Our Arklahoma heritage: Yell County-born entrepreneur, political figure served as state Republican chair
- Dennis McCaslin
- 4 days ago
- 3 min read
William Leach Spicer was born on October 12, 1918, in Yell County, the only child of William Jacob Spicer, a Methodist minister who served for sixty-four years, and Ora Leach Spicer. His parents married in 1917 in Logan County.
Spicer’s paternal grandparents, Monroe Moses Spicer and Delia C. Cummings, are buried at Stony Point Cemetery in Logan County, anchoring the family to the western Arkansas countryside that includes Yell County.
.As his father moved among successive pastorates, Spicer spent his early years in Woodruff County and later in Wynne in Cross County.
He graduated from Booneville High School in 1936 and attended Hendrix College in Conway, where he earned a degree in economics in 1940.
Following graduation, Spicer entered the Civil Aeronautics Administration pilot training program.
During World War II, he served in the Naval Air Transport Service and took charge of NATS facilities in Australia, Guam, and Okinawa. He left the Naval Reserve as a lieutenant commander.
While stationed in Australia he married Freda Cowell of Sydney in 1946. The couple had three children, David, Michael, and Sarah.
After the war, Spicer returned to Arkansas and settled in Fort Smith, where he established himself as a successful businessman.
He owned a chain of drive-in movie theaters. The best-documented of these was the 71 Drive-In, which he opened on May 4, 1948, with a showing of the Abbott and Costello comedy “Buck Privates Come Home.”
Located near Jenny Lind Road and South Zero Street, the theater held about three hundred cars and operated one screen until it closed in the late 1960s and was later demolished.
Trade papers of the late 1940s identified Spicer as the owner responsible for its booking. He later expanded into retail by opening Arkansas’s first K-Mart store.
During these years in Fort Smith, he raised his children, managed his growing enterprises, and became active in local Republican circles.
In 1956 Spicer ran as the Republican candidate for the United States House of Representatives in Arkansas’s Third Congressional District against long-serving Democrat James W. Trimble. He received 38.7 percent of the vote, carrying Newton and Searcy counties and finishing competitively in Sebastian County.
The result encouraged his continued involvement in party organization. When state Republican chairman Ben C. Henley stepped down in 1962, Spicer sought the post with the public support of Winthrop Rockefeller, then the party’s national committeeman and principal financial backer.
Spicer won the election and named rival Henry M. Britt as general counsel in a bid for unity. Differences soon emerged. Spicer described himself as a conservative Republican opposed to socialism and liberal trends.
He and Britt expected the state committee to control federal patronage and insisted that Rockefeller’s organizational work operate through the official party structure. Rockefeller’s paid aides, particularly Everett Ham, worked with considerable independence and frequently clashed with the established regulars.
Spicer protested the arrangement in correspondence with Rockefeller and national Republican officials, citing disunity and favoritism. By early 1964 efforts were under way to remove him from the chairmanship. After the Republican National Convention that summer, Spicer resigned, stating that he would wash his hands of the whole matter.
He remained a firm supporter of Barry Goldwater even as Rockefeller prepared an unsuccessful 1964 race for governor against Orval Faubus.
With limited prospects in the Rockefeller-dominated state party, Spicer accepted an assignment arranged through United States Senator John McClellan to buy, sell, and manage property for the American Foreign Service.
His first marriage had ended by this time. In 1972 he met Foreign Service officer Cordelia Sanborn. They married the following year. Spicer continued in the Foreign Service until his retirement in 1976.
The couple lived for periods in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Dallas, Texas, before settling in Spokane, Washington. William Leach
Spicer died on March 14, 2005. He is buried in the Washington State Veterans Cemetery at Medical Lake, Washington.
