Eugene Pfeifer III
Eugene Pfeifer III was the owner of two of the twenty-seven acres comprising the current site of the Clinton Presidential Center. Mr. Pfeifer's land was condemned by the city of Little Rock in 1999 so that it could become the site for the Clinton Presidential Library.
In 2000 Pfeifer's attorneys sued the City of Little Rock, which had hoped to acquire his land for a sum of $400,000. Pfeifer argued in court briefs that the city had no authority to take private land unless the property was reserved for public parkland. He argued that the land in question was not to be taken for this purpose in an eminent domain proceeding, as it was not previously zoned for parks.
Pfeifer filed a court appeal against the City of Little Rock in May 2001. On November 1, 2001 the Arkansas Supreme Court ruled against Pfeifer in the matter of Pfeifer v. City of Little Rock.
Pfeifer was born and raised in the city of Little Rock. He later went to Yale on a Navy scholarship. After his time in the Navy, he attended Harvard Business School, where he received his M.B.A. He came back to Little Rock and went into the family business at the Mechanics Lumber Company and later formed his own real estate business. Pfeifer has been active in the Little Rock community, developing apartment complexes for single families and a Kroger store. Pfeifer bought the May Supply Company in 1992, the same year that Bill Clinton was elected President of the United States.
He is currently working on the NorthShore Business Park.
References
- "Clinton Library Gets Green Light," American Libraries, 32.11 (December 2001): 22-24.
- David Firestone, "A Fight Over Land for Library," New York Times,May 2, 2001.
- John Gibson and Bill O'Reilly, "Should Little Rock Subsidize Bill Clinton's Presidential Library?" O'Reilly Factor: Fox News, July 25, 2001.
