Entries - County: Mississippi - Starting with L

Leachville of Mississippi County was once known as “The Cleanest Town on Buffalo Island, Where Agriculture and Industry Meet.” Established about 1896, Leachville is thirty miles east of Jonesboro (Craighead County) and twenty-eight miles west of Blytheville (Mississippi County). Leachville’s founding fathers were James Wiseman Honnoll, Joshua Gilbert Leach, and Sam McNamee of Holly Springs, Mississippi. Leach and Honnoll incorporated the Leach-McNamee Land Development Company on March 15, 1898. Honnoll named the town in honor of Leach. Although founded in 1896, the town was not incorporated until February 2, 1916. The Gilded Age through Early Twentieth Century The late nineteenth century brought business and industry to the settlement. In 1898, the Cannon family, which had moved to Leachville early on, …

Lee Wilson & Company, a diversified agribusiness headquartered in Wilson (Mississippi County), was founded by Robert E. Lee Wilson in 1885 and remained family owned and operated for approximately 125 years. Robert E. Lee Wilson was born in 1865 in Mississippi County but moved with his mother to Memphis, Tennessee, at the age of seven after the sudden death of his father. He was orphaned at the age of thirteen when his mother died in a yellow fever epidemic; he was sent to live with an uncle. While attending school in Covington, Tennessee, he was introduced to land surveying and, through this, developed an eye for land. Wilson returned to Arkansas at the age of fifteen and worked as a …

Lois Lenski wrote and illustrated children’s books throughout her career of more than fifty years. She visited parts of Mississippi County while researching her three books about Arkansas children: Cotton in My Sack, Houseboat Girl, and We Live by the River. Lois Lenski was born the fourth of five children in Springfield, Ohio, on October 14, 1893. Her father, Richard, was a Prussian immigrant and a Lutheran clergyman; her mother, Marietta, was a schoolteacher. Lenski attended grade school in Anna, Ohio, and rode a train each day to Sidney, Ohio, to attend high school. After graduating from Ohio State University in 1915 with a BS in education and a teaching certificate, Lenski studied at the Arts Students League in New …

The Little River starts in the St. Francis Mountains west of Cape Girardeau, Missouri, and flows southward through the Mississippi and Morehouse Lowland between Crowley’s Ridge to the west and Sikeston Ridge to the east. After crossing the Missouri-Arkansas state line, it enters the Big Lake National Wildlife Refuge near Manila (Mississippi County). Running a length of 148 miles, the Little River is a tributary of the St. Francis River, joining it at Marked Tree (Poinsett County). Before the New Madrid Earthquakes of 1811–1812, the Little River was a swift, free-flowing stream. In the twenty-first century, it is not much more than a series of stagnant mud holes due to the channeling and ditching of the Little River Drainage District. …

Throughout the Civil War, dangerous bands of guerrillas roamed throughout Mississippi County, Arkansas, and the adjacent Missouri counties of Dunklin and Pemiscot, terrorizing citizens with looting, murder, and other forms of lawlessness. Due to the rampant activities of these renegades, composed primarily of Confederate deserters and civilian sympathizers, commerce in affected communities came to a standstill. As part of a concerted effort by Union military commanders to suppress these activities, Captain Valentine Preuitt received orders on April 5, 1864, from Major John W. Rabb (Second Missouri Artillery, Commanding at New Madrid, Missouri) to lead a scouting expedition from New Madrid into the aforementioned districts. Departing camp in the early hours of April 6, Capt. Preuitt’s expedition, comprising Companies G, K, …

Edgar Harold Lloyd was awarded the Medal of Honor for service above and beyond the call of duty during World War II. The Medal of Honor is the highest award presented to an individual serving in the United States armed services for valor against an enemy force. Harold Lloyd was born on February 28, 1922, in Yarbro (Mississippi County) to Edgar Bentley Lloyd and Lillian Lindley Lloyd, who were farmers. He had one sibling, a sister named Marvin Emma. Lloyd graduated from Blytheville High School in 1939 and then attended the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County). There, he was president of the Associated Students and active in fraternity and other campus activities. He was captain of Company …

The January 26, 1921, lynching of Henry Lowery stands out for its barbarism, as well as the national and international attention it received, happening at a time when the U.S. Congress was debating anti-lynching legislation. The brutal murder of Lowery was used in a national campaign to pass such legislation, though this proved unsuccessful. Henry Lowery was an African-American tenant farmer in Mississippi County. Lowery is reported to have disputed a matter of payment with a local planter named O. T. Craig, whose land was adjacent to that of Lee Wilson, owner of the largest cotton plantation in the South. On Christmas Day of 1920, Lowery, forty years old at the time, became intoxicated, according to reports, and decided to …

Latitude and Longitude:        35º45’22″N 089º55’41″W Elevation:                                  246 feet Area:                                           0.85 square miles (2020 Census) Population:                               942 (2020 Census) Incorporation Date:                June 3, 1897 Historical Population per the U.S. Census: The city of Luxora is located in Mississippi County at the junction of U.S. Highway 61 and Arkansas State Highway 158, twelve miles south of Blytheville (Mississippi County) and five miles north of Osceola …