Images from Fayetteville’s past

By Richard Davis

TFW Staff Writer

Want to go really old school Fayetteville? How about a collection of photographs with descriptions of scenes from the city beginning in the late 1800s.

Local authors Charles Y. Alison and Ellen K. Compton have put together more than 200 photographs for the book “Fayetteville” as part of Arcadia Publishing’s “Images of America” series. The historical traipse through Fayetteville’s past was assembled on behalf of the Washington County Historical Society. The images were picked from some of the Society’s less familiar images that reside in collections at the Shiloh Museum of Ozark History in Springdale and the University of Arkansas Libraries Department of Special Collections.

The book features some fascinating scenes. One photograph shows Roberta Waugh Fulbright, then publisher of the Northwest Arkansas Times, around 1943 along with her son, yet-to-be-senator James William Fulbright. Above that photograph is the image of an elderly woman near a fireplace accompanied by an interesting tale:

“Annie Caughey lived for many years in the Buckner community on the east side of Fayetteville before moving, late in life, to East Davidson Street. On one of her buggy rides between Buckner and downtown Fayetteville, two men tried to hold her up during her evening return. She grabbed the whip, lashed them both across the face and whipped the horses away to safety.”

The book will officially go on sale at area book shops and at arcadiapublishing.com beginning Monday, July 18. The 128-page book retails for $21.99.