June 14, 1962
Author Bernie Babcock died at her home, which she called Journey’s End, on top of Petit Jean Mountain. Babcock was the first Arkansas woman to be included in Authors and Writers Who’s Who, and she founded the Museum of Natural History in Little Rock (Pulaski County) and was a founding member of the Arkansas Historical Society. She used her love of nature and history to repudiate noted polemicist H. L. Mencken’s derision of Arkansas. Babcock decided in 1927 to “show ’em by establishing a quality museum to belie the state’s reputation as a cultural backwater.” She first presented exhibits in a storefront on Main Street in downtown Little Rock.