Important Arkansas historical events and significant anniversaries for October 2, with notable births and deaths of people with Arkansas connections for this date. Information is drawn from state archives, historical societies, contemporary newspapers and other media archives, and legal records. Much of this information comes from the Encyclopedia of Arkansas, an online publication. ChatGPT has collected this data.
1865 — Camden lawyer begins judicial service. James Thomas Elliott, a Camden attorney, newspaper editor and future U.S. representative, began serving October 2, 1865, as judge of Arkansas’s Sixth Judicial Circuit. His tenure continued until September 1866. Elliott later represented Arkansas briefly in the Fortieth Congress.
1913 — Rare Magnolia newspaper survives. An October 2, 1913, issue of The Liberator, an anti-Catholic newspaper published at Magnolia by Baptist minister J. A. Scarboro, is one of only two known surviving issues. Both are preserved by the Arkansas State Archives. The paper grew from Scarboro’s earlier magazine The Plain Truth…