Entries - County: Randolph - Starting with P

Union troops in southeastern Missouri regularly ran scouting expeditions in that area and into northeastern Arkansas in search of Confederate troops and guerrillas; the scout from Patterson, Missouri, to Cherokee Bay (Randolph County) in Arkansas was typical of such operations. Captain Abijah Johns of Company A, Third Missouri State Militia Cavalry (US), led a small force of troopers from Patterson on January 23, 1864, toward Cherokee Bay, a term used loosely by Union commanders to describe the area between the Black and Current rivers in Randolph County. At some point, the Third Missouri cavalrymen—including some described as “swamp scouts”—ran into a party of twenty men led by Colonel Timothy Reeves of the Fifteenth Missouri Cavalry (CS), a Baptist preacher whose …

Philip Hall Likes Me. I Reckon Maybe. is a juvenile novel published in 1974, written by Bette Evensky Greene and illustrated by Charles Lilly. It won a Newbery Honor Award in 1975, and, in 1977, it was the runner-up for the Charlie May Simon Children’s Book Award. Greene was born in Memphis, Tennessee, on June 28, 1934, and spent much of her childhood in Parkin (Cross County), where her parents owned a dry-goods store; she clerked there as she grew older. Her family moved to Memphis when she was thirteen, but she returned to Arkansas for summer camp at Hardy (Sharp County), passing through Pocahontas (Randolph County) on the way. While her first book, Summer of My German Soldier (1973), …

The April 1, 1862, Skirmish at Pitman’s Ferry took place as Brigadier General Frederick Steele moved his division of the Union army from southeastern Missouri to join Major General Samuel Curtis’s Army of the Southwest in Arkansas. On March 19, 1862, Steele ordered Colonel William P. Carlin to establish a base at Doniphan, Missouri, or Pitman’s Ferry on the Current River to gather supplies for his division as it moved into Arkansas. Pitman’s Ferry, located on the Southwest Trail, was a major route for travel between Arkansas and Missouri and would be the site of four skirmishes in 1862—on April 1, July 20, October 27, and November 25. Carlin led his own Thirty-eighth Illinois Infantry along with the Twenty-first Illinois …

On October 27, 1862, Union Colonel William Dewey surprised Confederate Colonel John Q. Burbridge’s Brigade at Pitman’s Ferry (Randolph County). Dewey’s rapid combined-arms attack temporarily won control of the ferry and allowed for the reconnoitering of the Pocahontas (Randolph County) area. This was the last major Civil War engagement in Randolph County. The location of Pitman’s Ferry on the Current River made it an important possession for the antagonists in Arkansas. Settled by William Hix about 1803, the location served as the key entry point from Missouri on the Southwest Trail (also called the Military Road, Congress Road, or the Natchitoches Trace) into northeast Arkansas. Purchased by Dr. Peyton Robinson Pitman before Arkansas statehood, Pitman’s Ferry had a strategic importance …

Begun as a river port significant to commerce, Pocahontas joins alluvial Delta bottom with the Ozark foothills. The town has served as Randolph County’s only county seat and continues as a strategic educational and agricultural center in the state. European Exploration and Settlement The first residents of the area arrived roughly 12,000 years ago. During the time of European exploration, what would become Randolph County was part of the hunting territory of the Osage, who lived in southern Missouri. French hunters probably crossed the area in the eighteenth century and established temporary camps, but no permanent settlements were developed until after the Osage surrendered their rights to the land in 1808. The earliest documented settler was Ransom S. Bettis, who …

The Pocahontas Commercial Historic District is the historic downtown area of Pocahontas (Randolph County). This area has been the seat of local and county government, as well its commercial center, since the formation of the county in 1836. The commercial district is roughly bounded by Thomasville, Jordan, Broadway, and Vance streets. The downtown area comprises numerous historic buildings, including two courthouses, a service garage, a theater, a Works Progress Administration (WPA) post office, and the former city hall and city-function buildings, as well as other buildings currently utilized for modern business purposes. Both of the courthouses and the WPA post office are individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The center of the commercial district is dominated by …

The historic Pocahontas Post Office is a one-story, brick-masonry building built between 1936 and 1937. Located a few blocks away from the historic downtown square of Pocahontas (Randolph County), this building served as the post office for the area until 1986, when post office operations moved to new facilities. The old post office was built in the Art Deco style, which was a common form of architecture for Works Progress Administration (WPA) post offices at that time. This style of architecture is represented by vertical pilasters and brick segments with stylized ornamental decorations within the pilasters. Pocahontas got its first post office after the town was voted the Randolph County seat in 1835. By 1936, that original post office building …