These notable public figures are from Jacksonville:
Kris Allen won the eighth season of television’s “American Idol” in 2009.
Homer Atkins served as Democratic governor of Arkansas for a pair of two-year terms. He was elected in 1940 and 1942.
John Furner became president and chief executive of Walmart Inc. in February, after seven years as president and CEO of Walmart U.S.
Rocky Gray has been a drummer and guitarist for bands including Sacrifice, Even Devils Die, Mourningside and Soul Embraced.
Dan Hampton is a retired NFL football defensive tackle for the Chicago Bears who played from 1979 to 1990. He was selected for the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2002.
Clinton McDaniel played as a defensive end from 2010 to 2017 for five NFL teams.
Nick Smith, Jr. is a guard for the Los Angeles Lakers. He played basketball for the Arkansas Razorbacks in 2022-2023.
City’s rapid growth fueled by war, wings
On the eve of World War II, Jacksonville’s population totaled around 400. It wasn’t yet an incorporated community. Now, it is the Little Rock metropolitan area’s sixth largest city, with nearly 30,000 residents.
This astonishing growth since 1941 is thanks mainly to the military impetus of World War II and the Cold War, followed by the ongoing support for America’s defense. About one-third of the city’s 28.7 square miles is occupied by the Little Rock Air Force Base (LRAFB), 1500 Vandenberg Blvd., which employs 7,200 military and civilian staff. The city also serves as the headquarters for First Electric Cooperative.
In June 1941, six months before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the federal government announced that a $33 million fuse and detonator plant would be built in Jacksonville. Incorporation as a city soon followed.
“The land was taken over by the federal government by condemnation proceedings and Jacksonville became a boom town,” reports the Encyclopedia of Arkansas. “Housing was in very limited supply, and people lived wherever they could, even in their cars, until a trailer park and housing addition could be built.“
The ordnance plant closed at the end of the war, bringing a lull to Jacksonville’s growth. Then civic efforts led to LRAFB’s opening in the fall of 1955. Population growth renewed, thanks also to later suburban sprawl. A new city hall was built in the 1990s.
Parked near the front gate of the LRAFB, is a Super Hercules transport that was the last C-130 to fly from Vietnam as that war ended. On April 29, 1975, the crew evacuated 452 South Vietnamese civilians, more than five times its rated capacity. The cockpit alone was crammed with 32. The refugees were brought safely to Thailand. Visitors may park outside the main gate for a closer view of this airplane with a history.
The popular Thunder Over the Rock LRAFB Air Show is scheduled to return in 2027.
Honoring history
Given the city’s martial connections, it’s fitting that a prime visitor attraction is the Jacksonville Museum of Military History, one of the best of its kind in Arkansas. Opened in 2005, the museum occupies the building at 100 Veterans Circle that served as the ordnance plant’s administrative office during World War II.
A display just inside the entrance puts a human face on a statement attributed to Civil War Union Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman: “War is hell!”
Shaped like a map of The Natural State, the wall-size memorial lists alphabetically the 596 Arkansans who died during the Vietnam War in the 1960s and 1970s. Arrayed overhead are 596 military dog tags. Hanging like a teardrop, each represents one of those lost. The explanatory text is brief, letting the names and dog tags speak for themselves.
William Kehler, a retired colonel, leads museum tours that are lively as well as informative. He explains Arkansas’ two Titan missile disasters while standing near the red-tipped reentry cone of a Titan II missile with a warhead 600 times more powerful than the Hiroshima atomic bomb. In 1965, a Titan missile-silo fire near Searcy killed 53 workers. In 1980, a silo explosion near Damascus caused one death and threatened central Arkansas with catastrophe.
Some of the museum’s most fascinating exhibits relate to World War II. Several feature women, who totaled 70% of the 14,000 employees at the Arkansas Ordnance Plant. One poster shows three female workers identified as “Soldiers Without Guns.” In another, a woman is pictured with a soldier in the background and a headline reading: “The girl he left behind is still behind him. She’s a WOW — Woman Ordnance Worker.”
On Jacksonville’s southern fringe, a layout marks the Civil War engagement of Aug. 27, 1863, at Reed’s Bridge, on Arkansas 161 (South First Street).
Displays include a replica cannon and information about the Southern forces’ delay of the Union advance on Little Rock. A Confederate major wrote that his unit’s guns “sent shell and shot, winged with fury screaming and hissing up their lines.” Also on the site is a replica ensemble of five farm buildings from the Civil War era.
Dating back even farther is McCraw Cemetery 300 yards east of Military Road Baptist Church, 2101 Old Military Road. The earliest of its 37 marked graves is that of Elizabeth Sander, who died in 1841. Other burials include Elzie Wood, a veteran of the 1898 Spanish-American War. Among Black burials in the cemetery’s southwest corner is Maria Smith, interred in 1916 beneath a gravestone from a fraternal group.
Recreation and restaurants
Elsewhere in Jacksonville, the Arkansas Game and Fish Foundation Shooting Sports Complex, 2800 Graham Road, is said to be the largest recreational facility of its kind in Arkansas.
The layout includes 14 trap-shooting fields, three skeet overlays, a 3D archery range, a lake, two pavilions and three lighted fields. Its 5,100-square-foot clubhouse has a classroom seating 100. Future plans include a rifle and pistol range.
Splash Zone water park, 201 Martin St., is preparing to open for the 2026 season on Memorial Day weekend. Its popular three-pool layout includes a plunge pool with two water slides, a water tunnel, a dual-racer slide, dew-drop water showers and water blasters.
Paradise Park, North Redmond Road, offers inviting facilities. There are pavilions, a basketball court, a playground, picnic tables, a horseshoe pitch and a paved wildlife trail.
Varied activities and special events take place at the 56,000-square-foot Jacksonville Community Center, 5 Municipal Drive. The center has been honored as an Arkansas Recreation and Parks Association Facility of the Year and received a Governor’s Fitness Award.
Among Jacksonville’s restaurant options are The Fried Pie Shop, 1321 T.P. White Drive,; Smokin’ Buns BBQ, 25401 Arkansas 107; The Hook Catfish Restaurant, 1802 S. Arkansas 161; and Pho and More, 123 S. Jeff Davis Ave.