Counties, Cities, and Towns

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

Bluff Ridge (Scott County)

Bluff Ridge is a historical community located north of Highway 378 in northern Scott County. Bluff Ridge was established just north of Poteau Mountain and two miles west of the Petit Jean River. Agriculture and timber have been important to the area. Prior to European exploration, Bluff 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 throughout the area. Additional evidence has indicated that the Caddo tribe had a strong presence along the Petit Jean River and other prominent waterways. Throughout the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, French trappers and explorers traveled west from the Arkansas …

Blytheville (Mississippi County)

Blytheville is located in the low, flat Mississippi Delta on land that was inhabited by Native Americans for thousands of years. Two prominent natural forces shape Blytheville. The first is the New Madrid Seismic Zone. Blytheville, which is prone to tremors, lies near the epicenters of the record-setting New Madrid Earthquakes of 1811–1812. Almost two centuries later, abundant evidence of these quakes is still visible in the Blytheville area. The second shaping force is the Mississippi River. The river’s impact includes flooding (such as in 1882–83 and the Flood of 1927), the creation of fertile farming soil, and providing waterway transportation for industry. Early Statehood through the Gilded Age Blytheville, originally known as Blythesville, is named for the Reverend Henry …

Bodcaw (Nevada County)

Bodcaw is a town in southern Nevada County on State Highway 53, about sixteen miles south of Prescott (Nevada County). The name Bodcaw was first given to a creek in Nevada County. It appears on a map from 1824, spelled Bodcau. The name is thought to be either from the Choctaw word “bokko,” meaning hillock or mound, or a misreading of the French name Bodeau or Badeau. The Caddo, who lived in the Red River valley, used to hunt as far north as Bodcaw. Among the first white settlers to claim land in the area were Jenkins Scott in 1855, David Montgomery in 1860, and Robert Berry in 1861. A post office opened in Bodcaw in 1878, and a stagecoach …

Boles (Scott County)

Boles is an unincorporated community located along Highway 71, nine miles south of Waldron (Scott County). Boles was established in the mid-nineteenth century along the Fourche La Fave River, which runs through the Fourche River Valley of the Ouachita Mountains. The first inhabitants of the area arrived thousands of years before Europeans, leaving archaeological evidence from the Archaic, Woodland, and Mississippian periods. The Caddo tribe had a strong presence along the Fourche Le Fave River and other prominent waterways. Burial grounds have also been discovered in the southern portion of Scott County near Boles. Throughout the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, French trappers and explorers likely traveled the waters of the Petit Jean, Fourche La Fave, and Poteau rivers …

Bolivar (Poinsett County)

Bolivar is an example of one of the many small Arkansas towns that briefly rose to local prominence. Located on the slope of Crowley’s Ridge some three miles north of present-day Harrisburg (Poinsett County), the town served as the Poinsett County seat for approximately eighteen years. It never recovered from the removal of the county seat in 1856, followed by the devastation wrought by the Civil War. Today, only a cemetery remains. At the time of its creation in 1838, Poinsett County was sparsely settled, with no settlements that could be described as towns. The county government temporarily operated out of the home of William Harris, an early settler who served as the first county judge. A commission soon selected …

Bonanza (Sebastian County)

The city of Bonanza was a major center of the coal industry in Sebastian County during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Since the decline of that industry, the company town has become a small bedroom community for the nearby city of Fort Smith (Sebastian County). According to historian Jim Hartness, the first mine in the Bonanza area, Mine No. 10, was started in 1896 but proved to be very poor. However, other mines were soon established, and around them grew a typical mining city dubbed Bonanza, reflecting hopes for great wealth. Mine superintendent C. C. Woodson filed a petition to incorporate the city, and it was incorporated on November 26, 1898. From the beginning, the city was a …

Bonnerdale (Hot Spring County)

Bonnerdale is an unincorporated community located in extreme western Hot Spring County. Located at the intersection of Mazarn Road and U.S. Highway 70, the community is closely associated with the nearby communities of Cross Roads (Hot Spring County) and Mount Moriah (Hot Spring County). Bonnerdale is located about ten miles northeast of Glenwood (Pike County) and about nineteen miles southwest of Hot Springs (Garland County). The nearby community of Old Bonnerdale is located just over the county line in Garland County. During the early days of the Arkansas Territory, Bonnerdale was part of Clark County. With the establishment of Hot Spring County on November 2, 1829, the area around what is now Bonnerdale became part of the new county. One …

Bono (Craighead County)

Bono, originally named Bonnerville, was established in the Big Creek Township, a community formed in Greene County before Craighead County was created in 1859. After the Kansas City, Fort Scott & Memphis Railroad (Frisco) erected a train stop near Big Creek, it became one of the county’s most important business centers during the late nineteenth century. Big Creek Township, one of the oldest communities in Craighead County, was begun in 1837 by John Anderson and his son, who settled in the northwest part of the county. At that time, Big Creek Township included several small settlements, among them Trinity, Union Grove, Fifty-Six, and Paul’s Switch. Oak Ridge was the site of a Delaware village. Native Americans, including a community of …

Boone County

Located in the Ozark Mountain highlands, Boone County has endured struggles from its creation. Political, racial, and union conflicts have drawn national attention, often overshadowing the contributions of the county’s residents and businesses. Pre-European Exploration Archeological examinations of sites in Boone County indicate that Native American groups from a variety of time periods either lived or worked in the area. An examination of the Chaney-Crawford Site included points from the Archaic and Woodland periods, with a few from the Mississippian period. Evidence supports the idea that the site was occupied seasonally rather than permanently and served as a location to make tools. Louisiana Purchase through Early Statehood Although they had no communities in the area, the Osage had claims to …

Booneville (Logan County)

Booneville, one of the two Logan County seats, is a progressive community with a wide range of facilities in addition to the normal municipal services. Its commercial activity consists of retail stores and small industries. Booneville supports a community center, a senior citizens center, a community hospital, and a municipal airport. Recreational facilities include two parks and a baseball complex. Louisiana Purchase through Early Statehood One of the oldest towns in western Arkansas, Booneville was founded about 1828, when Walter Cauthron built a log cabin and opened a store near the Petit Jean River in what was then Crawford County. According to the Cauthron family tradition, he intended to name the settlement Bonneville in honor of his friend Captain Benjamin …

Boothe (Scott County)

Boothe is an unincorporated community in northern Scott County located along Highway 71. Boothe was established in 1889 just north of the Petit Jean River and named after the Booth family who settled in the area. The community was known as Tumlinsonville and later Tomlinson prior to being named Boothe. Agriculture has traditionally been an important way of life in the area. Prior to European exploration, the area surrounding Boothe 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 …

Boswell (Clark County)

Boswell is a community in Clark County that was most active in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Located about five miles northeast of Okolona (Clark County), the area was first settled in the 1830s. The Southwest Trail passed through the community, bringing travelers and settlers. Around 1845, Hawes Coleman moved into the area and built a plantation called “Will-Be-Do.” Coleman was a lawyer and farmer who originally lived south of Arkadelphia (Clark County) along the Ouachita River but moved his family west in an effort to escape malaria. The area was in the South Fork Township during this period. The land was sparsely settled during the Civil War. A Federal army under the command of Major General Frederick …

Boswell (Izard County)

The unincorporated community of Boswell is located in the White River valley on the western boundary of Izard County. Some of the earliest pioneers to settle there were the Jeffery, Wood, and Langston families. The Langston family arrived at Boswell during Christmas week of 1814. The Jeffery family settled in the Boswell area in 1816, and William Wood settled at Boswell in 1820. The settlers were dependent upon the river as a primary source of transportation, using keelboats and flatboats powered by men using long poles. The early pioneers erected a building that was used as a school as well as a social center. They named this small pioneer community Wideman after the creek that flowed through it. The community …

Boughton (Nevada County)

Boughton (Nevada County) is an unincorporated community in Boughton Township. Boughton is about four miles northeast of Prescott (Nevada County) and about ten miles southwest of Gurdon (Clark County). The area around Boughton belonged to Hempstead County before Nevada County was formed in 1871. J. T. Cooper opened a general store in the Boughton area in 1872. Created by the Cairo and Fulton Railroad, Boughton served as a stop on the rail line. It was laid out in the summer of 1873 by R. F. Elgin, along with townsites at Prescott and Emmet (Nevada and Hempstead counties). Boughton and the others grew quickly as people from across the countryside were attracted to the new settlements. In 1875, the Nevada County …

Boxley (Newton County)

Located in the Buffalo River valley in the Boston Mountains of northern Arkansas, the unincorporated community of Boxley has a long and colorful past. A key strategic area during the Civil War, Boxley is now associated with conservation efforts of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Northern Arkansas was claimed by the Osage when the United States first acquired the land from France as part of the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. Although they lived in scattered communities in southern Missouri, the Osage frequented Arkansas for hunting and fishing. After a treaty removed the land from Osage control, the United States granted what would become Newton County as part of a Cherokee settlement. That treaty lasted approximately ten years, from …

Bradford (White County)

Bradford is the northernmost incorporated community in White County, located to the west of U.S. Highway 67, just south of the border with Jackson County. Bradford coalesced around a train depot, named Bradford Allen Station, when the Cairo and Fulton Railroad built its line to the White River in Newport (Jackson County) in 1872. The railroad enabled commerce in early Bradford to expand beyond subsistence farming and opened distant markets to its agricultural bounty. White settlers began coming to the Bradford area about sixty years before the construction of the railroad; the community during that time was on the White River at Old Grand Glaise, located in Jackson County about six miles northeast of present-day Bradford. River access provided a …