.
William Read Miller is buried at the historic Mount Holly Cemetery 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 cemetery is the burial place for 10 former Governors of Arkansas, 6 United States Senators, 14 Arkansas Supreme Court Justices, 21 Little Rock Mayors, numerous Arkansas literary figures, Confederate Generals, and other worthies.
Every year in October several drama students from Parkview Arts and Science Magnet High School each select a person buried in the cemetery to research. They then prepare short monologues or dialogues, complete with period costumes, to be performed in front of the researched person's grave. Audiences are led through the cemetery from grave to grave by guides with candles. The event is called "Tales from the Crypt". Although it takes place around the same time as the American holiday Halloween, the event is meant to be historic rather than spooky.
