Entry Category: Sebastian

Rural highway with trees and single story building and sign reading "Lavaca"

Lavaca (Sebastian County)

Located near Arkansas Highways 22 and 96 in Sebastian County, Lavaca can trace its beginnings to the need for a stop for soldiers traveling along the Arkansas River. From its start as a landing in new and undiscovered territory, Lavaca has become a bedroom community of Fort Smith (Sebastian County), the second-largest city in Arkansas. Louisiana Purchase through Early Statehood In 1817, Fort Smith became the first U.S. military installation in the Southwest. Soldiers would travel from Little Rock (Pulaski County) to Fort Smith when they could, but shallow water and jutting bedrock halted boat travel at points, forcing them to travel by land. In 1821, Major Benjamin Moore, a former Virginia resident, and William and Ben Moore Jr. settled …

Single story beige metal building with four white bay doors and large paved lot

Lavaca Fire Department

Single story white metal building "Lavaca Public Library" with parking lot

Lavaca Library

Lavaca Museum

Lavaca Performing Arts Center

Lavaca Police Department

Stadium behind fence with many signs on it.

Lavaca Stadium

Lavaca Street Scene

Crowd of white men women and children with some holding American flags on dirt road with multistory brick buildings behind them

Governor John Little Reception

Mansfield (Sebastian and Scott Counties)

Mansfield is located in west-central Arkansas, twenty-five miles south of Fort Smith (Sebastian County) on U.S. Highway 71 and ten miles east of the Oklahoma state line. A portion of the city lies in Scott County. Mansfield is an economic and educational center serving the region between Greenwood (Sebastian County) and Waldron (Scott County). Louisiana Purchase through Early Statehood Mansfield represents the combining of two local communities on the Sebastian/Scott county line: Coop Prairie and Chocoville. Overlooking a small valley south of the county line and north of the Poteau Mountain range, Coop Prairie was formed in 1849 on land given by Martin T. Taylor, a settler from Tennessee. A trading post, the Coop Prairie Cumberland Presbyterian Church, and Coop …

Looking down dirt street with brick buildings on both sides

Mansfield Street Scene

Midland (Sebastian County)

Midland is a town in southern Sebastian County; in a journal article in the 1970s, it was described as “a small place in the middle of the road.” In the early years of the twentieth century, however, Midland was a prosperous community of coal miners and supporting industries. The area that would become Midland was sparsely settled in the early history of Arkansas. William Moore obtained a land grant in the vicinity in 1848. He was joined by Francis Daniels in 1855, and Edward Moore and John Moore became their neighbors in 1860. (These Moores are not sons of William; they may have been brothers or cousins.) A school was built in the area in 1866. In 1878, it was …