County: Columbia - Starting with E

Emerson is a town on U.S. Highway 79 in southern Columbia County. It is located six miles north of the Arkansas-Louisiana border. Caddo lived in southern Arkansas when the land was acquired by the United States in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. The Caddo eventually were removed from Arkansas Territory by treaty, and white settlers began claiming land. The plats of land on which Emerson would be built were purchased by Josiah Daily and Anthony Younger in 1859 and by Moses Moore in 1860. At the end of the nineteenth century, the Bodcaw Lumber Company built the Louisiana and Arkansas Railroad to move timber to its sawmills. At that time, Reuben Logan Emerson owned land adjacent to land owned by …

From 1990 to 2023, Emerson (Columbia County) hosted an annual gathering for fans of purple hull peas. The PurpleHull Pea Festival & World Championship Rotary Tiller Race was held the last Friday and Saturday in June on and near the grounds of Emerson High School. In addition to the tiller race, the festival encompassed numerous activities related to purple hull peas, some of which included the World Cup PurpleHull Pea Shelling Competition, the Great PurpleHull Peas & Cornbread Cook Off, the Senior Walk for World Peas, and the presentation of the Emerson PurpleHull Pea Farmer of the Year award. Both the festival and the tiller race began as the idea of Glen Eades of Brister (Columbia County). In 1990, Eades …