Arkansas Historical Quarterly, Volume I (March-Dec 1942), p. 331
WILLIAM DUNBAR, HISTORY MAKER
BY MARY D. HUDGINS
Librarian, Hot Springs Public Library
It is strange, considering the significance of William Dunbar as a citizen of the Mississippi Valley, and his undeniably consequential contributions to the development of the area, how little is generally known about him. Outstanding histories of Arkansas have been written without even mentioning his name. Until a few years ago a pamphlet issued by a United States governmental agency spoke of the Dunbar-Hunter trek as a part of the Lewis-Clark expedition. A fairly recent novel of prodigious size and popularity devoted a couple of pages to a supposed visit of its hero to "Old William Dunbar." It was specifically dated three years after the Mississippi planter died! It pictured him as making statements concerning time and location of his trip to the hot springs which failed to coincide with his printed journal. Incidentally the fictional conversation made him appear a pseudo-scientist, sloppy in expression and probably careless in scientific observation (1). Quite the reverse must certainly have been true.
Sir William Dunbar was elected a member of the Philosophical Society on the recommendation of Thomas Jefferson. He rated a detailed chronicling of his achievements in the "Dictionary of American Biography" (Scribners). He was the first man of science to visit the "hot springs of the Washita", and together with Dr. George Hunter undertook to analyze them and map the course leading to them. As a prominent Mississippi planter he held a salient role in the development of indigo and cotton industries in the South. He was one of the first men to go in large-scale production of barrel staves in the lower Mississippi Valley. He was an inventor of no mean value to his country.
