County: Chicot - Starting with C

Chicot County is the southeasternmost county in Arkansas. It is bounded by Louisiana to the south and the Mississippi River to the east. The county is located in the heart of the Mississippi Delta; therefore, it is a prime location for agriculture, with some of the richest soils in the state. Because of this, the county continues to have strong ties to the land and is consistently one of the largest producers of cotton in Arkansas. With Lake Chicot as the largest natural lake in Arkansas and the largest oxbow lake in North America, the county provides residents and tourists with ample opportunities for year-round fishing. According to the 2020 Census, the county had a population of 10,208, with three …

The Chicot County Courthouse is a 1950s–era Art Deco building incorporating many Corporate or Government Moderne features. It sits at 108 Main Street in Lake Village (Chicot County). Lake Village was chosen as the seat of local government in 1857, the third city to formally hold the title of county seat since the county was formed from a part Arkansas County in 1823. Both Villemont and Columbia, the former seats, were overtaken by the Mississippi River, and a third location, Masona, was temporary, with no buildings or permanent fixtures ever put in place during its two-year stint as county seat. Lake Village was the fourth and final move for local officials. The land on which the courthouse and county jail …

According to the Arkansas Gazette, an African American identified only as Bunch was hanged in Chicot County in August 1836. The incident was also reported in a number of newspapers across the United States. According to the Gazette, Bunch, perhaps a member of the free black population in Chicot County, attempted to vote, but the judges turned him back because he was black. Bunch “took umbrage” at this and “resorted to violent measures.” In the midst of the fracas that followed, one Dr. Webb, “a highly respectable citizen,” was stabbed multiple times and was expected to die. Local citizens were so incensed that they promptly hanged Bunch. The Indiana American, quoting the Louisville Journal, reported that Bunch had a copy …

In late 1871, Chicot County was taken over by several hundred African Americans, led by state legislator and county judge James W. Mason. The murder of African American lawyer Wathal (sometimes spelled as Walthall) Wynn prompted the area’s black citizens to kill the men jailed for their role in the murder and take over the area. Many white residents fled, escaping by steamboat to Memphis, Tennessee, and other nearby river towns. Like the Black Hawk War that occurred in Mississippi County the following year, the situation arose, in part, from a reaction to the radical wing of the Republican Party exercising its rightful power in choosing local officials. Both Mississippi and Chicot counties’ populations were primarily black, with African Americans outnumbering …

Columbia, founded during the late territorial period, was a busy settlement located on the western bank of the Mississippi River in extreme southeastern Arkansas. The one-time Chicot County seat was an important shipping point for local cotton plantations and the site of a branch of the Arkansas Real Estate Bank. Over time, the banks of the river slowly eroded the town site until it was eventually washed away. When Chicot County was established on October 25, 1823, a board of commissioners selected the settlement of Villemont as the county seat. In 1833, as the county boundaries changed, the seat of government was removed to a more central location a few miles upriver at Columbia. The added importance of being the …

The February 19, 1863, skirmish at Cypress Bend near present-day Rohwer (Desha County) was part of a Union expedition against Confederate forces in southern Arkansas and around Greeneville, Mississippi. Brigadier General Stephen G. Burbridge led a U.S. force from the Union base at Young’s Point, Louisiana, on February 14, 1863, heading toward Greeneville, Mississippi, aboard the transport Fanny Bullitt. After bad road conditions around the Mississippi town impeded their pursuit of Confederate forces near Greeneville, they reembarked on their transport on February 18 and headed toward Cypress Bend in Chicot County, where Captain J. H. Pratt’s battery of Parson’s Texas Cavalry Brigade had fired on Federal shipping on the Mississippi River a few days before. On the morning of February …

Confederate Missourians under Colonel John B. Clark skirmished with Union gunboats at Cypress Bend in southeastern Arkansas on June 20 and 21, 1863. The USS Juliet was returning to its base after escorting a pair of steamboats up the Mississippi River on June 20, 1863, when it suffered engine damage and had to set anchor at Cypress Bend near the Newman plantation in Chicot County. A party of six men was sent to shore to seek fresh vegetables for the gunboat. The men had been ashore for only a few minutes when several of Colonel John B. Clark’s Missourians charged toward them from a house about an eighth of a mile away, firing as they approached. Acting Lieutenant Ed Shaw …