Entries - Entry Category: Ouachita - Starting with S

Shumaker was a naval ammunition depot established in 1944 in Ouachita and Calhoun counties. After the closure of the depot in 1957, the land was declared government surplus and auctioned. The residential area constructed for the staff of the depot and their families became part of East Camden (Ouachita County). The remainder of the depot is used for various business ventures, while much of the accompanying land has been abandoned to the elements. Early landowners in the area included Daniel Williams and Robert Delph. Williams received a land patent in the area in 1860, and Delph received one the following year. The area remained heavily forested, with some farming. The location of the land near the Ouachita River and other …

Stephens is an important city in the oil-producing region of southern Arkansas, home to four oil fields that are still producing in the twenty-first century. It is also noteworthy for a number of “firsts” in state and local history, such as having the first and only bank in the nation organized with a GI loan from the federal government. Post Reconstruction through the Gilded Age Stephens is laid out on one of the oldest tracts of settled land in Ouachita County. The original land grant was issued on February 19, 1846, through the Internal Grant Act of 1841 for 320 acres to Benjamin Bell. After Bell’s death, his heirs sold the land to M. J. Gentry, who, in 1882, sold …