Rector on the radar

It’s hard to go much farther northeast in our state than Rector. Though it’s a long way from where I live in Little Rock, the town of almost 1,900 residents keeps popping up on my radar screen.

Last year, I was the speaker at Rector’s annual chamber of commerce banquet after having been invited by longtime friends Ron and Nancy Kemp, who once owned the newspaper there. Ron is also a former mayor of Rector.

In early December, I went to War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock to witness my first eight-man football game. Izard County High School defeated Rector High School that evening to secure the state championship. In the press box, I saw several people I had met when I was in Rector to speak.

Now, I learn that Rector will host the Class 2A state high school basketball tournament later this month and in early March. I’m not sure I’ve been to a small town with more civic pride than the folks at Rector exhibit. I can promise participants in the tournament that Rector will put on a good show.

While two other Clay County towns — Corning and Piggott — go in big for the Fourth of July, Rector focuses on Labor Day. The annual event, which began in 1941, has grown from a one-day celebration to four days of activities. Former Rector residents come from across the country for everything from fair rides and political speeches to beauty pageants, rodeos and talent shows.

For those fortunate enough to know an area farmer, one of Clay County’s big dove hunts can be added to the weekend calendar.

Like many Arkansas towns, Rector was a product of the railroad. In this case, it was the St. Louis & Southwestern, which ran down the eastern edge of Crowley’s Ridge as far as Paragould. When the railroad was built, businesses from the community of Scatterville began migrating to what’s now Rector. Named after the state’s sixth governor, Henry Massie Rector, the town was incorporated in September 1887.

“The Rector area once was covered by virgin timber, providing settlers with building materials and plentiful wildlife, including deer, bear and turkey,” Tracy Johnson writes for the Central Arkansas Library System’s Encyclopedia of Arkansas. “Timber harvests were minimal in the early 1800s because wagons were the only available transportation. Until the arrival of the railroad, timber was cleared mainly to meet settlers’ needs for wooden structures and to make room for crops, pastures and gardens.

“Necessities such as guns and gunpowder were obtained through trading, usually of furs. When homesteads were close to one another, churches were established. Church and camp meetings served settlers’ need to visit with others and allowed an expression of faith often denied by the isolation of the wilderness.”

With the area located only a few miles from the Union state of Missouri, sentiments were divided during the Civil War. The arrival of the first train in 1882 was celebrated with a 21-gun salute and speeches. By 1889, there were general stores, a drugstore, saloons, a hardware store, a saddle store, a stave mill, two sawmills, two cotton gins and two hotels at booming Rector.

Rector had 590 residents in the 1890 census and had grown to 1,859 residents by 1910. The Masons, Odd Fellows and Knights of Honor had lodges there. Rector became the largest town in Clay County as surrounding hardwood forests were harvested, drained and converted into row-crop agriculture.

“Many buildings were wood structures haphazardly constructed along muddy streets,” Johnson writes. “Fire was a daily threat, and some fires spread quickly in the dry summer months, destroying entire city blocks. This danger motivated builders to use brick. Rector eventually would have its own brick and tile company.

“By 1918, with a population approaching 2,000, Rector was considered one of the area’s best-governed cities. Businesses continued to grow … . Matthew J. Motsinger, an established jeweler and optician, founded Motsinger Park. Located on Rose Hill, the park hosted baseball games on Sunday afternoons. It had a swimming pool, bandstand and a caged area where Motsinger kept monkeys. Deer ran loose in the park.”

What became known as Central Park was transformed from a muddy lot for wagons into a park by the Rector Woman’s Club in 1913. The park at the corner of Main and Front streets hosted band concerts on Thursday nights that drew people from across the county.

The annual Labor Day event is held in Rector Memorial Park on U.S. 49. Memorial Park has paved roads, pads for recreational vehicles, a quarter-mile walking trail and covered pavilions and stands that are used for the Labor Day celebration.

A visitors’ center is housed in the city’s former jail and waterworks structure. The 1915 building is on the National Register of Historic Places and was restored using state grants. The building is the home of Rector Downtown Central, which is the city’s community development and promotion office.

On the morning after my speech to the chamber of commerce, I had breakfast at a delightful coffee shop known as the Caffeinated Cow. It’s the type of place one would expect to find in a much larger city.

There are other things to do downtown. The Rector Woman’s Club founded a museum in March 2003. When the club dissolved, the facility was turned over to the museum’s board of directors. The original space was in a small room behind the city’s library. In June 2014, an empty building was purchased on Main Street. After more than 5,000 volunteer hours, the museum opened in its new location in January 2019.