Cities and Towns

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Entry Category: Cities and Towns

Chant (Scott County)

Chant is a historical community in southern Scott County located along Highway 71. At various times known as Pleasant Valley and Texas, the town was established in 1906 near the Fourche La Fave River and Mill Creek between Boles and Y City. Agriculture has contributed significantly to the economy and way of life in Chant. Prior to European exploration, the area surrounding Chant was a wilderness. Several species of wildlife that no longer inhabit the area, such as elk and buffalo, were present throughout the region. Numerous archaeological sites and burial mounds are located along the banks of prominent waterways such as the Poteau River. Archaeological findings have provided evidence of early inhabitants dating to the Archaic, Woodland, and Mississippian …

Charleston (Franklin County)

Charleston is one of the two county seats of Franklin County, along with Ozark. Located south of the Arkansas River, it is twenty-five miles east of Fort Smith (Sebastian County), near the coal and gas fields of northwest Arkansas, and roughly a mile from one corner of Fort Chaffee. Charleston is most known for being the first community in a southern state to desegregate its school system following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas decision. Louisiana Purchase through Early Statehood Land south of the Arkansas River in western Arkansas was ceded to the United States by the Quapaw in 1818, granted to the Choctaw in 1820, and ceded back to the United States …

Charlotte (Independence County)

Charlotte is located just off Highway 25 (a.k.a. White Drive) on Old School Road near the banks of Dota Creek, twelve miles east-northeast of the county seat of Batesville (Independence County) and about five miles west of Cord (Independence County). Rich farmland lies to the south of Charlotte in the Big Bottom alluvial lands along the Black and White rivers. There is also high-quality grazing land for cattle in the Charlotte region. Charlotte is in the township of Dota, which includes three churches—Cedar Grove Church, Center Grove Church, and Pleasant Hill Church. In 1852, seventeen-year-old James Northcroft Churchill crossed the Mississippi River from Tennessee with his family, which settled in Walnut Grove (Independence County). A few years later, he opened …

Cherokee Village (Sharp and Fulton Counties)

A retirement community in northeastern Arkansas, Cherokee Village was founded in 1954. Started as a 2,400-acre summer resort in the vein of the Wahpeton Inn at Hardy (Sharp County), Cherokee Village became the state’s leading retirement community by the early 1960s. In 1948, West Memphis (Crittenden County) developer John A. Cooper Sr. purchased 400 acres along the south bank of the Spring River near the mouth of Otter Creek. Christening the property Otter Creek Ranch, Cooper used the land as a family summer retreat for several years. After purchasing additional land, Cooper formed the Cherokee Village Development Company in 1953, divided the property into lots, and constructed individual homes. When the property was formally opened in June 1955, Governor Orval …

Cherry Valley (Cross County)

The second-class city of Cherry Valley (Cross County) began as a small settlement near the junction of Cooper’s Creek and the Harrisburg Road sometime around the Civil War. The construction of north-south railroad tracks on the lowlands west of Crowley’s Ridge caused the town to move closer to the rails in the 1880s. An agriculturally rich area, Cherry Valley also capitalized on its position at the intersection of Arkansas State Highways 1 and 42. As of 2012, the town of 651 people primarily focuses on agriculture and related businesses. While the Casqui, Quapaw, Osage, and Cherokee, among others, probably traversed or claimed the Cherry Valley area over time, no actual signs of habitation exist. The Cherry Valley Mounds, located near …

Chester (Crawford County)

Surrounded by some of the higher peaks of the Ozark Mountains and by the Ozark National Forest, Chester is a town in northern Crawford County. Chester, once a timber town on the St. Louis–San Francisco Railway, later became a local tourist attraction. Interstate 49 passes near the town. Osage once traveled south to hunt and fish in northern Arkansas. The Ozark Mountains remained sparsely populated even after Arkansas became a state. The first settlers to own land at the future site of Chester were Solomon Rush and James Wright, both of whom purchased land grants from the federal government in 1854. However, a log cabin school had already been built in the area ten years earlier. Rush and Wright were …

Chickalah (Yell County)

Chickalah is an unincorporated community in the northeastern portion of Yell County located on Arkansas Highway 27, approximately nine miles west of Dardanelle (Yell County). The community is reportedly named after a man named Chikileh, a Cherokee leader who resided in the area in the late 1700s and early 1800s, making his home somewhere between Little and Big Chickalah creeks. In addition to the community and the creeks, Chickalah Mountain, a 925-foot peak, also bears this name. The peak is approximately twelve miles to the west of the Chickalah community near Spring Lake in the Ozark National Forest. Chickalah history is closely linked to the Harkey Valley (Yell County) and Sulphur Springs (Yell County) communities, both of which lie to the …

Chidester (Ouachita County)

Chidester is a second-class city located in northwestern Ouachita County. Like many Arkansas cities that emerged in the nineteenth century, Chidester is a result of the railroad construction that brought many changes to the state. Jefferson Smith acquired land in the area that would become Chidester in 1858 and established a farm; he added an additional parcel of land to the west of his farm in 1860. Moses K. Robertson also owned land adjacent to Smith’s farm. During the Civil War, Smith served as a sergeant in Company D of Arkansas’s Thirty-third Confederate infantry between 1862 and 1864. His unit was active at Prairie Grove (Washington County), in the defense of Little Rock (Pulaski County), and also in the Red …

Chinn Spring (Independence County)

A popular place for church and social picnics in the late 1800s and early 1900s, Chinn Spring is located on Cave Creek in Ashley Township on Chinn Spring Lane just east of Polk (or Poke) Bayou. The community of Chinn Spring emerged near the spring. The Will Chinn Cave is located in this vicinity. Batesville (Independence County), the county seat, is located about five miles south of Chinn Spring. Today, the spring is located on private property owned by a Batesville businessman. John French Chinn was born in 1810 in Fauquier County, Virginia, where, in 1832, he married Lydia Elizabeth Byrne. Following the death of Chinn’s parents, the two moved to Ruddell (Independence County) around 1847. On the 1860 census, …