Editing Pine Bluff, Arkansas (section)

===Civil War, Reconstruction and the Gilded Age (1861–1902)===
Pine Bluff was prospering by the outbreak of the [[American Civil War|Civil War]]; most of its wealth was based on the commodity crop of cotton. This was cultivated on large plantations by hundreds of thousands of [[slavery|enslaved]] Africans throughout the state, but especially in the Delta. The city had one of the largest slave populations in the state by 1860,<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|encyclopedia=[[Encyclopedia of Arkansas]]|url=http://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?search=1&entryID=1275|title=Slavery In Arkansas|access-date=September 6, 2010}}</ref> and [[Jefferson County, Arkansas]] was second in cotton production in the state.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.arkansaspreservation.com/historic-properties/_search_nomination_popup.asp?id=973|title=Antioch Missionary Baptist Church Cemetery, Sherrill, Jefferson County|access-date=September 7, 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110707162555/http://www.arkansaspreservation.com/historic-properties/_search_nomination_popup.asp?id=973|archive-date=July 7, 2011|url-status=dead}}</ref>

When [[Federal government of the United States|Federal]] forces occupied [[Little Rock, Arkansas|Little Rock]], a group of Pine Bluff residents asked commanding Major General [[Frederick Steele]] to send Federal forces to occupy their town to protect them from bands of Confederate [[bushwhackers]]. Federal troops under [[Colonel (United States)|Colonel]] [[Powell Clayton]] arrived September 17, 1863, and stayed until the war was over.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=908|title=Pine Bluff (Jefferson County)|access-date=September 7, 2010}}</ref>

{{main|Battle of Pine Bluff}}
On October 25, 1863, [[Confederate States of America|Confederate]] [[Cavalry in the American Civil War|cavalry]], led by Brigadier-General [[John S. Marmaduke]], attempted to expel Federal [[occupation forces]] commanded by Colonel [[Powell Clayton]]; but were defeated by a combined force of [[Federal government of the United States|federal]] troops and [[Freedman|freedmen]] (former slaves freed by U.S. President [[Abraham Lincoln]]'s recent [[Emancipation Proclamation]]) near [[Jefferson County Courthouse (Pine Bluff, Arkansas)|Jefferson Court-House]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.bismarcktribune.com/article_182d9210-25b7-11df-8adc-001cc4c002e0.html |title=Pine Bluff, Ark. |access-date=September 7, 2010}}</ref> In the final year of the Civil War, the [[1st Kansas Colored Infantry Regiment]] (composed primarily of escaped slaves from [[Arkansas in the American Civil War|Arkansas]] and [[Missouri in the American Civil War|Missouri]]),<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.factasy.com/civil_war/content/facts-about-u.s.-colored-troops|title=Facts About U.S. Colored Troops: American Civil War|access-date=September 7, 2010|archive-date=January 4, 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110104212940/http://www.factasy.com/civil_war/content/facts-about-u.s.-colored-troops |url-status=dead}}</ref> was the first regiment of [[United States Colored Troops|U.S. Colored Troops]] to see combat. It was dispatched to guard Pine Bluff and eventually [[Muster (military)|muster]]ed out there.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.ozarkscivilwar.org/archives/1192 |title=1st Kansas Colored Volunteer Infantry|access-date=September 6, 2010 |archive-date=February 5, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120205010301/http://www.ozarkscivilwar.org/archives/1192 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

Because of the Federal forces, Pine Bluff attracted many [[refugee]]s and freedmen after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued in early 1863. The Federal troops set up a contraband camp there to house the runaway slaves and refugees behind Confederate lines.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=520|title=Action At Pine Bluff|access-date=September 8, 2010}}</ref> After the war, freed slaves worked with the [[American Missionary Association]] to start schools for the education of blacks, who had been prohibited from learning to read and write by southern laws. Both adults and children eagerly started learning. By September 1872, Professor [[Joseph C. Corbin]] opened the Branch Normal School of the Arkansas Industrial University, a [[historically black college]]. Founded as Arkansas's first black public 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 slavery and exploitation. Recovery was slow at first. Construction of [[railroad]]s improved access to markets, and with increased production of cotton as more [[plantations in the American South|plantation]]s were reactivated, the economy began to recover. The first railroad reached Pine Bluff in December 1873.{{Citation needed|date=April 2010}} This same year Pine Bluff's first utility was formed when Pine Bluff Gas Company began furnishing [[manufactured gas]] from [[Coke (fuel)|coke]] fuel for lighting purposes. The state's economy remained highly dependent on cotton and agriculture, which suffered a decline through the 19th century.

As personal fortunes increased from the 1870s onward, community leaders constructed large [[Victorian architecture|Victorian]]-style homes west of Main Street. Meanwhile, the Reconstruction era of the 1870s brought a stark mix of progress and challenge for African Americans. Most blacks joined the Republican Party, and several were elected in Pine Bluff to county offices and the state legislature for the first time in history. Several black-owned businesses were also opened, including banks, bars, barbershops, and other establishments. But in postwar violence in 1866, an altercation with whites ensued at a refugee camp, and 24 black men, women and children were found hanging from trees in one of the worst mass [[lynching]]s in U.S. history.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.alaskool.org/resources/teaching/socialstudies/reconstruct_historiography.htm|title=Reconstruction Historiography: A Source of Ideas|access-date=September 6, 2010|archive-date=September 30, 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100930184512/http://www.alaskool.org/resources/teaching/socialstudies/Reconstruct_historiography.htm|url-status=dead}}</ref>

[[File:Pine Bluff, Arkansas c. 1890.jpg|thumb|left|Pine Bluff c. 1890]]
The rate of lynchings of black males was high across the South during this period of social tensions and white resistance to Reconstruction. Armistad Johnson was lynched in 1889,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.scribd.com/doc/7104660/Partial-List-of-Lynchings-in-the-United-States|title=A Partial List of Lynchings|access-date=September 10, 2010|archive-date=June 1, 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090601034831/http://www.scribd.com/doc/7104660/Partial-List-of-Lynchings-in-the-United-States|url-status=dead}}</ref> and John Kelly and Gulbert Harris in 1892 in front of the [[Jefferson County, Arkansas|Jefferson County]] Courthouse, after a mob of hundreds rapidly escalated to thousands of whites vehemently demanding execution, despite Kelly's pleas of innocence and lack of trial. The angry mob eventually forced over his custody from an Officer adamantly attempting to deliver the suspect to the jail house, then the crowd watched enthusiastically as he was hung and riddled with bullets.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1892/02/15/104119250.pdf|title=Two Murderers Lynched|access-date=September 6, 2010 | work=The New York Times|date=February 15, 1892}}</ref> That same year the state adopted a [[poll tax]] amendment that disenfranchised many African-American and poor white voters. The Election Law of 1891 had already made voting more difficult and also caused voter rolls to decrease. With the Democratic Party consolidating its power in what became a one-party state,<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|encyclopedia=[[Encyclopedia of Arkansas]]|url=http://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=2244|title=Separate Coach Law of 1891|access-date=September 6, 2010}}</ref> the atmosphere was grim toward the end of the 19th century for many African Americans. Democrats imposed legal segregation and other [[Jim Crow]] laws.

Bishop [[Henry McNeal Turner]]'s  "Back to Africa" movement attracted numbers of local African-American residents who purchased tickets and/or sought information on emigration. Arkansas had 650 emigrants depart to the colony of [[Liberia]] in West Africa, more than from any other state in the United States. The majority of these emigrants came from the black-majority Jefferson, St. Francis, Pulaski, Pope, and Conway counties.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|encyclopedia=[[Encyclopedia of Arkansas]] |url=http://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=4|title=Back to Africa|access-date=September 6, 2010}}</ref><ref name=hope>Barnes, Kenneth C. [https://books.google.com/books?id=cweGpOWk9jYC&dq=Pine+Bluff%2C+Arkansas+to+Liberia&pg=PA138 Journey of Hope: The Back-to-Africa Movement in Arkansas in the Late 1800s.] [[Chapel Hill, NC]]: [[The University of North Carolina Press]], 2004. {{ISBN|0807828793}}. ''Google Books.'' Retrieved June 6, 2014.</ref>

According to historian James Leslie, Pine Bluff entered its "Golden Era" in the 1880s.<ref>{{cite book |last=Leslie |first=James W. |date=1981 |title=Pine Bluff and Jefferson County: A Pictorial History|location=Norfolk, Va. |publisher=Donning Co. |isbn=978-0898651485}}</ref> Cotton production and river commerce helped the city draw industries, public institutions and residents to the area, making it by 1890 the state's third-largest city. The first telephone system was placed in service March 31, 1883. [[Wiley Jones]], a freedman who achieved wealth by his own business, built the first mule-drawn, street-car line in October 1886.<ref>{{cite book |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |date=1889 |title=Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Pulaski, Jefferson, Lonoke, Faulkner, Grant, Saline, Perry, Garland and Hot Spring Counties, Arkansas |url=https://archive.org/details/biographicalhistpjlf00good |location=Chicago, Nashville and St. Louis |publisher=[[Goodspeed Publishing|Goodspeed Publishing Co.]]}}</ref> The first light, power and water plant was completed in 1887; a more dependable light and water system was put in place in 1912. Throughout the 1880s and 1890s, economic expansion was also fueled by the growing [[lumber industry]] in the region.