Counties, Cities, and Towns

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

Arkansas Post

Arkansas Post was the first and most significant European establishment in Arkansas. In the colonial and early national periods, from 1686 to 1821, it served as the local governmental, military, and trade headquarters for the French, the Spanish, and finally the United States. In return for serving in René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle’s 1682 expedition, Henri de Tonti, a French officer born of Italian parents, received land and a trading concession at the juncture of the Arkansas and Mississippi rivers. In the summer of 1686, he arranged with the local Quapaw for Jean Couture, Jacques Cardinal, and four other Frenchmen to establish a trading post, where they would exchange French goods for beaver furs. They founded this first Arkansas Post …

Arlberg (Stone County)

Arlberg is a remote and sparsely populated community in Red River Township of Stone County on the west side of the middle fork of the Little Red River near the Van Buren County line. Arlberg is located two miles off Arkansas 110 in southwestern Stone County at the bottom of Angora Mountain. The Arlberg Arch, also known as Rainbow Rock, is a prominent natural monument in the area, located near the settlement on private property with limited access. In the twenty-first century, the area is mainly of historic interest and a place for hunting, fishing, and swimming. In the region where Arlberg was later built, Civil War guerrilla and outlaw Bill Dark terrorized the hill people until early 1863, when …

Ash Flat (Sharp County)

The northeastern Arkansas town of Ash Flat is a significant agricultural, medical, and retail district serving the needs of Sharp County since 1856. Louisiana Purchase through Early Statehood The area that would become Ash Flat was first settled by farmers in the 1820s, when Arkansas was still a territory. After the state was admitted to the Union in 1836, the Ash Flat area was located within Lawrence County. The community emerged as an important agricultural trading center, and in 1856, the town of Ash Flat was founded when a U.S. post office was built. A group of local residents, led by postmaster James McCord, chose the name Ash Flat because of a nearby grove of ash trees. Civil War through …

Ashdown (Little River County)

Ashdown is located in the far southwestern corner of Arkansas, about nineteen miles north of Texarkana (Miller County). The town lies among rich, fertile land, ideal for growing cotton, soybeans, rice, corn, wheat, and other crops. However, its greatest industry is timber. Ashdown is a part of Little River County, which was carved out of parts of Sevier and Hempstead counties in 1867. An election held in 1906 moved the county seat from Foreman (Little River County) to Ashdown. A new courthouse was built in Ashdown in 1907. Through the years, this courthouse has undergone many renovations and restorations. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976. During the Christmas season, the courthouse is covered with …

Ashley County

  Ashley County is located in southeast Arkansas and is part of both the Mississippi Alluvial and West Gulf Coastal plains. Soil in the eastern Delta region of the county is conducive to the cultivation of the great cash crops of the state: cotton, rice, and soybeans. The western part of the county, being mainly upland forests, developed into the city of Crossett in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, becoming home to one of the largest industrial enterprises in Arkansas: the Crossett Lumber Company, later to become Georgia-Pacific Corporation (GP). At its peak, GP owned some 800,000 acres in southeast Arkansas and northeast Louisiana, and Crossett billed itself as “The Forestry Capital of the South.” Ashley County—formed out …

Atkins (Pope County)

Atkins has long been identified as the pickle capital of Arkansas, although the pickle industry is only a part of its heritage now. The city grew up along the railroad, served as a center for river traffic, and is now situated along a major interstate. Nearby Lake Atkins is a popular fishing destination. Reconstruction through the Gilded Age Following the Civil War, Arkansas underwent a brief period of industrialization as capitalists, mostly from the North, took advantage of the opportunities to foster commercial growth in the devastated Southern states. One of these ventures was the Little Rock and Fort Smith Railroad. As the surveyed route followed the northern side of the Arkansas River from Little Rock (Pulaski County) toward points …