The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Arkansas - History

History

Elders Wilford Woodruff and Henry Brown arrived as missionaries in Bentonville on January 28, 1835. They held their first meeting four days later and preached to an attentive congregation. Later they were confronted by an apostate member, Alexander Akeman. Akeman was a man who earlier endured severe persecution in Missouri, but later turned bitterly against the Church. However, this man died suddenly and Elder Woodruff preached his funeral sermon. This event, along with Woodruff's teachings led to the baptism of a Mr. and Mrs. Jonathan Hubbel, the first converts in Arkansas, on 22 February 1835.

In 1838, Elder Abraham O. Smoot was called to a five-month mission to Arkansas where he preached frequently with varied results.

The year 1857 marked a tragic era in Church history in Arkansas. Elder Parley P. Pratt was murdered in on May 13, 1857 near Alma, Arkansas.He had just been acquitted by a court in Van Buren of charges pressed by Hector H. McLean, the former husband of Pratt's wife Eleanor. At the trial she testified that her former husband frequently physically abused her. Disappointed with the verdict, the McLean followed and assassinated the apostle. (On April 2, 2008, Crawford County Circuit Judge Gary Cottrell gave the Pratt family permission to move Parley Pratt's remains to Utah.)

Negative feelings, and later the U.S. Civil War, kept the Church from the area for the next two decades.

After the War, the church again sent missionaries to Arkansas in 1876. In 1877, Elders Henry G. Boyle and J.D.H. McAllister visited a member in Des Arc. By 1877, 27 families totaling 125 converts emigrated west. Through the 1880s, converts continued to join the main body of the saints in Utah.

Permanent presence of the church was established on May 30, 1890 when the fist Latter-day Saint meetinghouse was built in White County. Benjamin Franklin Baker, an early influential convert, helped establish the Barney Branch (about 5 miles north of Enola) in 1914 with over 100 members. By 1930, three branches had been organized in Arkansas (Barney, El Dorado, and Little Rock) with a total membership of 944.

The first Arkansas stake was created on June 1, 1969 in Little Rock. This was known at the time as the Arkansas stake and later renamed to the Little Rock Arkansas Stake.

The first institute building, adjacent to the University of Arkansas, was dedicated in the fall of 1999.

On July 20–22, 2006, over 1,000 Latter-day Saint teens from all 5 of the Arkansas Stakes gathered for a 3-day multi-stake youth conference. Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve and former associate dean of Graduate Studies in the College of Business Administration at the University of Arkansas spoke to the youth and encouraged them to live high moral standards.

Following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, several thousand Latter-day Saint volunteers, from a 7 state area (including Arkansas), went to Louisiana and Mississippi. Many of them taking time out of their jobs or came down on the weekends to help anyone needing assistance regardless of faith.

Arkansas "Mormons" volunteered relief in their own area on several occasions including the April 2, 2006 Tornado Outbreak, and the 2008 Super Tuesday tornado outbreak. In September 2008, Arkansas Latter-day Saints went to the Baton Rouge area to aid clean up efforts following Hurricane Gustav.