Entries - County: Logan - Starting with M

Magazine (Logan County)

The city of Magazine is named for the tallest mountain of Arkansas, Mount Magazine, as it is located about seven miles west of that peak, at the intersection of State Highways 10 and 109. Established shortly after the end of the Civil War, Magazine was once a significant stop on the Rock Island Railroad and continues to flourish in the twenty-first century. Eli D. Hooper, a merchant from Illinois, moved to Arkansas in 1867 and chose the site of the present-day city of Magazine to establish a store around 1870. By 1883, the Arkansas Gazette was describing Magazine as a city of 200 residents with five successful stores and a Methodist Episcopal church then under construction. The newspaper correspondent noted that the …

McConnell, John Paul

John Paul McConnell, a native of Booneville (Logan County), was a West Point graduate and four-star general in the United States Air Force. He ended his career as the Air Force Chief of Staff. John McConnell was born in Booneville on February 7, 1908, to Samuel Paul McConnell, a local physician, and Desseau (Dorsey) McConnell. He had two younger brothers. He attended local schools, where he was not an exemplary student. He did, however, gain admission to Henderson-Brown College in Arkadelphia (Clark County) and graduated in 1927 with a degree in biology. McConnell attended Henderson-Brown after he lost an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point due to his young age. Over the next few years, McConnell …

Morrison Bluff (Logan County)

Morrison Bluff is a town in northern Logan County. It is on the south bank of the Arkansas River and was once a significant stopping point for keel boats and steamboats. According to local lore, a settler whose last name was Morrison traveled by keel boat around 1800 to the bluff that now bears his name and settled there. In its earlier years, it was often called Morrison’s Bluff. However, no evidence of a white settlement from that time exists. In 1820, Matthew Lyon, U.S. factor to the Cherokee Nation in Arkansas Territory, settled at the trading post in Spadra (Johnson County), on the north shore of the river. By the end of the decade, about a dozen families had …

Mount Magazine

Mount Magazine is the highest point in Arkansas at 2,753 feet above sea level and is the centerpiece of Mount Magazine State Park. The mountain is located between the communities of Waveland and Corley in Logan County. Mount Magazine has attracted national attention due to its population of rare butterflies such as the Diana fritillary; in fact, ninety-four of Arkansas’s 134 species of butterflies live on Mount Magazine. Native American tools such as projectile points and pottery shards have been found there. However, there is no evidence to suggest there were permanent Native American settlements on the mountain. French explorer Jean-Baptiste Bernard de La Harpe is believed to have been the first European to have seen Mount Magazine, when he …

Mount Magazine State Park

Mount Magazine State Park is located on the highest peak in Arkansas, Mount Magazine, which is a plateau rising out of the Arkansas River Valley to an elevation of 2,753 feet above sea level. The steepness of the elevation change, roughly 2,200 feet between its summit and the surrounding valleys, produces dramatic views that attract tourists. Native Americans did not live on the mountain year-round, instead settling at lower elevations near the Arkansas and Petit Jean rivers. However, six sites dating to the Archaic period, from 9,500 to 650 BC, have been recorded on Mount Magazine. Near the top of the mountain, in a bluff shelter, artifacts from the Woodland and Mississippian cultural periods have been found, consisting mostly of …