Counties, Cities, and Towns

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Entry Category: Counties, Cities, and Towns - Starting with G

Grady (Lincoln County)

Grady is a second-class city in northern Lincoln County. Located near the Cummins Unit of the Arkansas Department of Correction, the city is bisected by Business Highway 65 but bypassed by the main highway, which runs from northwest Arkansas to southeast Arkansas, including such cities as Harrison (Boone County), Conway (Faulkner County), Little Rock (Pulaski County), Pine Bluff (Jefferson County), and Eudora (Chicot County). The first settlers of Grady included John S. Hall, who came with his family from South Carolina in 1846, and J. P. Williams, who immigrated to Arkansas from Ireland. The settlement was first called Hall’s Landing, but when Williams built the first store in the community and helped to establish a post office in 1881, the …

Graham (Independence County)

The historic community of Graham was located in Washington Township near where Lock and Dam No. 3 on the White River is today. It is on the Lock 3/Webber Chapel Road near Pilgrim Holler, about two miles north-northwest of Bethesda (Independence County). The University of Arkansas Livestock and Forestry Station is located on land that was once part of Graham. Moses Graham was a son-in-law of Abraham Ruddell, who helped establish Ruddell Mill, one of the first water-powered mills in the White River valley. Graham owned a farm at Bell Point on the White River opposite the mouth of Salado Creek. In 1815, he was appointed, along with the widow of John C. Luttig, as administrator of the Luttig estate. …

Grand Glaise (Jackson County)

aka: Grand Glaize (Jackson County)
During its heyday in the 1850s, the river port town of Grand Glaise (Jackson County), located on one of the highest points on the banks of the White River, was one of the largest towns in the area. Before the Civil War, the town, located about ten miles downriver from present-day Newport (Jackson County), served as an area commercial hub. The first white settler, Stith Tucker, arrived in the area in about 1817. By the late 1820s, a thriving river port named Grand Glaize had begun to develop. The first steamboat in the port, the Laurel, docked there in 1829. Further growth was prompted by the construction of a road in 1847 connecting the town to Searcy (White County). Several …

Grannis (Polk County)

Grannis is located on U.S. Highway 71 in southern Polk County. Like many of the cities of southwestern Arkansas, Grannis began as a railroad depot and grew with the development of the timber industry, turning later to the fruit and poultry industries. The heavily wooded slopes of the Ouachita Mountains were uninviting to the cotton farmers who first settled the area, and no landowners appear in records of the Grannis vicinity prior to 1893. The oldest monument to any human presence in the region is a tombstone on a hilltop that is now the location of the Grannis cemetery. The name of the traveler buried there has been erased by weather, but the year 1881 is still legible on the monument. A …

Grant County

Grant County, located in central Arkansas, is best known for its timber industry. Numerous logging operators are located in the county. The logs are transported to the International Paper Company mill in Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) and to sawmills in Leola (Grant County), Benton (Saline County), and nearby towns. The county’s largest community celebration, Timberfest, is held each October in Sheridan, the county seat. Other cities in the county include Grapevine, Prattsville, Poyen, and Tull. Sheridan has attracted some large manufacturing plants in the past forty years. Pre-European Exploration through Early Statehood The common occurrence of prehistoric archaeological sites in Grant County testify to the early presence of Native Americans, who dwelt in the area for thousands of years before …

Gravel Hill (Saline County)

aka: Ralph Bunche Community (Saline County)
aka: Southside (Saline County)
aka: Jack Rhinehart Community (Saline County)
aka: Hardscramble (Saline County)
The community first called Gravel Hill is one of the oldest historically African-American neighborhoods in Saline County. Its roots were planted when the Rhinehart and Canady families from Bauxite (Saline County) moved there in 1894. Gravel Hill later changed its name to Southside Community, and then, in 2002, the community was renamed again, this time in honor of Ralph J. Bunche, the first African American to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The community’s boundaries include Willow Street on the north, Hillside Drive on the south, Neeley Street on the east, and Market Street on the west. Additions that make-up the community include the Cloud, D. S. Moore, Gingles, Gravel Hill, Houston, South Hill, Stewart Heights, and Wilkerson. Notable residents …

Gravel Ridge (Pulaski County)

Gravel Ridge has been part of the city of Sherwood (Pulaski County) in northern Pulaski County since 2008. Before that time, Gravel Ridge was an unincorporated community surrounded by the cities of Sherwood, Jacksonville (Pulaski County), and North Little Rock (Pulaski County), as well as the unincorporated settlement of Gibson (Pulaski County) and the Little Rock Air Force Base. As its name suggests, Gravel Ridge is a section of high ground consisting largely of loose stones. The ridge is bounded by Bayou Meto on the north and Kellogg Creek on the south. Although silver, lead, and copper deposits have been found near Kellogg Creek in Gibson, no similar minerals have been unearthed in Gravel Ridge. Moreover, once development began in the middle …

Gravette (Benton County)

Gravette, located in Benton County, is a tight-knit community whose motto is “The Heart of Hometown America.” It was once referred to as the “Gate Community,” presumably in reference to its being a gateway to northwest Arkansas from Oklahoma, Kansas, and Missouri. Highway 71, now running through Bella Vista (Benton County), once passed through Gravette. Gravette, at the intersection of State Highways 59 and 72, is a conservative community with a population calculated at 2,325 in the 2010 census. The town has nineteen churches, three of which are over 100 years old. Nebo (now referred to as Old Town) in Chalk Valley was the original settlement of the community. The settlement was platted in the 1870s by Joseph P. Covey, who …

Gray (Independence County)

Gray is a historical community in Barren Township that is somewhat an offshoot of Hickory Valley (Independence County). All that is left of the community today is Gray’s Chapel Cemetery located north of Sandtown Road on Arrowhead Lane between Highway 167 (North St. Louis Street) and Cold Creek Lane. Barnett Creek and Barnett Cemetery are close by, as is Basket Creek. The first white settlers in the area were members of the Barnett family of North Carolina. John Barnett and his two sons—Elijah Barnett and a brother who went by A. Barnett—were living in the Arkansas Territory by the early 1820s. The area was first known as Jefferson after President Thomas Jefferson, who had made the Louisiana Purchase possible. By …

Graysonia (Clark County)

Graysonia of Clark County was one of numerous mill towns that sprang up in southern Arkansas during the twentieth century as a result of Arkansas’s growing timber industry. At its peak, Graysonia had one of the largest mills in the South and a thriving community. Today, few visible remainders of the town exist. In 1902, William Grayson and Nelson McLeod became principal stockholders in Arkadelphia Lumber Company. The company moved to a site near the Antoine River in 1907 because there were not enough resources in the area to continue at their former location. The new town was named Graysonia, in honor of the company’s president. The mill at Graysonia became one of the South’s largest due to the high …

Green Forest (Carroll County)

Green Forest, a second-class city in Carroll County, once aspired to be the county seat. Its checkered history includes a fraudulent gold mine and a popular reunion of Civil War veterans that turned into an annual community festival. The first known settler in the area was John Scott, described quaintly in the Goodspeed history of Carroll County as “a maker of sheep and cowbells.” Other settlers soon arrived in the area, which was then known as Scott’s Prairie. A Baptist church, built from logs, opened in 1854. The structure also served as a school. The next year, a post office was established, but it survived only a few months before closing. A Methodist church opened in 1857. In June 1861, a force of between …

Green Ridge (Scott County)

Green Ridge is an unincorporated community located in east-central Scott County along Highway 248. Green Ridge was established in 1872 near Prairie Creek. Agriculture and religion have traditionally been important to Green Ridge’s culture and economy. Prior to European exploration, Green Ridge was a wilderness lush with native vegetation and numerous species of wildlife—including buffalo and elk, which no longer inhabit the area. Archaeological evidence from the Archaic, Woodland, and Mississippian periods has been discovered along the Poteau River to the south. Additional archaeological evidence has indicated that the Caddo tribe had a strong presence along the Poteau River and other prominent waterways. Spanish explorer Hernando De Soto is credited with being the first European to explore the territory around …

Greenbrier (Faulkner County)

Greenbrier is a small second-class city in Faulkner County twelve miles north of Conway (Faulkner County) on Highway 65. It is home to Woolly Hollow State Park and Lake Bennett. Louisiana Purchase through Early Statehood Recorded white settlement of the area dates back to at least 1818, when four brothers named Wiley settled in the vicinity the East Fork of Cadron Creek about eight miles east of Greenbrier’s current location. In 1837, Jonathan Hardin, after whom Hardin Township is named, settled in the Cadron Valley area near the Wileys and eventually became an influential landowner. Other families who settled in the area included the Hubbards, who settled near the current site of Greenbrier’s public schools on Greenbrier Creek, and Henderson …

Greene County

For many years, Greene County’s main attraction, Crowley’s Ridge, was isolated because of swamplands on three sides: the St. Francis River bottoms to the north and east, and the Cache and Black River lowlands on the west. But drainage of the swampland led to growth in the area, and, in starting in the mid-twentieth century, many industries set up shop in the county. Its county seat of Paragould has been labeled as the safest city in Arkansas by the Arkansas Crime and Information Center. Pre-European Exploration Beginning about 18,000 years ago, the melt water from the Laurentide glacier that covered much of North America created a sluiceway that “washed out” much of the soft sedimentary soil of the old Gulf …

Greenland (Washington County)

Greenland is a second-class city in Washington County adjacent to Drake Field, a small airport that serves the Fayetteville (Washington County) area. Situated on U.S. Highway 71 and crossed by Interstate 49, Greenland is largely a residential community tied closely to the Fayetteville economy. The land on which Greenland stands was once hunting ground for the Osage, who traveled from Missouri to hunt. The same land was claimed at one time by Lovely County and was offered by the U.S. government to the Cherokee, who were later moved to Indian Territory (now the state of Oklahoma). The first recognized white landowners in the Greenland region were Sutherland Mayfield (1839), Alexander Scott (1839), and Jacob Yoes (1839). During the Civil War, the …

Greenock (Crittenden County)

Greenock was a promising settlement, active in the 1820s and 1830s, located near the banks of the Mississippi River in northeastern Arkansas. Before its demise, it was designated as the inaugural county seat of Crittenden County. Alexander Ferguson, his wife, and three sons (William, Horatio, and Allen) arrived in the Arkansas Territory in 1820 and settled in present-day Crittenden County near the banks of the Mississippi River. During the next few years, the family established its own homestead and began developing plans for the founding of a town. Horatio Ferguson provided fifty acres for the sum of one dollar, with John Fooy supplying an additional five acres. In 1827, William Ferguson, who was serving as justice of the peace and …