Counties, Cities, and Towns

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

Bald Knob (White County)

    Located on the southern edge of the Ozarks, White County’s Bald Knob was named for a large outcropping of layered stone that was a natural landmark, especially if approached from the White River and Little Red River floodplains east and south of town. The completion of the St. Louis, Iron Mountain, and Southern Railroad in 1872 triggered economic development in the region. Liberty Valley, south of Bald Knob, is the site of prehistoric salt extraction. Some scholars hypothesize that this is the site of Palisima, a Native American village mentioned in documents from the Hernando de Soto expedition. During the Civil War, workers extracted about two bushels of salt a day by boiling the water in large kettles. …

Banks (Bradley County)

  Banks is one of only three incorporated communities in Bradley County. Once known for its relationship to the railroads and the timber industry, the town is now chiefly considered a center for hunters in the southern Arkansas forests. Caddo lived in the region where Banks is located as much as 5,000 years ago. Eventually, European and American explorers and settlers arrived in what is now Arkansas, and the Caddo were moved farther west. Among the first landowners in the area were John McFarlin (who obtained his land grant in 1856), John Evans, and Pleasant D. Morgan—the latter two claiming their land in 1860. Before the Civil War, some land was cleared in the area for the construction of the Mississippi, Ouachita …

Banner (Cleburne County)

Banner is located on Highway 87 (also called Floral Road) less than two miles from the point at which Floral Road joins Highway 25 N (Heber Springs Road) in Concord (Cleburne County). Floral (Independence County) is nearby. Until Cleburne County was formed on February 20, 1883, Banner was in Independence County; the community has close ties with both counties. A colorful pioneer of Banner was Elijah (Lige) Collard, a Kentuckian who blazed a trail to Healing Springs Township (then in Independence County) between 1845 and 1850. Collard supposedly spent time with Native Americans around the mineral springs in what is today Heber Springs (Cleburne County). One day in the 1850s, he was confronted on his trek to the springs by …

Barber (Logan County)

Barber is an unincorporated community located in southwestern Logan County; it was originally in Scott County, until the county boundaries were changed in 1903. The community was established north of the Petit Jean River along Washburn Creek. Agriculture and the railroad have historically contributed to the economy and way of life in Barber. The community was likely named after a member of the Barber family who lived in the area. Prior to European exploration, the area surrounding Barber was 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 can be found along the banks of prominent waterways such as the Petit Jean …

Baring Cross (Pulaski County)

West of Pike Avenue in North Little Rock (Pulaski County)—across from the Union Pacific Railway shops—Baring Cross was a Pulaski County town consisting primarily of middle-class railroad workers. It took its name from the first steel bridge to span the Arkansas River in 1873. From 1896 to 1905, the municipality of Baring Cross encompassed a smaller area than it does today. North Little Rock annexed the town, which became the city’s Fifth Ward and home to several mayors and aldermen, in 1905. Following national trends, Baring Cross decayed economically in the 1960s and 1970s. Urban Renewal did little to reverse the decline, but reinvestment through the federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program as well as private investment spurred revitalization in 2010. The …

Barling (Sebastian County)

Barling (Sebastian County) is located between one of Arkansas’s major cities, Fort Smith (Sebastian County), and an important twentieth-century army post, Fort Chaffee. The town, originally named Spring Hill, saw its greatest growth to date occur largely because of the founding of Fort Chaffee in 1941. Barling was established by Aaron Barling, a former soldier stationed at Fort Smith in 1817. He purchased land about eight miles east of Fort Smith on Little Rock Road in November 1830. His farm—and the surrounding area—became known as Spring Hill because of some springs located on his farm at the foot of a hill travelers used as a campsite. The town experienced little growth early on, with only one log structure used for …

Barringer (Clark County)

Barringer is a community located in southern Clark County about one mile northwest of Whelen Springs (Clark County) and about four miles south of Gurdon (Clark County). The community is located along Arkansas Highway 53 north of the intersection with Arkansas Highway 51. The earliest mention of the settlement appears in 1885 when John A. Barringer opened a sawmill in the area. The opening of the Gurdon and Camden Branch Railroad from Camden (Ouachita County) to Gurdon made the shipment of timber in the area lucrative. In 1888, the company cut and shipped 2,000,000 board feet of timber. By the 1920s, the mill annually produced between eight and ten million board feet. During this period, the mill employed between forty-five …

Bassett (Mississippi County)

  The town of Bassett is located on Highway 61 in southern Mississippi County. It is about halfway between Wilson (Mississippi County) and Joiner (Mississippi County). Bassett sits on higher ground that, for most of recorded history, was surrounded by swampland and hardwood forests. Artifacts unearthed in the area indicate that the knoll has been inhabited for many centuries. Mississippi County historian Mabel Edrington wrote in 1962 that a 100-acre Native American cemetery had existed at the site. Several Indian nations have been associated with northeastern Arkansas, but over time, they all signed treaties with the federal government and moved west to Indian Territory, now the state of Oklahoma. The first construction in Bassett that was not done by Indians …

Bates (Scott County)

Bates is an unincorporated community in western Scott County. It is located along Highway 28 west, between the junction of Shadley Creek and East Shadley Creek just north of the Poteau River. Bates was established in 1907 and named after the Bates family who settled in the area. Agriculture, timber, and coal mining have historically been important industries in Bates. Prior to European exploration, Bates was a wilderness lush with native vegetation and numerous species of wildlife, some of which no longer inhabit the area. Early inhabitants of the area were present during the Woodland, Archaic, and Mississippian periods. There are numerous archaeological sites located along the Poteau River south of Bates. This evidence indicates that the people of the …

Batesville (Independence County)

Geographically, Batesville was destined to exist. It stands at the point where waters of the White River exit from the sedimentary stone of the Ozarks. River traffic was forced to stop at the shoals to offload cargo, regardless of the direction of travel. Warehouses, supply stores, and buyers of furs and produce naturally congregated there. The town became one of the major cultural centers of the region. In the nineteenth century, its leaders, many of whom moved to Little Rock (Pulaski County), exercised influence on the political development of Arkansas far beyond what its modest size promised. Louisiana Purchase through Early Statehood The first Euro-American settlers, French fur-traders who were in the valley possibly as early as the mid-eighteenth century, left …