Freeman Owens and Max Aaronson, who lived in Pine Bluff, made significant contributions to the motion picture industry in its early years.

Shown operating a movie camera, Freeman Owens had served in the first world war as a combat cameraman. He changed the movie making business forever when he perfected the process of putting sound on film and later advanced cinematography technology when he designed and developed cameras and lenses used by Eastman-Kodak Company. Owens lived until the early 1980's. Brenda Hall has an excellent information web page about Freeman Owens at www.lineagetrakker.com/owens.htm.

Max Aaronson, pictured in a cowboy costume, is said to be the first great cowboy movie star. Known in show business as Broncho Billy Anderson, he formed one of the first production companies and starred in the early silent western picture The Great Train Robbery. He worked with Freeman Owens and the great movie stars of the time, three of whom are pictured in the background scenes, Wallace Beery, Peggy Shannon (also from Pine Bluff), and Charlie Chaplin, and including Gloria Swanson and Francis X. Bushman. Anderson retired in the early 1920's and lived until the late 1970's.