Listed in Arkansas Register of Historic Places on 12/01/10

SUMMARY

Located 2.5 miles south of Hazen in Prairie County, the Czech National Cemetery is being nominated to the Arkansas Register of Historic Places with local significance under Criterion A as one of the few remaining sites associated with Czech settlement in Prairie County. Because it is a cemetery, the property is also being nominated under Criteria Consideration D.

ELABORATION

Town and County History

The earliest white settlement in Prairie County occurred in the area of present-day Des Arc in 1810. Over the next few decades, settlers predominantly from the Carolinas, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi arrived and staked claims on the region's fertile soil. It wasn't until November 25, 1846--ten years after Arkansas gained statehood--that the legislature organized Prairie County. Initially, the county's borders encompassed much of what is now Lonoke County, but the creation of that county in 1873 moved Prairie County's borders to their current position. The first county seat was actually established at Brownsville, near the city of Lonoke in Lonoke County. Then, in 1868, the county government moved to DeVall's Bluff, where it would remain until 1875 when it moved to Des Arc. Frequent flooding along the White River forced the government to establish a second seat of government--once again in DeVall's Bluff--so residents in the southern part of the county could pay their taxes on time.This dual county seat system still exists today. [1]

The geography of Prairie County lends itself to an agricultural economy. Flowing through the eastern edge of the county, the White River forms a floodplain that encompasses much of the northern part of the county. The southern reaches of the county are a part of the Grand Prairie, a subregion of the Mississippi Alluvial Plain. Both of these areas provide an abundance of rich farmland, which is used today to raise a number of crops, including rice, cotton, corn, and soybeans. The arrival of the Memphis and Little Rock Railroad through Brasfield, Surrounded Hill, and Hazen in 1871 gave Prairie County better access to agricultural markets and eventually brought a boom of settlement to the region.[2]

One of the groups best represented in this new wave of settlement was Eastern Europeans, particularly those of Slovak descent. Organizations like the National Slovak Society distributed Slovak-language advertisements in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Illinois, promoting Arkansas's agricultural lands. The positive response to these announcements led to the 1894 creation of the Slovak Colonization Company in Pittsburgh by Peter V. Rovnianek. This organization purchased 3,000 acres in southern Prairie County, 160 of which was set aside for a township that would eventually become the community of Slovak. Twenty-five families arrived at the Slovak settlement in the fall of 1894, many of them farmers and miners from the northeastern United States.[3]

The same wave of immigration that brought many families of Slovak descent to Prairie County in the 1890s also attracted Bohemians, Russians, and Czechs. Many of these settlers located further north in the Hazen area, which Goodspeed's 1890 history of Arkansas called, "the leading commercial point in the county."[4] Surveyed in 1873 and incorporated in 1884, Hazen boasted six general stores, two drug stores, two grocery stores, an undertaker's shop, two livery stables, two blacksmith shops, two real estate offices, a post office, one meat market, two lumber yards, two hotels, a steam-powered cotton gin, a saw and grist mill, two schoolhouses and four churches by 1890. In Hazen and the surrounding farmland were six hay presses and nine hay barns, as the cultivation of prairie grass became an important industry beginning in 1881. By 1900 Hazen had a population of over 500 residents and exported more hay, fruit, produce, and game than any other city in the county.[5]

Cemetery History

The creation of the Czech National Cemetery begins with John Kocourek, a Bohemian land agent from Hazen. On a recruiting trip to Ames, Iowa, Kocourek became seriously ill with a fever, and the owners of his hotel would not allow him to stay any longer. Luckily, he had met a young couple in Ames named John and Anna Hondl, who took him into their home and cared for him. They notified Kocourek's wife, Anna, who came to Ames with their daughter and stayed with the Hondls until she could nurse her husband back to health. While the land agent was recovering, he told the Hondls of the rich farmland at Hazen and they decided to buy acreage. The Hondls rented three railroad box cars for the move: one for farm animals, one for farm equipment, and one for household goods. The Hondl family, which included John and Anna, and their two daughters, Emma and Tona, rode in passenger cars on the same train. Soon after arriving at Hazen, John Hondl was struck by lightning while working in a hay field. He and his team of horses were killed. Anna Hondl, expecting her third child, chose a one-acre site on their farm on which to bury John. The owner of the adjoining farm, Peter Marak, gave an additional acre to create the original two-acre cemetery. Both Anna and Peter sold their share of the cemetery to John Kocourek, who deeded the land to the Czech National Cemetery Association in 1895.

[2] Guy Lancaster, "Grand Prairie." The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture. 5 October 2010. http://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?search=1&entryID=2996. Accessed 19 October 2010; Goodspeed, 676-677; Sickel, http://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=802.

[3] Jamie Metrailer, "Slovak." The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture. 27 December 2007. http://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=5362. Accessed 19 October 2010.

[4] The Goodspeed Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Eastern Arkansas (Chicago: Goodspeed Publishing Co., 1890), 680.

[5] Chris Smith Weems, "Hazen." The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture. 13 July 2009. http://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?search=1&entryID=966. Accessed 19 October 2010;Metrailer, http://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=5362;Goodspeed, 680.

SIGNIFICANCE

After their arrival in the 1890s, Czech settlers became some of the most influential residents of Hazen and the surrounding area. This first generation of Prairie County Czechs founded a number of businesses in the community:

John Kocourek - hardware store

V. Houdek - real estate

J.J. Poduska - hardware store

Poduska brothers - well drilling

Peter Marak - carpenter, cabinet, furniture, and coffin maker

Florian Marak - merchandise store and F. Marak & Co. Blacksmith and Gunsmith

J.J. Wachal - store

Benish brothers - general store

Wilhem Auersperg - shoe repair and harness shop

Some of these businesses, like the Kocourek and Son Hardware Store, operated well into the twentieth century; John Kocourek passed the store down through his family, where it stayed until his grandson Dink sold it in 1980. Other Czech settlers had important relatives back in their homeland. Edvard Benes, president of the Czechoslovakia from 1935-1938, was a cousin of the Benish family in Hazen. The Czech National Cemetery memorializes this significant Czech presence in Prairie County.[1]

Located 2.5 miles south of Hazen in Prairie County, the Czech National Cemetery is being nominated to the Arkansas Register of Historic Places with local significanceunder Criterion A as one of the few remaining sites associated with Czech settlement in Prairie County. Because it is a cemetery, the property is also being nominated under Criteria Consideration D.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Arkansas State Gazetteer and Business Directories, 1892-93 and 1900.

The Goodspeed Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Eastern Arkansas. Chicago: Goodspeed Publishing Co., 1890.

The Grand Prairie Herald.

Lancaster, Guy. "Grand Prairie." The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture, 5 October 2010. http://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?search=1&entryID=2996. Accessed 19 October 2010.

Metrailer, Jamie. "Slovak." The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture, 27 December 2007. http://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=5362. Accessed 19 October 2010.

Oral Histories collected by Aline Marak

Physical inventory of Czech National Cemetery, prepared by Rosetta Van Houten and Aline Marak.

Sickel, Marilyn Hambrick. "Prairie County." The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture, 19 May 2010. http://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=802. Accessed 19 October 2010.

Weems, Chris Smith. "Hazen." The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture, 13 July 2009. http://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?search=1&entryID=966. Accessed 19 October 2010.