Counties, Cities, and Towns

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Taylor (Columbia County)

The city of Taylor is in southwestern Columbia County, roughly five miles north of Springhill, Louisiana, on U.S. Highway 371. Established by the railroad and by the timber industry, Taylor is now associated with recreational opportunities on nearby Lake Erling. The prehistoric Caddo lived in what would become Columbia County. The land was sparsely settled, though, both before and after the establishment of the county in 1852. However, Albert C. Taylor, a second-generation settler in Columbia County, had a business at the site of Taylor even before the construction of the Louisiana and Arkansas Railroad in the 1880s. The railroad, built by the Bodcaw Lumber Company, ran a spur eastward from the location of Taylor’s business around 1895, and a post office …

Texarkana (Miller County)

Texarkana is in the southwest corner of Arkansas at the junction of Interstate 30 and U.S. 59, 67, 71, and 82. Its two separate municipalities—Texarkana, Arkansas, and Texarkana, Texas—sometimes function as one city. The name is a composite of Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana (though Louisiana is thirty miles away). Texarkana is the Miller County seat, and is home to the only Federal Building and post office situated in two states. The city’s motto is “Twice as Nice.” Pre-European Exploration The area around Texarkana was inhabited at least 12,000 years ago. Several villages stood near the Red River, both upstream and downstream from contemporary Texarkana. The Red River Caddo were one of several regional Caddo groups (a Mississippian culture) who farmed …

The Pines (Scott County)

The Pines is an unincorporated community in central Scott County located along Business Highway 71, just south of the town of Waldron (Scott County). The agricultural and timber industries have been important in the surrounding area for many years. The area’s first inhabitants included natives from the Archaic, Woodland, and Mississippian periods. Archaeological evidence suggests that natives of the Caddo Nation made their homes along the Poteau River and other prominent waterways in the area. Thousands of archaeological sites can be found along the Fourche La Fave and Poteau River valleys nearby. The people of the Choctaw Nation were present in various areas of Scott County from 1820 to 1830, as a result of the Treaty of Doak’s Stand, which exchanged some Mississippi land for a large portion of …

Thida (Independence County)

Thida of Independence County is located about four miles from Oil Trough (Independence County), where Thida Road intersects with Departee Lane. Union Hill (Independence County) is three miles southwest of Thida, which was originally known as Liberty Hill. As early as 1800, French frontiersmen were in the White River bottoms hunting bear and smaller game, including deer. The lucrative trade in bear oil proved to be an incentive for settlement. Pioneer Hardin Hulsey arrived in 1817, and others soon followed. One of the bear hunters, John Jenkins Wyatt, gained a larger-than-life reputation in Thida folklore. Wyatt would make a commotion to lure a bear out of its den and then lie down and let the bear run over him as …

Thornton (Calhoun County)

The city of Thornton developed on the St. Louis and Southwestern Railway (often called the Cotton Belt) four miles southwest of Fordyce (Dallas County) in 1883. A center of the timber industry, it became, for a time, the largest city in Calhoun County. Evidence of prehistoric activity in the region that would become Calhoun County is seen in several Native American mounds located in the county. At the time of the Louisiana Purchase, the area was understood to belong to the Caddo, but their dwellings tended to be in river valleys to the south of the heavy pine forests of south-central Arkansas. White settlers did not make a permanent home in the pine forests until after the Civil War, when …

Thrace (Clark County)

The unincorporated community of Thrace is located in southern Clark County about five miles northeast of Whelen Springs (Clark County) and about seven miles southeast of Gurdon (Clark County). The earliest landowner in the area was land speculator John Skinner. He obtained 3,200 acres of land with a federal land patent on August 1, 1837. Skinner either alone or with partners obtained a total of more than 13,000 acres of land on that date in Clark County. Skinner eventually resold all of the land in the Thrace area. The Thrace post office operated during two periods. It originally opened on December 3, 1884, with Mary Keys as the postmistress. Claiborne March took the postmaster position on October 2, 1885, before …

Three Brothers (Baxter County)

Three Brothers is a populated unincorporated community in Logan Township on Highway 5 about ten miles north-northwest of Mountain Home (Baxter County), the county seat. It is about eight miles north-northeast of Bull Shoals. Three Brothers is approximately six miles south of the Missouri state line. Nearby Norfork and Bull Shoals lakes and the surrounding countryside, including Mountain Home, attract tourists and fish and game enthusiasts. Being located on a main highway through this section of the Ozark Mountains has proven helpful for the local economy of the declining community of Three Brothers, which continues to be somewhat of an appendage to Mountain Home. Highway 5 through the area has occasionally been closed due to mud slides. The area where …

Tillar (Drew and Desha Counties)

Located on Highway 65 near Bayou Bartholomew, the second-class city of Tillar stands mostly in Drew County, although its southeast corner is in Desha County. Built on the railroad in the 1870s, the small city is a minor agricultural center for neighboring portions of Drew and Desha counties. Evidence of prehistoric residents of the Tillar area was found in an Indian mound excavated by Edward Palmer in 1882. His discoveries included nineteen whole ceramic pots and pieces of other pots, as well as mussel shell pieces, a tortoise shell, and fragments of a deer antler. The original owners of these items are thought to be ancestors of the Tunica, although identification is not certain. At the time of European exploration, …

Timbo (Stone County)

Originally part of the Locust Grove community, Timbo is located on Highway 66 thirteen miles west of Mountain View, the county seat of Stone County. During the Civil War, it served as one of the induction centers for Searcy County. At the time, the area was also a hotbed of wartime dissention, with the Arkansas Peace Society active in the region. Timbo is today perhaps most well known for its association with musician Jimmy Driftwood. The pioneers to the area first settled in Campbell, today almost a ghost town, in Searcy County, sixteen miles southwest of Timbo. The Campbell brothers—Wash, John, James, Alex, and David—along with their families from Tennessee, were the first white settlers in the area, having followed …

Tinsman (Calhoun County)

Tinsman is a town in eastern Calhoun County. Once important as a junction for the Rock Island Railroad, the town has faded considerably since the decline of the railroad. Until the arrival of European and American settlers, the forested hills of Calhoun County were only sparsely settled, although the Caddo lived in the area perhaps as much as 5,000 years ago. Covered with pine, oak, cypress, red gum, and hickory trees, the region was not welcoming to early settlers, although some did arrive in the 1840s and 1850s, mostly from Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee. Calhoun County was largely untouched by the Civil War, although roughly 400 men from the county fought in the war, most of them for the Confederacy. Late …

Tintop (Scott County)

Tintop (sometimes rendered Tin Top) is an unincorporated community located in southwestern Scott County. Tintop was established in 1904 at the base of Horseshoe Mountain between Dry Creek and Clear Fork Creek. Agriculture and timber have contributed to the economy and way of life in the area. Prior to European exploration, the area surrounding Tintop 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 Fourche La Fave and Poteau rivers. Archaeological findings have provided evidence of early inhabitants dating to the Archaic, Woodland, and Mississippian periods. Further archaeological evidence …

Toledo (Cleveland County)

The small farming community of Toledo is located on State Highway 35, approximately three miles southeast of Rison (Cleveland County). Established in the late 1800s, it was selected as the county seat of what was then called Dorsey County and continued as the seat of government when the county’s name was changed in 1885 to Cleveland County to honor President Grover Cleveland. With the creation of Dorsey County on April 17, 1873, a board of commissioners was appointed to select a site for the county government. They chose a site where a post office had been established in 1872, Pleasant Ridge. Shortly after the designation was made, the name was changed to Toledo, with a post office name change soon …

Tollette (Howard County)

Tollette is a largely African-American town on State Highway 355 in southwestern Howard County. In the 2010 census, the population of Tollette consisted of 232 African Americans, seven whites, and one Native American. Caddo lived in the area long before the first European explorers arrived. The Caddo were eventually moved to Indian Territory, now the state of Oklahoma. In 1837, Robert Baber and Matthew Gray both acquired land in the area around what would become Tollette. Baber had arrived in Hempstead County in about 1824; his son Daniel would serve in the Confederate army during the Civil War, and afterward Daniel Baber helped found the town of Athens (Howard County). Tollette is named for the two oldest sons of Stephen …

Tomato (Mississippi County)

The small, unincorporated farming community of Tomato in Mississippi County, located near the Mississippi River in eastern Arkansas, was once touted as being home to the nation’s smallest post office and has been called Arkansas’s only “portable town.” The small but busy river community was established in the late 1800s on high ground inside an 1836 river levee. Cotton farmers were attracted to the area due to the rich soil created by regular flooding. Little information exists regarding the founding of the town; however, a post office was established in 1898. At the town’s peak in the early 1900s, it consisted of three stores, three churches, a schoolhouse, and residential homes. In the early days the town was called Canadian …

Tomberlin (Lonoke County)

aka: Tomberlins
The community of Tomberlin (a.k.a. Tomberlins) is the southernmost settlement in Lonoke County. It is on the edge of the prairie near the Delta’s origin, where the land is fertile and cotton was king in the early years. Tomberlin is twenty-two miles south of Lonoke (Lonoke County) and about the same distance from Pine Bluff (Jefferson County). The community was named for James E. Tomberlin, who arrived there after the Civil War. Nothing is known of Tomberlin’s family history. Records show that in 1869 Tomberlin paid taxes on 701 acres in Prairie County, some of which became Lonoke County. He rented land there and employed sharecroppers. He established a commissary to supply his tenants, and this store became known as …

Tontitown (Washington County)

Tontitown was founded in 1898 by a group of Italian Catholic immigrants led by their priest, Father Pietro Bandini. The town is named in honor of Henri de Tonti, the Italian who helped René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle explore the Mississippi River and later founded Arkansas Post in 1686. Post Reconstruction through the Gilded Age The Tontitown Italians began their lives in America as tenant farmers on the south Arkansas plantation of Sunnyside (Chicot County). Groups from northern and central Italy arrived there in 1895 and 1897 and soon found themselves battling poor sanitation, disease, unfamiliar farming methods, language barriers, and contract disputes. In early 1898, some forty families chose to follow Father Bandini, the plantation’s resident priest, to …