Henry Clay Draughon (1837–1901)

Henry Clay Draughon was a prominent businessman and civic booster in Arkansas, Texas, and Oklahoma following the Civil War. With business interests in the Texarkana (Miller County) area, he was also a central figure in the founding of the town that bore his name, Draughon (Cleveland County).

Henry Clay Draughon was born on December 1, 1837, in Waverly, Humphreys County, Tennessee, to William W. Draughon and Cassandra Murphy Draughon. His father died when he was about six years old, leaving his mother to care for him and his six siblings, one of which was James Harris Draughon. Their father had been the proprietor of the Waverly Inn, and Henry assisted his mother with this business until coming of age and beginning work in the grocery industry.

No mention or record is found of Draughon serving with either the Union or the Confederacy during the Civil War. Politically, he initially identified as a Whig and later as a Democrat. By 1860, he lived at Dresden in Weakley County, Tennessee, and in 1864, he married Dresden native Mary L. White. The couple resided in Weakley County through the late 1870s, when Draughon secured the appointment of postmaster at Ralston Station in 1873. By 1876, Draughon and his wife had five children. She died of yellow fever in 1878 and is buried in the yellow fever cemetery in Martin in Weakley County.

Draughon’s only brother, James, had relocated to Texarkana, Arkansas, by 1879, and this may have served as the motivation for Henry to relocate to Texarkana, though he lived in neighboring Bowie County, Texas. By this time, he had entered the lumber business, as had his brother.

Henry Draughon’s time in Texarkana was of shorter duration than his brother’s, and by January 1887, he had relocated to Kingsland (Cleveland County), where he continued in the lumber business. In November 1888, he married Ella Reed (or Read), the daughter of a Louisiana minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, but it is unknown where the wedding was held. The couple had no children of their own. Though no formal adoption records have been located, family tradition indicates that the couple adopted a child from the Cicero and Artemesia Bolin (or Bowlin) family. Artemesia had died around the time her last child was born in Cleveland County in 1891. The baby was named Henry Clay Draughon for the adoptive father and called Clay.

Besides continuing in the lumber business at Kingsland, Henry and James Draughon established the unincorporated community of Draughon around 1892, three miles northeast of Kingsland along the route of the St. Louis, Arkansas and Texas Railway (the Cotton Belt). There, the brothers established the Saline River Lumber Company along with its subsidiary, the Saline River Railway Company, which facilitated transportation of timber to their sawmills.

During the 1892 Arkansas Democratic State Convention, Henry Draughon was selected as a delegate from Cleveland County, along with other county residents such as E. P. Marks. In 1893, Draughon secured the appointment of postmaster at Draughon but resigned his appointment in 1894, at which time his brother James succeeded him.

Upon resigning his postmaster appointment, he relocated to Davis, Murray County, Oklahoma, where he also engaged in the lumber business, having established Draughon and Son Lumber Dealers in Davis with his son James. Though Henry Draughon no longer lived in the town that bore his name, newspaper accounts indicate that he continued his interests there along with his interests in Oklahoma. He also continued to be active in the Democratic Party in his new place of residence, where he was elected chairman of the Davis Democratic Club in June 1900. In January 1901, he was also listed among the board of directors of the Bank of Davis.

These positions were to be short-lived, however. In early March 1901, Draughon was reported to have been “slightly indisposed…but not sick enough to go to bed. He was taken suddenly ill…and died of congestion.” It is unknown whether the congestion was of the lungs or whether it may have been congestive heart failure. He died on March 5, 1901, at Davis and is buried there at Green Hill Cemetery. The funeral services were conducted at the Methodist church, and his burial was conducted by the Masons, of which he was a member.

For additional information:
Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Southern Arkansas. Chicago, Nashville, and St. Louis: Goodspeed Publishing Company, 1890. Online at https://archive.org/details/biographicalhist02good_0/page/n5/mode/2up (accessed February 27, 2026).

Cleveland County, Arkansas: Our History and Heritage. Rison, AR: Cleveland County Historical and Genealogical Society, 2006.

“Death of Col. H. C. Draughon.” The Davis News, March 7, 1901, p. 5.

A Historical Review of the Timber Industry in Cleveland County, Arkansas. Rison, AR: Cleveland County Historical Society, 2004.

Melissa A. Nesbitt
Texarkana, Arkansas