When you think of some of the most influential people in the history of Arkansas, Winthrop Rockefeller is likely one of the first to come to mind. When Rockefeller arrived in Arkansas, the state was stuck in what Time magazine called in 1966 a “dead-end economic and political condition.” Rockefeller rose to the challenge by establishing the Winthrop Rockefeller Institute on Petit Jean Mountain and helping build Arkansas into the steadily growing land of opportunity it is today.
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According to many national publications in the late 1940s and early 1950s, Arkansas was in one of the worst positions in the nation. There were few opportunities in-state for self-improvement, and education and economics were stagnant. Arkansas, since the Reconstruction Era, was a solid Democratic Party stronghold with little chance of changing. For many in Arkansas, things were entrenched in a never-ending cycle.
That’s why, in summer of 1953, all of those national headlines conveyed shock (if not horror) when wealthy socialite Winthop Rockefeller of the New York City Rockefeller family and political dynasty announced he was leaving the Big Apple and moving to Arkansas.
Rockefeller had learned early on that he didn’t like the leisure that came with a life of money and galas. He’d left Yale during his junior year to work in the dangerous oilfields of Texas, earning 75 cents an hour. Not long after, he enlisted in World War II as a private, and would go on to earn a Bronze Star with Oak Leaf Clusters and a Purple Heart for his bravery in Okinawa.
Rockefeller wanted to do more than live off his family name, money and status. After an invitation from an Army friend led to a visit to Arkansas, Rockefeller realized that here, the sky was the limit. Soon after his visit, he bought 927 acres of land on top of Petit Jean Mountain, building a cattle farm envied by farmers and ranchers across the nation. Hundreds of jobs were created in the construction process, including the creation of a pipeline to pump water 850 feet up the mountainside from the Arkansas River, the creation of lakes, the paving of roads and an airstrip, as well as the building of all of the structures that followed.
Petit Jean had been little more than an unsuspecting flat-top mountain just south of Morrilton. The steadily growing community faced serious depopulation after the Great Depression and World War II. But, fortunately, the Civilian Conservation Corps began constructing park infrastructure on the mountain. Attention was being drawn to the mountaintop hide-away that became Petit Jean State Park, and Rockefeller was one of those doing the paying.
Winthrop Rockefeller did much of his work for Arkansas from his office at the cattle ranch on top of Petit Jean Mountain.
(Photos provided)
He soon realized that his successful farm atop Petit Jean was a symbol for what he could do in the rest of the state, if he tried. Arkansas was in rough shape — jobs were scarce, and so were livable wages. And the state wasn’t far removed from the 1957 desegregation crisis at Little Rock’s Central High School that sullied its national image. When it came to things like education and health care, Arkansas fostered a hillbilly-backwoods image.
None of these things seemed likely to change any time soon, either. A virtual one-party system in Arkansas had become a political monopoly, and a breeding ground of corruption helped keep the status quo.
While Rockefeller was more keen to expose politicians than become one, he soon realized that the only way to get rid of corruption would be to push it out himself. Rockefeller was instrumental in the creation of what would become the Arkansas Economic Development Commission, and he was even appointed its chair by former Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus.
In 1964, Rockefeller ran against the man who appointed him. Though he lost, Rockefeller received 44 percent of the general-election vote, unheard of for a Republican and twice as much as any other Republican candidate since the Reconstruction period in Arkansas.
But that didn’t stop Rockefeller’s philanthropic work in Arkansas — he continued pouring his own money into infrastructure projects that sent the state jettisoning towards modernity.
And just two years later, and with Faubus off the ballot, voters would signal their approval for Rockefeller’s hard work when he defeated Democrat Jim Johnson with 54 percent of the vote. That count included roughly 80 percent of the Black vote. In both the state’s House and Senate, there were only three Republicans in total, but Rockefeller’s victory was a turning point. Many state historians believe Rockefeller’s rejection of the status quo and his inclusive mindset toward all Arkansans (his opponent refused to shake the hands of Black voters) helped make him the popular choice.
Rockefeller served two successful consecutive terms as governor of Arkansas, bringing about change, expansion and modernization in every sector of the state. Rockefeller’s family carried on his philanthropic legacy as Rockefeller continued his change-making work atop Petit Jean.
According to the Winthrop Rockefeller Institute (WRI), “During the 20 years [Rockefeller] lived on Petit Jean, he convened more than 200 formal and informal discussions among business, political and thought leaders to hammer out solutions to a huge variety of issues.”
Today, the WRI atop Petit Jean is part of the University of Arkansas system and continues to carry on his legacy by hosting thinkers, leaders and politicians on Rockefeller’s very own estate to convene on issues impacting the state, nation and world. The institute believes that new solutions are needed to tackle old problems — a mantra that Rockefeller lived by himself.
Nelson, Rockefeller’s brother and governor of New York before serving as vice president of the United States under Gerald Ford, often said that his brother “found himself” in Arkansas. He shared that Rockefeller had searched for “a worthy challenge” and overcame it in the Natural State.
When he left the governor’s office, Winthrop Rockefeller — Win — said he hoped his legacy would be that of “a catalyst who hopefully served to excite in the hearts and minds of our people a desire to shape our own destiny.”
And Rockefeller, as well as the Winthrop Rockefeller Institute on Petit Jean Mountain, have done just that.
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