Background
Close was born in rural Robertsville near Morrilton in Conway County in north central Arkansas.
Close was born in rural Robertsville near Morrilton in Conway County in north central Arkansas.
The junior Close graduated from Bolton High School in Alexandria and Louisiana Technical University in Ruston, was an officer in the United States Air Force, and worked as data processing specialist in Alexandria, where he died in 2000 at the age of sixty-three.
Close was one of six children of a country physician, Edgar Close (1871-1948), originally from Carbondale in southern Illinois, and the former Mary Louvenia Patton (1873-1948), a native of Harrison in Boone County in northwestern Arkansas. Edgar and Mary Close married in 1891 and died in 1948 some eight months apart. In 1935, Carl Close married Sarah Ella Jordan (1907-1959) of Atkins in Pope County, Arkansas.
Close, Senior, subsequently married the former Ilie Jewel Willis (1907-1995), a native of Leesville in Vernon Parish in western Louisiana and the widow of Houston Doctorate. Greene.
Close served in the House during the administration of Governor Jimmie Davis alongside the two other at-large representatives from Rapides Parish, John R. Hunter, Junior., and C. H. "Sammy" Downs, later a state senator and a gubernatorial aide under John Jay McKeithen. Close became mayor halfway into an unexpired term.
He served with Commissioners Ben F. Bradford and West. H. Smith, who like Close was a former state representative. In 1948, Close attracted attention by discounting the debilitating effects of a drought in Central Louisiana.
Two weeks later, West. West. Thomas at the municipal airport seeded a cloud with forty pounds of dry ice.
Soon.85 of an inch of rainfall followed. Oddly, Close was succeeded in the House and as mayor by the same man, his fellow Democrat, West. George Bowdon, Junior., who held the mayoralty for sixteen years until his third-place finish in the 1969 Democratic primary. Editor Karst then defeated John K. Snyder for the position.
Close, Bowdon, Karst, and Karst"s successor, John K. Snyder, all served under the former city commission system, which was superseded in 1977 by the mayor-council home rule charter.Carroll East. Lanier in the spring of 1977 became the first mayor under the mayor-council government.
Close died in Alexandria at the age of seventy-three.