Maumelle Ordnance Works
The Maumelle Ordnance Works was established on six thousand acres of farmland acquired by the federal government in 1941. The land later became part of the city of Maumelle, Arkansas.
The facility was sold in 1959 to Perry Equipment Company. In December 1961 the land and buildings were acquired by the City of North Little Rock which hoped to erect an industrial park.
In 1966 5,300 acres of land, still awaiting redevelopment, was sold for $1.01 million to Arkansas insurance executive Jess P. Odom who formed the Maumelle Land Development Company with the help of the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. Maumelle incorporated as a city in 1985.
Several concrete bunkers from the ordnance works still stand in the city's Lake Willastein Park. Maumelle Ordnance Works Bunker No. 4, built in 1942, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The ammunition dumps name derives from a corruption of the original French appellation given to nearby cone-shaped Pinnacle Mountain: Mamelle (woman's breast).
References
- Kimberly Gillespie, "Jesse Paul Odom," Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, March 9, 1997.
- Letha Mills and H. K. Stewart, Greater Little Rock: A Contemporary Portrait (Chatsworth, CA: Windsor Publications, 1990).
