Counties, Cities, and Towns

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

Poke Bayou (Sharp County)

Poke Bayou creek begins near Sidney (Sharp County) at Big Spring in Izard County, flows through Sandtown (Independence County), and empties into the White River just above the bridge at Batesville (Independence County). Izard County historian Denny Elrod stated the following about the area’s history: “It was to this creek many of the early settlers came. Across the White River from Poke Bayou is Wolf Bayou which hosted an Indian camp and trading-post. The creek is picturesque near Sandtown as it flows along the foot of overhanging bluffs.” The original settlement at Batesville dates back to at least an 1814 trading post. When the first post office was established on the confluence of the bayou and the White River on …

Polk County

Polk County, located on the western edge of Arkansas, was the home of the comedy team of Lum and Abner, country singer T. Texas Tyler, and the controversial Commonwealth College. All of Polk County is in the Ouachita Mountains. Rich Mountain is the site of the historic Queen Wilhelmina State Park. Louisiana Purchase through Early Statehood White settlement in Polk County began about 1830. At that time the region was part of Sevier County. Polk County, named for President James K. Polk, was separated from Sevier County by the legislature on November 30, 1844. The 1860 census gave the Polk County population as 4,090 whites and 172 enslaved persons. Slavery was not common in Polk County because the mountainous terrain …

Pollard (Clay County)

Pollard is a city in Clay County, a few miles west of Piggott (Clay County) on U.S. Highway 62, in the foothills of Crowley’s Ridge. Pollard has witnessed the emergence and decline of the railroad and the timber industry; its focus in the twenty-first century is on local agriculture. Even before the Civil War, several families had settled in the hills adjacent to Crowley’s Ridge. A store was operated by a man remembered only as McElroy. New Hope Baptist Church was established before the war began. The Pollard family moved into the area after the war, with Jack Pollard opening the first general store in the area with partner Tom Irwin, and Bill Pollard obtaining a post office (which was …

Pope County

Pope County lies in northwestern Arkansas, halfway between the state capital of Little Rock (Pulaski County) and the cities of Fort Smith (Sebastian County) and Fayetteville (Washington County). The county is geographically diverse, with the Ozark National Forest covering most of the northern portion, while the southern portion is located in the Arkansas River Valley and includes the cities of Russellville and Atkins. The county also is home to Arkansas Tech University. Pre-European Exploration Several examples of prehistoric rock art, or pictographs, dating from the Mississippian Period and perhaps earlier are found in Pope County. Four sites containing such paintings are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, although to protect them from being disturbed, their precise location is …

Portia (Lawrence County)

The area that became the town of Portia in the late nineteenth century was home to some of Arkansas’s earliest settlers. Incorporated in 1886, the town, located on U.S. Highway 63, was once an important business center and timber-producing area. In the twenty-first century, however, its business district is declining. Native Americans were the first to settle the area around Portia, as evidenced by the many artifacts found along the banks of the nearby Spring and Black rivers. The first white settlers to the area probably arrived around 1800 as a result of two Spanish land grants, one of which included the land where the present town is located. In 1816, the General Land Office in Washington DC confirmed the …

Portland (Ashley County)

Portland is a small Delta town in Ashley County. It began as a settlement on Bayou Bartholomew and became a steamboat port, an agricultural center, and a railroad town. Louisiana Purchase through Early Statehood The earliest known settlers were John P. Fisher and William Brady, who were there in the 1830s. Fisher arrived by 1833, established a plantation, and constructed a two-story house on the west side of the bayou. A short distance down the bayou from Fisher’s house, a small settlement emerged on the opposite side. Steamboat captains called this stopping place “the port,” and upon establishment of a post office in 1857, it was named Portland. The bayou village consisted largely of mercantile stores that received their goods …

Possum Grape (Jackson County)

Possum Grape is an unincorporated community in Glaize Township located in the western panhandle of Jackson County near Highway 367, about eleven and a half miles southwest of Newport, the county seat, and about four and a half miles northeast of Bradford (White County). Possum Grape lies just west of the White River where the flat land meets the Ozark Mountains. Possum Grape is near the historic riverboat town of Grand Glaise (Jackson County). The community most likely received its unusual name from the wild grape called the possum grape, popular in the area for making jam and wine. A few locals say Possum Grape was named in 1954 following a disagreement on whether to call it “Possum” or “Grape.” …

Pottsville (Pope County)

Pottsville is sixty-nine miles northwest of Little Rock (Pulaski County) and six miles east of Russellville (Pope County), the county seat of Pope County. It has one of Pope County’s five school districts and serves as a bedroom community for both Little Rock and Russellville. Early Statehood through the Gilded Age Pottsville was founded by Kirkbride Potts who, in 1820 at age seventeen, traveled from New Jersey to Missouri and then to Arkansas with two slave families. Arriving in Arkansas in 1824, he became acquainted with two brothers, William Logan and Robert A. Logan, soon settling along with them in an area south of the Arkansas River in present-day Logan County. This area was ceded by the Choctaw tribe to …

Powhatan (Lawrence County)

Powhatan was the Lawrence County seat of government for almost ninety-five years. Founded in the early nineteenth century on the banks of the Black River, the town became the county’s most important port on the Black River. When bypassed by the railroad in the 1880s, the town began a steady decline and is best known today as the site of a historic state park. Louisiana Purchase through Early Statehood White settlers established themselves in the area at about the same time as the creation of the Missouri Territory county of Lawrence. One of the earliest, John Ficklin, settled on the west bank of the Black River and, by 1820, began operating a ferry. Within a few years, the crossing and …

Poyen (Grant County)

The town of Poyen is located in western Grant County. Home to one of the county’s two high schools, the town was formed as a result of railroads and the timber industry, neither of which has remained active in the town into the twenty-first century. Evidence of prehistoric dwellings in the region of Poyen has been found in archaeological sites marking the presence of native peoples in the area—including, most recently, the Caddo—through the millennia. Settlers of European descent were living in the region as early as 1815. The settlement was known in the nineteenth century as Cross Roads, since roads that crossed at that site led to Benton (Saline County), Camden (Ouachita County), Rockport (Hot Spring County), and Pine Bluff …