Pine Bluff, Arkansas "Pine Bluff"
Pine Bluff City of Pine Bluff Pine Bluff Commercial Historic District, 2011 Pine Bluff Commercial Historic District, 2011 Official seal of Pine Bluff Location in Jefferson County and the state of Arkansas Location in Jefferson County and the state of Arkansas Pine Bluff is positioned in the US Pine Bluff - Pine Bluff Council Pine Bluff City Council Pine Bluff is the ninth biggest city in the state of Arkansas.
It is also the principal town/city of the Pine Bluff Metropolitan Travel Destination and part of the Little Rock-North Little Rock-Pine Bluff Combined Statistical Area.
The town/city is situated in the Southeast section of the Arkansas Delta and straddles the Arkansas Timberlands region to its west. Its topography is flat with wide expanses of farmland consistent with other places in the Delta Lowlands.
Pine Bluff is home to a number of creeks, streams, bayous (Bayou Bartholomew is the longest bayou in the world and is the second most diverse stream in the United States), and larger bodies of water such as Lake Pine Bluff, Lake Langhofer (Slack Water Harbor) and the Arkansas River.
1.1 Pine Bluff's beginnings Pine Bluff is home to over three-quarters of the National Register of Historic Places listings in Jefferson County, Arkansas.
Pine Bluff's beginnings The town/city of Pine Bluff was established by Europeans on a high bank of the Arkansas River heavily forested with tall pine trees. The high ground furnished pioneer a safe haven from annual flooding. Joseph Bonne, a Metis fur trader and trapper of different Quapaw and French ancestry, settled on this bluff in 1819. After the Quapaw signed a treaty with the United States in 1824 relinquishing their title to all the lands which they claimed in Arkansas, many other American pioneer began to join Bonne on the bluff.
In 1829 Thomas Phillips claimed a half section of territory where Pine Bluff is located.
At the August 13, 1832 county election, the pine bluff was chosen as the county seat.
The Quorum Court voted to name the village "Pine Bluff Town" on October 16, 1832. Pine Bluff was incorporated January 8, 1839, by the order of County Judge Taylor.
Improved transit facilities aided in the expansion of Pine Bluff amid the 1840s and 1850s.
From 1832-1838, Pine Bluff inhabitants would see Native American migrants on the Trail of Tears waterway who were being forcibly removed from the American Southeast to Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River. From 1832-1858, Pine Bluff was also a station on the passage of Seminole and Black Seminoles who were forcibly removed from Florida to the Territory.
Pine Bluff was prospering by the outbreak of the Civil War with richness assembled on the commodity crop of cotton; it was cultivated on large plantations by hundreds and thousands of enslaved Africans.
The town/city had one of the biggest slave populations in the state by 1860 and Jefferson County, Arkansas was second in cotton manufacturing in the state. When Union forces occupied Little Rock, a group of Pine Bluff inhabitants asked commanding Major General Frederick Steele to send Union forces to occupy their town to protect them from bands of Confederate bushwhackers. Union troops under Colonel Powell Clayton appeared September 17, 1863 and stayed until the war was over. Marmaduke tried to expel the Union Army in the Battle of Pine Bluff October 25, 1863, but was repulsed by a combined accomplishment of soldiers and freedmen (former slaves freed by the Emancipation Proclamation). In the final year of the war, the 1st Regiment Kansas Volunteer Infantry (Colored) (composed primarily of escaped slaves from Arkansas and Missouri), was the first black regiment in the civil war to go into combat.
It was dispatched to guard Pine Bluff and was eventually mustered out there. Because of the Union forces, Pine Bluff thriving many refugees and freedmen after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued in early 1863.
Founded as Arkansas's first black enhance college, today it is the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff.
Pine Bluff and the region suffered lasting effects from defeat, the aftermath of war, and the trauma of standardized and exploitation.
The first barns reached Pine Bluff in December 1873. This same year Pine Bluff's first utility was formed when Pine Bluff Gas Company began furnishing produced gas from coke fuel for lighting purposes.
Most blacks joined the Republican Party, and a several were propel in Pine Bluff to county offices and the state council for the first time in history.
According to historian James Leslie, Pine Bluff entered its "Golden Era" in the 1880s. Cotton manufacturing and river commerce helped the town/city draw industries, enhance establishments and inhabitants to the area, making it by 1890 the state's third-largest city.
Situated on the Arkansas River, Pine Bluff depended on river traffic and trade.
The United States Army Corps of Engineers assembled a levee opposite Pine Bluff to try to keep the river flowing by the city. During a later flood, the chief channel of the river moved away from the city, leaving a small oxbow lake (later period into Lake Pine Bluff). River traffic diminished, even as the river was a barrier separating one part of the county from the other.
African Americans in Pine Bluff were damaged by the state's disfranchisement in 1891-1892 and exclusion from the political system.
The Masonic Lodge, assembled by and for the black chapter in the city, was the tallest building in Pine Bluff when instead of in 1904. The Hotel Pines, constructed in 1912, had an intricate marble interior and classical design, and was considered one of Arkansas' showcase hotels. The 1,500-seat Saenger Theater, assembled in 1924, was one of the biggest such facilities in the state; it directed the state's biggest pipe organ. When Dollarway Road was instead of in 1914, it was the longest continuous stretch of concrete road in the United States. The first airways broadcast (WOK) broadcast in Arkansas occurred in Pine Bluff on February 18, 1922. Pine Bluff inhabitants scrambled to survive.
The state's highway assembly program in the later 1920s and early 1930s, facilitating trade between Pine Bluff and other communities throughout southeast Arkansas, was critical to Jefferson County, too.
Through the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and enhance works funding, Pine Bluff assembled new schools and a football stadium, and advanced Oakland Park as its first primary recreation facility.
Writers were sent throughout the South to interview former slaves, most of whom had been kids before the Civil War. When the universal was complete, Arkansas inhabitants had contributed more oral slave histories (approximately 780) than any other state, although Arkansas' slave populace was less than those of neighboring Deep South states. black residents of Pine Bluff/Jefferson County contributed more oral interviews of Arkansas-born slaves than any other city/county in the state. The town/city served to compile a valuable storehouse of oral slave anecdotal material.
World War II brought profound shifts to Pine Bluff and its agriculture, timber and barns -oriented economy.
The Army assembled Grider Field Airport which homed the Pine Bluff School of Aviation and furnished flight training for air cadets for the Army Air Corps.
The Army broke ground for the Pine Bluff Arsenal on December 2, 1941, on 15,000 acres (61 km2) bought north of the city.
The arsenal and Grider Field changed Pine Bluff to a more diversified economy with a mixture of trade and agriculture.
In December 1953, KATV tv station, then based in Pine Bluff, transmitted Arkansas' first VHF broadcast (the first UHF broadcast had occurred a several months before ). In 1957, Richard Anderson announced the assembly of a kraft paper foundry north of the city. International Paper Co.
Shortly afterward bought a plant site five miles east of Pine Bluff.
Addressed students at the commencement program for Arkansas AM&N College (now the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff). The decade of the 1960s brought heightened activism in the civil rights movement: through boycotts and demonstrations, African Americans demanded an end to segregated enhance facilities and jobs. Some caucasians responded with violence, attacking demonstrators, and bombing a black church in Pine Bluff in 1963. Some civil rights demonstrators were shot. Local leaders worked tirelessly, at times enlisting the support of nationwide figures such as Dick Gregory and Stokely Carmichael, to help bring about change over the period. Voter registration drives that enabled increased black political participation, selective buying campaigns, student protests, and a desire among white small-town business leaders to avoid damaging negative media portrayals in the nationwide media led to reforms in enhance accommodations.
During the 1960s and 1970s, primary assembly projects in the region encompassed private and enhance sponsors: Jefferson Hospital (now Jefferson Regional Medical Center), the dams of the Mc - Clellan-Kerr Navigation System on the Arkansas River (which was diverted from the town/city to problematic Lake Langhofer), a Federal building, the Pine Bluff Convention Center complex including The Royal Arkansas Hotel & Suites, Pine Bluff Regional Park, two industrialized parks and a several large churches.
Benny Scallion Park was created, titled for the alderman who brought a Japanese garden to the Pine Bluff Civic Center.
Sadly, the town/city has not maintained the garden, but a small plaque remains. In the late 1980s, The Pines, the first large, enclosed shopping center, was constructed on the east side of the city.
Mural in downtown Pine Bluff In addition, a highway and bridge athwart Lock and Dam #4 were completed, providing another link between farm areas in northeastern Jefferson County and the transit fitness radiating from Pine Bluff.
Reynolds Community Services Center. Carl Redus became the first African American mayor in the city's history in 2005. The University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff recently opened a $3 million company incubator in downtown Pine Bluff. Also, a new $2 million farmers market pavilion was opened in 2010 on Lake Pine Bluff in downtown Pine Bluff. On November 6, 2012, Debe Hollingsworth was propel to be the next mayor of Pine Bluff, winning 49% of the vote.
Mayor-elect Hollingsworth assumed office January 2, 2013. She has said her administration plans to lead using a five-point plan; combating crime in the city, economic evolution and job creation, town/city government reform, grade education, and enhancing the image of Pine Bluff. Pine Bluff is on the Arkansas River; the improve was titled for a bluff along that river.
Both Lake Pine Bluff and Lake Langhofer are situated inside the town/city limits, as these are bodies of water which are remnants of the historical Arkansas River channel.
(The former is a man-made expansion of a natural oxbow; the latter was created by diking the old channel after a man-made diversion.) Consequently, the Mississippi Alluvial Plain (or the Arkansas Delta) runs well into the town/city with Bayou Bartholomew picking up the border as a line of demarcation between the Arkansas Delta and the Arkansas Timberlands.
One of the world's longest individual levees at 380 miles runs from Pine Bluff to Venice, Louisiana. Main articles: Pine Bluff urbane region and Little Rock North Little Rock Pine Bluff combined statistical region Pine Bluff is the biggest city in a three-county MSA as defined by the U.S.
The Pine Bluff MSA populace in 2000 was 107,341 citizens .
The Pine Bluff MSA populace in 2007 dropped to 101,484.
Pine Bluff was the fastest-declining Arkansas MSA from 2000-2007.
The Pine Bluff region is also a component of the Little Rock-North Little Rock-Pine Bluff Combined Travel Destination which had a populace of 902,443 citizens in the 2014 U.S.
Climate data for Pine Bluff Agriculture is a mainstay in Pine Bluff.
Jefferson County is positioned in the heart of a rich agricultural region in the Arkansas River Basin. The dominant products include cotton, soybeans, cattle, rice, poultry, timber and catfish.
Major region employers include Jefferson Regional Medical Center, Simmons First National Corp., Tyson Foods, Evergreen Packaging, the Pine Bluff Arsenal and the Union Pacific Railroad.
It is the large number of paper mills in the region that give Pine Bluff its, at times, distinct ive odor, a feature known prominently among Arkansans. In 2009, Pine Bluff was encompassed on the Forbes list of America's ten most impoverished cities. Jefferson County Courthouse in downtown Pine Bluff The City of Pine Bluff is governed by the mayor council government system, with the mayor, town/city attorney, town/city clerk and treasurer are all propel at large.
The Pine Bluff City Council is the legislative body of the city.
Meetings of the town/city council are held in the Pine Bluff City Council Chambers on the first and third Monday of every month unless otherwise scheduled. They are: Advertising and Promotion, Aviation, Civic Auditorium Complex, Civil Service, Historic District, Historical Railroad Preservation, Parks and Recreation, Pine Bluff / Jefferson County Port Authority, Planning and Wastewater Utility.
The town/city also has four boards and one commission that fills their own vacancies: Arkansas River Regional Intermodal Facilities Board, Arts and Science Center for Southeast Arkansas Board of Trustees, Cemetery Committee, Library Board and Taylor Field Operations Facilities Board.
As the governmental center of county of Jefferson County, Pine Bluff also hosts all functions of county government at the Jefferson County Courthouse in downtown Pine Bluff.
In 2013, CNNMoney encompassed Pine Bluff on a list of "7 quickest shrinking cities," saying almost a third of the metro region population lived below the poverty line and the city's crime rate was second only to Detroit. The Pine Bluff Convention Center is one of the state's biggest meeting facilities.
Pine Bluff did also boast the only Band Museum in the nation but it has closed.
Other areas of interest include downtown murals depicting the history of Pine Bluff, the Pine Bluff/Jefferson County Historical Museum, Arkansas Entertainers Hall of Fame and the Arkansas Railroad Museum.
Recreational opportunities in Pine Bluff range from water sports and some of the best bass fishing in the state on the Arkansas River, to golf or tennis.
As host to 30-35 bass tournaments each year, Pine Bluff/Jefferson County Regional Park has earned Pine Bluff the nickname of "Bass Capital of the World".
A hunting and fishing exhibit features dioramas of outside activities and collections of hunting, fishing and conservation memorabilia in the Governor Mike Huckabee Delta Rivers Nature Center at Regional Park and the Arkansas Entertainers Hall of Fame at the Pine Bluff Convention Center both of which will draw thousands to the region each year.
The University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff (UAPB) is the second earliest enhance educational institution in the state of Arkansas, and the earliest with a black heritage.
Pine Bluff has a full complement of educational facilities.
The Pine Bluff School District includes elementary magnet schools to meet special interests in the fields of mathematics, science, foreign language, communications, and fine and performing arts.
The Main Library of the Pine Bluff/Jefferson County Library System contains an extensive genealogy collection, including the online obituary index of the Pine Bluff Commercial, Arkansas census records, and digital collections, which consists of many county and town/city records for much of southeast Arkansas.
In addition to downtown Pine Bluff's Main Library, PBJCLS branch libraries can also be found in the city's Watson Chapel area, as well as in White Hall, Redfield, and Altheimer.
University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff Pine Bluff School District, including Pine Bluff High School White Hall School District includes parts of Pine Bluff; White Hall High School is in neighboring White Hall.
Pine Bluff is served by a network of five U.S.
Interstate 530, formerly part of US 65, joins Little Rock to southeast Pine Bluff.
Located on the navigable Arkansas River, with a slackwater harbor, Pine Bluff is accessible by water via the Port of Pine Bluff, the anchor of the city's Harbor Industrial District.
Pilot preparing to dust crops near Pine Bluff Daily commercial air freight and passenger services, along with scheduled commuter flights, are available at the Clinton National Airport/Little Rock National Airport, Adams Field, (LIT), some 40 minutes driving time from Pine Bluff via Interstate 530 and interstate connectors.
Pine Bluff's municipal airport, Grider Field (PBF), is positioned four miles southeast of the city. The airport serves as home base for corporate and general aviation airplane .
The city-owned Pine Bluff Transit operates six routes on a 12-hour/day, weekday basis, to various points including government, medical, educational and shopping centers. Two of the buses have professional-quality murals advertising the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff.
Current freight rail service to and through Pine Bluff is provided by the Union Pacific Railroad.
In 1972, the City of Pine Bluff and the "Fifty for the Future," a company prestige group, donated 80 acres (32 ha) of territory to the Arkansas Department of Correction (ADC).
This parcel was advanced as the Pine Bluff Complex. Since 1979 it has encompassed the ADC state headquarters; the administrative Annex East is on Harding Avenue south of town/city hall. The Diagnostic Unit, the Pine Bluff Unit, and the Randall L.
Williams Correctional Facility are in the "Pine Bluff Complex," as are the command posts of the Arkansas Correctional School system. The ADC Southeast Arkansas Community Corrections Center is in Pine Bluff. Liberty Utilities (formerly United Water), a subsidiary of Algonquin Power & Utilities, a privately held company, treats potable water and operates the water distribution fitness in Pine Bluff, as well as Hardin, Ladd, Watson Chapel and White Hall. This partnership began in 1942 between the City of Pine Bluff and Arkansas Municipal Water Company, which has been acquired and consolidated to turn into Liberty Utilities. The water is then distributed to approximately serving over 18,000 customers via 388 miles (624 km) of water distribution mains. A Source Water Vulnerability Assessment was conducted by the Arkansas Department of Health in 2013; it concluded that Pine Bluff's waterworks is at medium susceptibility to contamination The Pine Bluff Wastewater Utility provides operation and maintenance of the city's municipally owned sewage compilation and conveyance system.
Camille Bennett, Democratic member of the Arkansas House of Representatives for District 14; former Pine Bluff resident Stephanie Flowers, black Democratic member of the Arkansas State Senate since 2011; former member of the Arkansas House of Representatives; Pine Bluff lawyer Vivian Flowers, black Democratic member of the Arkansas House of Representatives from Pine Bluff since 2015; range officer at the UAMS Medical Center in Little Rock Leon Griffith, 1976 Republican gubernatorial nominee; plumber in Pine Bluff Jerry Taylor, businessman, Arkansas legislator, and Mayor of Pine Bluff National Register of Historic Places listings in Jefferson County, Arkansac d "History of Pine Bluff".
"Arkansas City Listings".
"Pine Bluff (Jefferson County)".
"Pine Bluff, Ark".
"Action At Pine Bluff".
Pine Bluff and Jefferson County: A Pictorial History.
Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Pulaski, Jefferson, Lonoke, Faulkner, Grant, Saline, Perry, Garland and Hot Spring Counties, Arkansas.
"Lights Not Out Yet at Pine Bluff".
"Arkansas Black History Quiz Bowl Association".
"Hopes for Pine Bluff Pinned on Two Projects".
"Pine Bluff's mayor-elect Debe Hollingsworth speaks out".
"Pine Bluff (Jefferson County)".
"Pine Bluff.Com".
City of Pine Bluff.
City of Pine Bluff.
"University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff".
"Pine Bluff Transit".
"Pine Bluff city, Arkansas." "Pine Bluff Unit/Randall L.
"7301 West 13th Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas 71602" Pine Bluff and Jefferson County, Arkansas: Descriptive Pamphlet.
Feb 22, 1895 via Graphic Printing Company, Pine Bluff, Ark.
Pine Bluff and Jefferson County, Arkansas: Full Description (World's Fair ed.).
Pine Bluff, Arkansas The Alliance, official website serving the Greater Pine Bluff Chamber of Commerce, Jefferson County Industrial Foundation, and Pine Bluff-Jefferson County Port Authority Junior League of Pine Bluff Pine Bluff and Jefferson County Library System Pine Bluff Commercial, the small-town journal serving Pine Bluff and southeast Arkansas Pine Bluff.com, improve knowledge site compiled by the Pine Bluff Commercial Pine Bluff Festival Association, producers of town/city celebrations such as the 4 July Celebration and The Enchanted Land of Lights & Legends, Arkansas's Largest Drive-thru Christmas Display.
Pine Bluff Film Festival, supporting restoration accomplishments at the city's Saenger Theater through exhibition of silent movies and other classic film works History of Pine Bluff's Jewish improve (from the Institute of Southern Jewish Life) Articles relating to Pine Bluff, Arkansas 1839 establishments in Arkansas - Arkansas in the American Civil War - Cities in Arkansas - Cities in Jefferson County, Arkansas - Cities in Pine Bluff urbane region - County seats in Arkansas - Pine Bluff, Arkansas - Populated places established in 1839 - Populated places on the Arkansas River - University suburbs in the United States
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