Entry Category: Dallas

Industrial buildings with railroad tracks in front of them

Metal sign about the Arkansas Military Institute

Multistory brick building with stone entrance and large cupola

Carthage (Dallas County)

Carthage is located in northern Dallas County, on Highways 48 and 229. Formed by the railroad and timber industries, it continues to support a working sawmill in the twenty-first century. According to a plaque erected in Carthage in 1976, the area was “a crossroad for settlers in pioneer times due to the abundance of wild game and water springs.” Large plantations grew cotton and other crops, and communities such as Tulip (Dallas County) and Princeton (Dallas County) built schools, churches, and businesses. As part of the Camden Expedition, the Engagement at Jenkins’ Ferry was fought a few miles north of the present location of Carthage in April 1864. The end of the Civil War meant the end of slavery in Arkansas, which changed the plantation …

Country highway disappearing around bend

Entering Dalark

Multistory white wooden church building with bell tower and entrance ramp

Dalark Church

Multistory tan brick building with cupola

Dallas County Courthouse

Dallas County Museum

Postcard with theater on the front with text reading "Dallas Theatre

Dallas Theater

Brick arched gate leading into cemetery with tombstones and trees

DeLamar Cemetery

Multistory tan brick church building with two towers of differing heights

First Presbyterian Church (Fordyce)

Fordyce (Dallas County)

Located at the intersection of Highways 167 and 79 in south central Arkansas, Fordyce was established in 1882 and named for Colonel Samuel Wesley Fordyce, a railroad builder and developer. It has long been a center for the timber industry in southern Arkansas. Pre-European Exploration Prior to European settlement, present-day Fordyce was inhabited by ancestors of the Caddo. Although no historic Caddo communities existed there, artifacts of Native American life are occasionally found in the area. Louisiana Purchase through Reconstruction Fordyce was a relatively late bloomer in Dallas County as compared to centrally located Princeton (Dallas County), which was incorporated in 1849 and served as the first county seat, and Tulip (Dallas County), which was considered the cultural center of …

Railroad crossing with trees along one side of tracks

Entering Holly Springs

Single story tan brick church building with covered entrance

Holly Springs Church

Multistory church building with steep roof and covered entrance

Holly Springs Church

Single story red brick building with van parked alongside

Holly Springs Community Center

Single story white concrete block building with three garage bay doors "Fire Station" and fire truck parked outside

Holly Springs Fire Department

Small town street scene with businesses and parked vehicles

Holly Springs Street Scene

Holly Springs Veterans Memorial

Street corner with multistory tan brick building with red dome on top

Home Accident Insurance Building

Rural road with scattered trees and houses and sign saying "Manning"

Entering Manning

Multistory white wooden church building with steeple and trees in background

Manning Church

Single story red metal building with four garage bay doors

Manning Fire Department

Historical sign about Manning with yellow house

Princeton Street Scene

Multistory yellow wooden house with maroon shutters and covered porches on both levels

Restoration House

White country church building with bell tower in distance with cemetery and trees in foreground

Sardis Methodist Church

Country road with trees lining both sides

Entering Sparkman

Sparkman (Dallas County)

Sparkman, a small second-class city, is located on State Highway 7 approximately twenty-six miles west/northwest of the Dallas County seat of Fordyce. Once a thriving lumber town, it is today chiefly a farming community perhaps best known for a 1920s and 1930s girls’ basketball team known as the Sparkman Sparklers. Present-day Sparkman is located about a quarter of a mile southwest of the original settlement, which local residents today refer to as Old Sparkman. Lemil Pete Sparkman, who established a lumber mill near the seventeen-mile trunk line Ultima Thule, Arkadelphia and Mississippi Railway, founded the settlement in 1892. On September 19, 1893, a post office was opened with Sparkman as the postmaster. By 1899, the town was home to about …