Connections

The Ledbetter lineage reveals a long history of individuals committed to bettering Arkansas:

• • Joel Yowell Ledbetter (1911-1990), Ledbetter’s uncle, was a member of the Arkansas House of Representatives at the same time as Cal. Joel Ledbetter served as a state legislator from 1949 to 1978. During that time, Joel was able to get a bill passed that authorized the Revenue Department to buy land west of the Capitol for a new revenue building.

• • John Francis Boyle, Jr. (1874-1938) married Ledbetter’s grandmother, Snow Yowell Ledbetter, in 1922. Boyle belonged to one of the wealthiest families in Arkansas and was the founder of Boyle Realty Company in 1910. The company was housed in the first skyscraper in Little Rock, the 12-story Boyle Building on the corner of Main and Capital Street. In 1929, Boyle donated 281 acres of woodland to the city of Little Rock to create the Boyle Park, which was developed under President Roosevelt’s New Deal in the 1930s. The park was listed on the National Register in 1995. (See below for finding aid for the Boyle Realty Company public history project.)

• • Mary Brown “Brownie” Williams Ledbetter (1932-2010) graduated from Little Rock High School and attended Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia. She married Ledbetter on July 26, 1953, and they had three children, Grainger, Jeffery (deceased), and Snow. Brownie was a lifelong political activist who quit her job in order to serve as her husband’s campaign manager in his successful bid for the Arkansas General Assembly in 1967. This exhibit includes a guest-written article on Brownie. See below for a link to her collection at the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, a CALS department.

• • E. Grainger Williams (1911-2013) was Brownie’s uncle. Williams served on the Little Rock University’s (LRU) board of trustees in 1966 and was involved with the merger of LRU into the University of Arkansas System. He was selected in January 1959 to serve as president of the Little Rock Chamber of Commerce during the Little Rock School Crisis. See below for a link to his collection held by CAHC.