Arkansas gets a lot right, but like any place, we have our own fails as well. And when we fail, Arkansans, it's time to pick ourselves up and laugh. We're good-natured people. We can do that. We’ve scoured the internet to bring you the most hilarious Arkansas fails we could find. Here’s our top 11:
1. Fort Smith recently unveiled a statue of General William O. Darby—with a misspelling of the word “American” on the plaque that explains who William O. Darby is.
2. A Hot Springs man thought he’d found a cannonball. As people do, he took the “cannonball” home. Well, it turned out to be a Civil War-era landmine and the incident required the evacuation of 20 homes.
3. Arkansas rejected a proposal seeking to legalize marijuana—because of spelling errors in the text of the document.
4. In 2007, the Arkansas legislature passed a law that made it legal for toddlers to marry, as long as they had parental consent.
We know, little guy, that is pretty weird. Thankfully, they realized their mistake and overturned the law in 2008.
5. “All laws and parts of laws, and particularly Act 311 of the Acts of 1941, are hereby repealed.”
—the 1945 Arkansas legislature
That's right, the Arkansas legislature once repealed all laws.
6. In 2013, Governor Beebe’s name was misspelled on the original Marshal’s Museum Hall of Honor cornerstone in Fort Smith.
It has since been corrected.
7. The city of Lonoke was originally called Lone Oak, until a misspelling in a newspaper dubbed it “Lonoak.” I guess they liked it as one word, because the name of the town eventually became the further misspelling, “Lonoke.”
Way to run with it, Lonoke.
8. In 2015, authorities in Hot Springs tried to round up a herd of buffalo that had escaped in the area. They almost got them all, but they failed to catch two, so two buffalo just roamed the streets of Hot Springs for awhile.
It was twenty days before the last one was found.
9. In 2012, a man tried to rob a Fort Smith convenience store—with a pair of hot dog tongs.
"Give me all the cash or I'll....pinch your arm really hard."
10. An 18-year-old man in Springdale was arrested for filling a large water cup from a fast food place with coke. Actually, he was probably arrested for the part where he refused to give it back or apologize and hit the store manager with his car.
Time to chill indeed.
11. In 2013, a Jonesboro man was planning to have one of his former employees murdered. While he was talking to the person he had hired to do the deed, he butt-dialed the guy he wanted to murder, who then overheard his ex-boss giving a contract killer his home address.
Imagine receiving a call from your former boss only to hear him tell someone, "I don't care if you have to burn [YOUR NAME GOES HERE]'s house to the ground with him in it."
Bonus:
To lift our spirits further, here’s a photographic record of an Arkansas win. Whoever named this Little Rock church is awesome:
Do you know some other hilarious Arkansas fails? Post them in the comments so we can all laugh with you!
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