Landmark (Pulaski County)

Landmark is an unincorporated community on State Highway 367 in southern Pulaski County. It includes the older communities of Parkers and Iron Springs.

Union Township was formed in southwestern Pulaski County in 1859. At that time, the township was home to about 400 residents, including residents of East End, which was added to Saline County in 1873. Enoch Davis was the only landowner in the immediate vicinity of what is now Landmark when the township was created; he acquired his land patent in 1843. In 1860, Sampson Brewer also obtained land in the area. Other land patents claimed after the Civil War include those of Eli Cockman (1873), Joel Bunch (1873), William McAlister (1876), William Bunch (1882), Thomas Brewer (1883), and Peter Rump (1889).

Robert Parker had a store in the northern part of Union Township, and in 1878 he applied for a post office, which he wanted to call Bermuda. The post office was granted, but the name Bermuda was rejected; instead, the post office was called Parkers. The post office closed in 1906, and the Parkers and Iron Springs areas were made a rural postal route operated out of Little Rock (Pulaski County).

The name Landmark comes from a Baptist church that was organized in the area in 1885. Its founding members had been attending services at Pine Grove Church, a Baptist congregation in Sweet Home (Pulaski County). A dispute arose in the congregation about whether it could share its church building with Methodists and Presbyterians. Those who believed that such cooperation might cause the faithful to compromise their beliefs broke away from Pine Grove. Their choice of the name Landmark indicates their determination to hold steadily to the “old landmarks” of Baptist teachings. They were joined by members of the East Union Baptist congregation of Saline County after that church relocated its schoolhouse two miles farther south. The new congregation was accepted into the Pine Bluff Missionary Baptist Association in October 1885 and, from that time on, was known as Landmark Missionary Baptist Church (or the Missionary Baptist Church at Landmark). Squires Wright donated an acre of land, and a church was constructed from lumber. In 1896, Joel Bunch donated an acre of land for a cemetery.

Shortly after the Civil War, a public school was established for Union Township. The schoolhouse for the district is said to have been located at a number of different places over the years. One schoolhouse, used in 1877, was called Iron Springs School and was located near Lorance Creek in the southern part of the township. Another schoolhouse was later built on Hickory Hill east of the Landmark church. The church itself was used as a schoolhouse between 1918 and 1921. In 1920, the district was consolidated into a countywide district, and twenty-first-century Landmark remains part of the Pulaski County Special School District, with an elementary school located on Arch Street Pike in Landmark.

The Landmark area remained rural until the growth of the Greater Little Rock metropolitan area reached into the community in the 1950s. By 1987, Landmark had city utilities, a fire department, and a shopping center (called Landmark Shopping Center). There are three small lakes in the community—Willow Springs Lake, McQuire Lake, and Landmark Lake—and Willow Springs Water Park is on the northern border of Landmark. Businesses on Highway 367 in Landmark include auto parts stores, a hardware store, a pharmacy, and a restaurant. In addition to the Landmark Missionary Baptist Church, there is a Nazarene church and an Apostolic church. In 2010, the population of Landmark was 3,555, including 2,823 whites, 481 African Americans, and 247 Hispanics.

For additional information:
Baker, Russell Pierce. “The Beginnings of Landmark Church and Community.” Pulaski County Historical Review 34 (Fall 1986): 50–59.

Steven Teske
Butler Center for Arkansas Studies