Sebastian

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Entry Category: Sebastian - Starting with H

Hackett (Sebastian County)

Hackett is the second-oldest city in Sebastian County, and at one time it was also the second-largest city in the county. Located at the intersection of State Highways 10 and 45, Hackett is several miles south of Fort Smith (Sebastian County) and is near the state border with Oklahoma. Hackett is named for Jeremiah Hackett, who established a homestead in western Arkansas Territory in 1834. Hackett—who came from Pomeroy, Ohio—named the community he founded Hickory Grove. As one historian wrote, “It was Mr. Hackett’s custom and delight to give everyone a lot who would build a residence.” Among those who accepted the offer of free land was Ammi Baston Merrill, who came from Ohio with his father, brother, wife, and …

Hartford (Sebastian County)

The city of Hartford, in southern Sebastian County, is most famous for its role in the history of gospel music publishing. A city that flourished during the peak of coal mining in western Arkansas early in the twentieth century, Hartford has diminished in population but remains an anchor of the region. The history of Hartford is actually an account of two communities. The older settlement to take the name Hartford dates to before the Civil War. About seventeen families were homesteading in southern Sebastian County, between the Sugar Loaf and Poteau mountains. Their settlement was known to some residents as the Old Sugarloaf Valley Community, but most called the settlement Hart’s Ford, honoring Betsy Hart, the widow of James Hart, who lived …

Huntington (Sebastian County)

Huntington is a second-class city located in the coal-rich Arkansas River Valley of southern Sebastian County. Its fortunes rose and fell with the coal industry, but the city has revived in the twenty-first century, billing itself as a location with “quiet, comfortable, and affordable living.” Situated about twenty-five miles south of Fort Smith (Sebastian County), the land that would become the city of Huntington was purchased around 1888 by Levi Barrett, who almost immediately sold the land to the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas Coal Company. Samuel Fellows had already begun a coal mine at nearby Cherokee Creek in June 1887 and had built a house on the hillside claimed by Barrett that same month. In time, three large coal mines …