Germans in Arkansas

In her book “Das Arkansas Echo: A Year in the Life of Germans in the 19th-Century South,” University of Arkansas faculty member Kathleen Condray finds herself in Logan County.

“On a hill in the small rural community of Paris, one can imagine oneself in Switzerland,” she writes. “The Subiaco Benedictine Abbey, founded in 1878, is housed in a structure with a beautiful courtyard that would be at home in any canton of the mother country. It was established by Swiss monks sent to Arkansas as missionaries.

“The largest portion of their flock was provided by the Little Rock & Fort Smith Railroad, which made a bargain with the Catholic bishop of the state to offer German Catholic immigrants affordable farmland next to the rails and to build churches and schools to provide for their spiritual well-being. In return, the bishop assisted the railroads in securing a local population for the newly established lines.”

Condray, who teaches German, is a native Arkansan from a German Catholic family.

“Other German speakers, Protestants, came to Arkansas to farm in the Delta,” she writes. “A few Austrians were attracted to coal mining in the west of the state. German and Austrian Jewish immigrants settled primarily in the political and commercial capital, Little Rock, with others scattered around the state.

“While most Arkansans were struggling to adjust to a new reality following Reconstruction, this group of immigrants was striving to adjust to the South more generally. Many aspects of their new lives were exciting, such as religious freedom and the prospect of owning land, while others were frightening and bewildering, such as negotiating race relations or Southern attitudes toward alcohol.”

I wrote last week about my copies of Das Arkansas Echo, a German-language newspaper published in Little Rock from 1891 until 1932. That led me to read more about German-speaking immigrants to Arkansas. Historian Ken Barnes calls German Catholic immigrants a group “left out of the broader narrative about a state that was overwhelmingly Protestant and native born.”

German immigration reached its peak in the early 1880s. Though these immigrants never represented more than 1% of the state’s population, they had a strong influence in areas where they settled.

“Religious and economic factors came together with the growth of the railroads to promote immigration following the Civil War,” Shirley Sticht Schuette writes for the Central Arkansas Library System’s Encyclopedia of Arkansas. “For a time, state governments, railroad companies and real estate agents recruited immigrants. Arkansas Gov. Powell Clayton talked of recruiting immigrants in his 1868 inaugural message.

“Intense efforts came only at the end of the 1870s when railroad construction had progressed to the point that land was widely available in the Arkansas River Valley. German-language publications were issued touting the benefits of Arkansas, and agents were sent to German communities in the eastern United States and Europe to entice settlers to the state.”

The railroads needed these immigrants to establish markets for their services.

“With encouragement from Bishop Edward Fitzgerald of the Diocese of Little Rock, the Catholic Church entered into agreements with the railroads, setting aside land grant areas for immigrants recruited by the church,” Schuette writes. “Two such agreements resulted in areas of German settlement in the Arkansas River Valley. The Benedictine Order founded a colony based in Logan County and remained following the initial immigration period. …

“The Holy Ghost Fathers brought many settlers into the state, some of whom stayed and made important contributions to the economy and politics in Conway and Faulkner counties. However, the order did not itself maintain a significant presence in the state. Following a series of disasters, including a tornado in April 1883 that destroyed the Catholic church in Conway and an 1892 tornado that destroyed their monastery, the group abandoned plans for a permanent monastery and seminary in Arkansas.”

Father John Eugene Weibel left Logan County in the late 1870s to work with German Catholics in northeast Arkansas. He served as a priest in Pocahontas and also conducted mass at stops along area railroads. Weibel was instrumental in bringing German immigrants to that part of the state.

“German Catholic communities developed in Jonesboro and Paragould, both centers for the growth of railroads,” Schuette writes. “Some German Catholics who settled in neighboring counties such as Lawrence and Clay had a strong community connection to the Catholic churches that grew from Weibel’s work. Weibel and the Holy Angels Convent that he founded were instrumental in starting what’s now St. Bernards Medical Center in Jonesboro.”

Meanwhile, Lutheran congregations were formed at Fort Smith and Little Rock in 1868. Other German Lutherans settled on the Grand Prairie in the Stuttgart area.

“The peak of German immigration in Arkansas, as in the rest of the United States, occurred in the early 1880s,” Schuette writes. “At the same time that the ‘push factors’ in Germany eased somewhat, the ‘pull’ factors in America weakened. Legal restrictions placed on immigration reduced the flow of newcomers, a fact that contributed to the weakening of existing ethnic communities.

“In 1900 … only 5,971 first-generation Germans lived in Arkansas, or 0.46% of the population … . Despite small numbers, Germans in Arkansas retained a strong ethnic identity until the time of World War I.”