LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (KTHV) - Now, we're talking about a street close to THV11. I’m not kidding – it’s literally our street address. But that’s not the only reason we’re getting Street Smart about Izard.
George Izard was appointed the second governor of the Arkansas territory in 1825, and at that time, Arkansas was a mess.
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“He found the whole territory to be in shambles, the bookkeeping, the record keeping, the finances,” Little Rock Engineering Director Mike Hood said.
But there were other challenges for the former war of 1812 Army major.
“We had the Quapaw Indians occupying the land just to the east of Little Rock, and that same time the Cherokees were occupying the land in west of Little Rock,” Hood said.
Izard focused on several tasks, from Indian removal to expansion and improvement of roads.
“It was during his tenure that roads, through the efforts of the military, actually become well enough constructed that the early military roads became passable to stagecoaches,“ Hood said.
This was a turning point in the new frontier, which marked the beginning of a true land-transportation system through the territory.
“Before that, most [transportation] was on the rivers or horseback going through the wilds of Arkansas,” Hood said.
Despite his accomplishments, Izard was viewed as an aristocrat by the locals and didn’t always fit in.
“He was a quiet, orderly, scholarly man. He was educated in Philadelphia and France,” Hood said.
He would come out of his home every morning dressed in full military regalia, as if ready to go on a military parade.
He might have been an outcast, but one person was very impressed with his record: Chester Ashley.
After he died he was buried in the local city graveyard. Some years later, when they decided to move the burials from the old city graveyard to the new Mount Holly, no one claimed Izard’s body.
“He had the body dug up and placed in his own family plot in Mount Holly,” Hood said.
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