Lonoke

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Entry Category: Lonoke

Allport (Lonoke County)

Allport is a town on Highway 165 in southern Lonoke County located two miles west of Humnoke (Lonoke County). Allport is largely populated by African Americans, although Lonoke County’s population is more than eighty percent white. Southern Lonoke County has rich alluvial soil that attracted cotton farmers who created large plantations operated with slave labor. When the Civil War ended the practice of slavery in Arkansas and other Southern states, many freed slaves became tenant farmers. Others were able to purchase land; African Americans often were sold the lower land, more prone to flooding, while white farmers retained possession of the higher agricultural land. An African-American community developed along Crooked Creek in southern Lonoke County; by 1878, the community had …

Austin (Lonoke County)

Austin is a second-class city situated in northern Lonoke County. The railroad was responsible for moving the settlement of Old Austin (Lonoke County) a mile to the northwest of its original location; in the twenty-first century, many of Austin’s residents work in Little Rock (Pulaski County). Old Austin had been established before the Civil War and included a wool carding factory, a hotel, three doctors’ offices, three saloons, and a number of stores. No major Civil War confrontations took place in the area, but Camp Nelson was established as a Confederate winter camp and became also a Confederate cemetery during the war. The community revived after the war but was bypassed by the building of the St. Louis, Iron Mountain …

Brownsville (Lonoke County)

Brownsville served as the county seat of Prairie County for approximately twenty-two years. Located on the Memphis to Little Rock Road, commonly known as the Military Road, it became an important trade center and was the site of a Civil War skirmish in 1863. Many settlers lived in the area by the early 1820s, but when the federal government authorized the construction of the road connecting Memphis, Tennessee, to Little Rock (Pulaski County) in 1824, more settlers were attracted to the area. Early area settler and local contractor Samson Gray was given the contract to construct the road from the White River to the north shore of the Arkansas River. The road was a major avenue of trade being used …

Cabot (Lonoke County)

In 2009, BusinessWeek designated the northern Lonoke County city of Cabot as an “Arkansas boomtown” and listed it as the state’s third-fastest-growing city per capita. Incorporated on November 9, 1891, the city—best known for its school system—is home to 23,776 people (as of the 2010 census), making it the largest community in the county. Post Reconstruction through the Gilded Age The development of the area began in the early 1800s about three miles east of the present city at a small town called Austin (Lonoke County). A stretch of the Butterfield Overland Mail Company stage route passed through the area, and, during the Civil War, a large Confederate camp named Camp Nelson was established nearby. Troops moved in and out …

Carlisle (Lonoke County)

Carlisle, a bedroom community outside the metropolitan area of Little Rock (Pulaski County), lays claim to being the birthplace of rice growing on the Grand Prairie. Historians agree that W. H. Fuller introduced rice to the Grand Prairie. Civil War through the Gilded Age Rice remains the cornerstone of Carlisle’s economy. The tall natural grasses of the state’s Grand Prairie and good soil and water drew farmers from other states to settle this area, including the founders of Carlisle, Samuel McCormick and his wife, L. J. McCormick. According to legend, there are two stories referring to the naming of Carlisle. The first holds that Samuel McCormick had lived in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and named the town after his former home. The …

Coy (Lonoke County)

The story of Coy is the same as that of many rural Arkansas communities that have almost disappeared since the inception of the automobile and mechanized farming. It was the hub of the cotton growing and ginning industry in south Lonoke County from 1900 until the early 1960s. On November 3, 1896, Abby M. Coy—wife of “Colonel” Lucien W. Coy, who established the town—purchased the land that would become Coy from one F. Gates. Lucien Coy had been a first lieutenant with the Union in Missouri’s First Engineering Regiment, Company B, and he came south after the Civil War and engaged in lending money and land speculation in Little Rock (Pulaski County). The exact date of the town’s establishment is …

England (Lonoke County)

England is a small farming community located in the southeastern part of Lonoke County. While England has a rich history as a center of agriculture, in the late twentieth century, it became a bedroom community for Little Rock (Pulaski County) and Pine Bluff (Jefferson County), though many local farmers still reside in the area. England lies in the alluvial flood plains of the Arkansas River. It was originally covered by hardwoods such as oak and red gum, but most of this natural vegetation has been removed for commercial farm crops. The soil surrounding England has been classified as some of the most productive in the country, supporting cotton, rice, soybeans, and corn. Post Reconstruction through the Gilded Age In the …