Entries - Entry Type: Place - Starting with T

Table Rock Dam and Lake

Although Table Rock Lake lies mostly in the Ozark Mountains of Missouri, it plays an important role in water resource development for the White River basin, most of which lies in Arkansas. Its dam and reservoir are part of a flood-control system designed to reduce flooding in Arkansas’s Delta and the Mississippi drainage. Its hydroelectric power supplies electricity that the Southwest Power Administration sells to municipalities and rural cooperatives across northern Arkansas, southern Missouri, and several adjoining states. Recreational development resulting from the lake contributes to the economies of both Missouri and Arkansas. Table Rock Dam is located at river mile 528.8 on the White River about eight miles southwest of Branson, Missouri. The lake extends westerly from the dam …

Tall Pines Motor Inn Historic District

aka: Tall Pines Inn

The Tall Pines Motor Inn Historic District is a well-maintained example of the Rustic architectural style of roadside lodging that has been popular in rural areas since the earliest days of travel by car. Located at the intersection of Highway 62 and Pivot Rock Road one mile west of Eureka Springs (Carroll County), it has operated continuously since 1947 under various names, including the Tall Pines Court, Tall Pines Motel, Tall Pines Motor Lodge, Tall Pines Motor Inn, and Tall Pines Inn. Its seven original log structures were added to the National Register of Historic Places as the Tall Pines Motor Inn Historic District on January 15, 1999. In the early part of the twentieth century, nostalgia for a simpler time …

Tate’s Bluff Fortification

The Tate’s Bluff Fortification near Camden (Ouachita County), constructed circa 1864, is a square earthen fortification measuring 100 feet on each side and located on a hilltop just below the confluence of the Little Missouri and Ouachita rivers. The Tate’s Bluff community was established by Captain Richard (Dick) Tate. Following service at the Battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812, Tate traveled by boat up the rivers of the Louisiana Purchase to the point where the Ouachita and Little Missouri rivers ran together. He returned to his home in Tennessee and persuaded eighty-nine people to immigrate to Arkansas with him and settle in the area. John Henderson Tate, who was Dick Tate’s nephew, and his wife, Ann Bryan …

Taylor (Columbia County)

The city of Taylor is in southwestern Columbia County, roughly five miles north of Springhill, Louisiana, on U.S. Highway 371. Established by the railroad and by the timber industry, Taylor is now associated with recreational opportunities on nearby Lake Erling. The prehistoric Caddo lived in what would become Columbia County. The land was sparsely settled, though, both before and after the establishment of the county in 1852. However, Albert C. Taylor, a second-generation settler in Columbia County, had a business at the site of Taylor even before the construction of the Louisiana and Arkansas Railroad in the 1880s. The railroad, built by the Bodcaw Lumber Company, ran a spur eastward from the location of Taylor’s business around 1895, and a post office …

Taylor Log House and Site

aka: Taylor House of Hollywood Plantation

The Taylor House, a two-story, dogtrot-style home built in 1846, is among the few remaining examples of Arkansas vernacular architecture built before the Civil War (1861–1865). Construction began in 1846 by Dr. John Taylor and his wife, Mary Robertson Taylor. The cypress-log house sits on the west bank of Bayou Bartholomew near Winchester (Drew County), a town named for the Taylors’ hometown in Kentucky, just off Arkansas Highway 138. The house was the hub of Hollywood Plantation, likely named for the deciduous holly trees that thrive along the bayou. At the zenith of the Taylors’ prosperity during the antebellum cotton boom, Hollywood encompassed some 11,000 acres, worked by 101 slaves. After the war, Hollywood successfully transitioned from slavery to free labor. …

Taylor Rosamond Motel Historic District

The Taylor Rosamond Motel Historic District is made up of four buildings, including a motel constructed around 1950 and a home constructed between 1908 and 1915. Located at 316 Park Avenue in Hot Springs (Garland County), the property was added to the National Register of Historic Places on May 26, 2004. The first structure on the lot was an Italianate-style home constructed by W. S. Sorrell between 1908 and 1915. The building is two stories with a full basement and a tower located on the southwest corner. The wood-framed building is covered with concrete blocks. The house is square with a wing topped with a gable roof extending to the west. A porch is present on the west and south …

Ten Mile House

aka: Stagecoach House
aka: McHenry House

The Federal-style Ten Mile House, located on Highway 5 in Little Rock (Pulaski County), is a rare example of a largely intact rural home of the early nineteenth century. The house has suffered few exterior alterations and retains four nineteenth-century outbuildings surrounded by a large parcel of wooded property. Ten Mile House was commandeered by Union troops during the Civil War and accommodated travelers on the Southwest Trail stagecoach line, earning it the alternative name “Stagecoach House.” The house is also referred to as the McHenry House after the original owner of the property, Archibald McHenry. Twentieth-century newspaper articles and periodicals state that McHenry built a log home on land he had purchased in Pulaski County after moving from Tennessee …

Texarkana (Miller County)

Texarkana is in the southwest corner of Arkansas at the junction of Interstate 30 and U.S. 59, 67, 71, and 82. Its two separate municipalities—Texarkana, Arkansas, and Texarkana, Texas—sometimes function as one city. The name is a composite of Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana (though Louisiana is thirty miles away). Texarkana is the Miller County seat, and is home to the only Federal Building and post office situated in two states. The city’s motto is “Twice as Nice.” Pre-European Exploration The area around Texarkana was inhabited at least 12,000 years ago. Several villages stood near the Red River, both upstream and downstream from contemporary Texarkana. The Red River Caddo were one of several regional Caddo groups (a Mississippian culture) who farmed …

The Pines (Scott County)

The Pines is an unincorporated community in central Scott County located along Business Highway 71, just south of the town of Waldron (Scott County). The agricultural and timber industries have been important in the surrounding area for many years. The area’s first inhabitants included natives from the Archaic, Woodland, and Mississippian periods. Archaeological evidence suggests that natives of the Caddo Nation made their homes along the Poteau River and other prominent waterways in the area. Thousands of archaeological sites can be found along the Fourche La Fave and Poteau River valleys nearby. The people of the Choctaw Nation were present in various areas of Scott County from 1820 to 1830, as a result of the Treaty of Doak’s Stand, which exchanged some Mississippi land for a large portion of …

Thida (Independence County)

Thida of Independence County is located about four miles from Oil Trough (Independence County), where Thida Road intersects with Departee Lane. Union Hill (Independence County) is three miles southwest of Thida, which was originally known as Liberty Hill. As early as 1800, French frontiersmen were in the White River bottoms hunting bear and smaller game, including deer. The lucrative trade in bear oil proved to be an incentive for settlement. Pioneer Hardin Hulsey arrived in 1817, and others soon followed. One of the bear hunters, John Jenkins Wyatt, gained a larger-than-life reputation in Thida folklore. Wyatt would make a commotion to lure a bear out of its den and then lie down and let the bear run over him as …

Thomas C. McRae Memorial Sanatorium

aka: Alexander Human Development Center

The Thomas C. McRae Memorial Sanatorium in Alexander (Pulaski and Saline counties) was established in 1931, in the midst of the Jim Crow era of racial segregation, to treat African-American victims of tuberculosis (often called “consumption” at the time). It was the first facility of its kind in Arkansas. It was opened twenty-two years after the Arkansas State Tuberculosis Sanatorium in Booneville (Logan County), which treated only white patients. In 1968, following the integration of the state’s sanatoriums, the Alexander site became the Alexander Human Development Center. In 2011, the facility was closed. The bill that created the McRae Sanatorium was introduced in the Arkansas General Assembly in 1923. It had strong support from the Arkansas Tuberculosis Association, particularly from …

Thompson-Robbins Air Field

aka: Helena Aero Tech

In about 1940, the United States was planning a build-up in the strength of the Army Air Corps (later the Army Air Force, or AAF). The number of airplanes produced was to be increased to around 50,000, but the AAF’s flying school in Texas could only graduate 500 pilots a year, and most of the current AAF pilots did not have enough flying hours to be instructors. To produce more pilots, the commanding general of the AAF, Henry Arnold, devised a plan for primary contract flying schools located in local communities. Three primary contract flying schools were located in Arkansas: the first at Grider Field in Pine Bluff (Jefferson County), the second at Thompson-Robbins Airfield in West Helena (Phillips County), …

Thorncrown Chapel

Thorncrown Chapel, designed by architect E. Fay Jones, is the most celebrated piece of architecture built in Arkansas. It won five design awards and was named by American Institute of Architects (AIA) as the fourth–best building of the twentieth century. Its uniqueness was recognized almost immediately. Within a year of its July 10, 1980, opening in Eureka Springs (Carroll County), it had been featured in many major architecture journals worldwide and had received an AIA Honor Award for design; in December of 2005, it received the 2006 AIA Twenty-five year Award for architectural design that has stood the test of time for twenty-five years. The chapel draws more than 100,000 visitors a year, and more than four million people have …

Thornton (Calhoun County)

The city of Thornton developed on the St. Louis and Southwestern Railway (often called the Cotton Belt) four miles southwest of Fordyce (Dallas County) in 1883. A center of the timber industry, it became, for a time, the largest city in Calhoun County. Evidence of prehistoric activity in the region that would become Calhoun County is seen in several Native American mounds located in the county. At the time of the Louisiana Purchase, the area was understood to belong to the Caddo, but their dwellings tended to be in river valleys to the south of the heavy pine forests of south-central Arkansas. White settlers did not make a permanent home in the pine forests until after the Civil War, when …

Thrace (Clark County)

The unincorporated community of Thrace is located in southern Clark County about five miles northeast of Whelen Springs (Clark County) and about seven miles southeast of Gurdon (Clark County). The earliest landowner in the area was land speculator John Skinner. He obtained 3,200 acres of land with a federal land patent on August 1, 1837. Skinner either alone or with partners obtained a total of more than 13,000 acres of land on that date in Clark County. Skinner eventually resold all of the land in the Thrace area. The Thrace post office operated during two periods. It originally opened on December 3, 1884, with Mary Keys as the postmistress. Claiborne March took the postmaster position on October 2, 1885, before …

Three Brothers (Baxter County)

Three Brothers is a populated unincorporated community in Logan Township on Highway 5 about ten miles north-northwest of Mountain Home (Baxter County), the county seat. It is about eight miles north-northeast of Bull Shoals. Three Brothers is approximately six miles south of the Missouri state line. Nearby Norfork and Bull Shoals lakes and the surrounding countryside, including Mountain Home, attract tourists and fish and game enthusiasts. Being located on a main highway through this section of the Ozark Mountains has proven helpful for the local economy of the declining community of Three Brothers, which continues to be somewhat of an appendage to Mountain Home. Highway 5 through the area has occasionally been closed due to mud slides. The area where …

Tillar (Drew and Desha Counties)

Located on Highway 65 near Bayou Bartholomew, the second-class city of Tillar stands mostly in Drew County, although its southeast corner is in Desha County. Built on the railroad in the 1870s, the small city is a minor agricultural center for neighboring portions of Drew and Desha counties. Evidence of prehistoric residents of the Tillar area was found in an Indian mound excavated by Edward Palmer in 1882. His discoveries included nineteen whole ceramic pots and pieces of other pots, as well as mussel shell pieces, a tortoise shell, and fragments of a deer antler. The original owners of these items are thought to be ancestors of the Tunica, although identification is not certain. At the time of European exploration, …

Timbo (Stone County)

Originally part of the Locust Grove community, Timbo is located on Highway 66 thirteen miles west of Mountain View, the county seat of Stone County. During the Civil War, it served as one of the induction centers for Searcy County. At the time, the area was also a hotbed of wartime dissention, with the Arkansas Peace Society active in the region. Timbo is today perhaps most well known for its association with musician Jimmy Driftwood. The pioneers to the area first settled in Campbell, today almost a ghost town, in Searcy County, sixteen miles southwest of Timbo. The Campbell brothers—Wash, John, James, Alex, and David—along with their families from Tennessee, were the first white settlers in the area, having followed …

Tinsman (Calhoun County)

Tinsman is a town in eastern Calhoun County. Once important as a junction for the Rock Island Railroad, the town has faded considerably since the decline of the railroad. Until the arrival of European and American settlers, the forested hills of Calhoun County were only sparsely settled, although the Caddo lived in the area perhaps as much as 5,000 years ago. Covered with pine, oak, cypress, red gum, and hickory trees, the region was not welcoming to early settlers, although some did arrive in the 1840s and 1850s, mostly from Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee. Calhoun County was largely untouched by the Civil War, although roughly 400 men from the county fought in the war, most of them for the Confederacy. Late …

Tintop (Scott County)

Tintop (sometimes rendered Tin Top) is an unincorporated community located in southwestern Scott County. Tintop was established in 1904 at the base of Horseshoe Mountain between Dry Creek and Clear Fork Creek. Agriculture and timber have contributed to the economy and way of life in the area. Prior to European exploration, the area surrounding Tintop was a wilderness. Several species of wildlife that no longer inhabit the area, such as elk and buffalo, were present throughout the region. Numerous archaeological sites and burial mounds are located along the banks of prominent waterways such as the Fourche La Fave and Poteau rivers. Archaeological findings have provided evidence of early inhabitants dating to the Archaic, Woodland, and Mississippian periods. Further archaeological evidence …

Toledo (Cleveland County)

The small farming community of Toledo is located on State Highway 35, approximately three miles southeast of Rison (Cleveland County). Established in the late 1800s, it was selected as the county seat of what was then called Dorsey County and continued as the seat of government when the county’s name was changed in 1885 to Cleveland County to honor President Grover Cleveland. With the creation of Dorsey County on April 17, 1873, a board of commissioners was appointed to select a site for the county government. They chose a site where a post office had been established in 1872, Pleasant Ridge. Shortly after the designation was made, the name was changed to Toledo, with a post office name change soon …

Tollette (Howard County)

Tollette is a largely African-American town on State Highway 355 in southwestern Howard County. In the 2010 census, the population of Tollette consisted of 232 African Americans, seven whites, and one Native American. Caddo lived in the area long before the first European explorers arrived. The Caddo were eventually moved to Indian Territory, now the state of Oklahoma. In 1837, Robert Baber and Matthew Gray both acquired land in the area around what would become Tollette. Baber had arrived in Hempstead County in about 1824; his son Daniel would serve in the Confederate army during the Civil War, and afterward Daniel Baber helped found the town of Athens (Howard County). Tollette is named for the two oldest sons of Stephen …

Toltec Mounds Site

The 100-acre Toltec Mounds site in Lonoke County between Scott (Pulaski and Lonoke Counties) and Keo (Lonoke County) is one of the largest archaeological sites in Arkansas and in the lower Mississippi River Valley. It was designated a National Historic Landmark by the Heritage Conservation and Recreation Service of the United States Department of the Interior in 1978 in recognition of its significance in the history of America. It opened as a state park in 1980. Native Americans occupied the Toltec Mounds site and built the mounds between the years 650 and 1050 AD. Archaeologists use the name Plum Bayou Culture to refer to their way of life. This culture cannot be identified with any of the tribes living in …

Tomato (Mississippi County)

The small, unincorporated farming community of Tomato in Mississippi County, located near the Mississippi River in eastern Arkansas, was once touted as being home to the nation’s smallest post office and has been called Arkansas’s only “portable town.” The small but busy river community was established in the late 1800s on high ground inside an 1836 river levee. Cotton farmers were attracted to the area due to the rich soil created by regular flooding. Little information exists regarding the founding of the town; however, a post office was established in 1898. At the town’s peak in the early 1900s, it consisted of three stores, three churches, a schoolhouse, and residential homes. In the early days the town was called Canadian …

Tomberlin (Lonoke County)

aka: Tomberlins

The community of Tomberlin (a.k.a. Tomberlins) is the southernmost settlement in Lonoke County. It is on the edge of the prairie near the Delta’s origin, where the land is fertile and cotton was king in the early years. Tomberlin is twenty-two miles south of Lonoke (Lonoke County) and about the same distance from Pine Bluff (Jefferson County). The community was named for James E. Tomberlin, who arrived there after the Civil War. Nothing is known of Tomberlin’s family history. Records show that in 1869 Tomberlin paid taxes on 701 acres in Prairie County, some of which became Lonoke County. He rented land there and employed sharecroppers. He established a commissary to supply his tenants, and this store became known as …

Tontitown (Washington County)

Tontitown was founded in 1898 by a group of Italian Catholic immigrants led by their priest, Father Pietro Bandini. The town is named in honor of Henri de Tonti, the Italian who helped René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle explore the Mississippi River and later founded Arkansas Post in 1686. Post Reconstruction through the Gilded Age The Tontitown Italians began their lives in America as tenant farmers on the south Arkansas plantation of Sunnyside (Chicot County). Groups from northern and central Italy arrived there in 1895 and 1897 and soon found themselves battling poor sanitation, disease, unfamiliar farming methods, language barriers, and contract disputes. In early 1898, some forty families chose to follow Father Bandini, the plantation’s resident priest, to …

Tourist Camps, Tourist Courts, and Early Motels

Tourist camps and courts were a common form of lodging for travelers in the United States from the 1930s to the 1960s. The terms “tourist camp” and “tourist court” were used to describe both an individual cabin or room rented for the night and the business as a whole. In their early days, they typically consisted of stand-alone structures that looked and functioned like small houses, with as few as four units to rent. Those built during and after World War II were increasingly likely to be under a single roof in the form recognizable today as motels. Unlike earlier hotels that served mostly railroad passengers, tourist camps and courts evolved along roadways to accommodate the needs of the newly …

Trammel’s Trace

After the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, Americans from Tennessee, Kentucky, and Missouri moved down the Southwest Trail into Arkansas in search of land and opportunity. Crossing Arkansas diagonally from northeast to southwest, the Southwest Trail ended in U.S. territory at the Great Bend of the Red River, where Fulton (Hempstead County) was later founded. From that river crossing, Trammel’s Trace emerged as the first road from Arkansas into Texas from the north, terminating at the El Camino Real in Nacogdoches. Named after Arkansas trader and horse smuggler Nicholas Trammell Jr., the route was a former Indian path that was adopted for smuggling horses as early as 1813. (The spelling of the name of the Trace with one “l” mirrors its …

Trapnall Hall

Located at 423 E. Capitol Ave. in the MacArthur Park Historic District of Little Rock (Pulaski County), Trapnall Hall is an exquisite example of Greek Revival architecture. It was constructed in 1843 of brick at a time when most houses were made of either wood or rock. The architect is unknown. The house was built for Frederic and Martha Trapnall. Frederic Trapnall was a lawyer who spent several sessions in the Arkansas General Assembly. Frederic fell ill and died in 1853, and Martha lived in the home until her death in 1861. Frederic’s brothers became the heirs to the property, and, as they lived out of state, quickly sold the home. In 1929, Julia Taylor purchased the home and donated it …

Traskwood (Saline County)

Traskwood is the southernmost community in Saline County. Located on State Highway 229 (and on the Union Pacific Railroad tracks) about halfway between Benton (Saline County) and Malvern (Hot Spring County), Traskwood is several miles from Interstate 30 and therefore does not have the commercial enterprises of its larger neighbors. Although the Saline River has been a means of transportation since prehistoric times, the land of southern Saline County remained unclaimed until after the Civil War. Among the first white settlers were Henry Taylor Collatt (1875), Joseph Reed (1875), Henry James (1877), John Tobin (1882), and John Benton (1883). By this time, the St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern Railway had already completed a railroad through the region, establishing a depot …

Trumann (Poinsett County)

  Trumann is a city in northeastern Poinsett County located along U.S. Highway 63. It lies in the “sunken lands” region of northeast Arkansas. Gilded Age through Early Twentieth Century In the early 1890s, a collection of rough timber camps were established in the area along the St. Louis–San Francisco Railway (Frisco) to harvest the thousands of acres of virgin timber in the region. Within a few years, the camps were to the point of being recognized as a small village. On April 27, 1896, the village of Mosher was established, named after an official in one of the local lumber companies. In 1902, the name of the town was changed to Weona, after the Weona Land Company that owned most …

Tuckerman (Jackson County)

Situated on higher land several miles east of the Black River, Tuckerman was bypassed by the construction of the four-lane Highway 67 in 2009. Charming, well-preserved older houses still line the old highway, which was designated “Rock ’n’ Roll Highway” by the Arkansas state legislature that same year because of the many star performers who honed their skills in the small towns up and down this road—performers including Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Sonny Burgess, Conway Twitty, and many more. When European explorers and settlers first came to Arkansas, the north shore of the White River was included in land claimed by the Osage as hunting grounds, although they lived farther north in what would become the state of Missouri. When …

Tulip (Dallas County)

The town of Tulip, which flourished between 1842 and 1862, at one time was regarded as a center of higher education. Destruction of property during the Civil War and the changed economy of Reconstruction brought a halt to the community, which today consists of a few houses, several churches, three abandoned commercial buildings, and the ruins of one plantation. After Arkansas became a state in 1836, many people came from the eastern United States—especially Tennessee and North Carolina—to settle in the area. For a time, the settlement was called Brownsville, after Tyre Harris Brown; then it was known as Smithville, after Colonel Maurice Smith. The colonel reportedly said that the town should be called Tulip rather than Smithville because, “There …

Tulip Female Collegiate Seminary

aka: Ouachita Conference Female College

The Tulip Female Collegiate Seminary was established in Tulip (Dallas County) during the antebellum period when the community was flourishing. The school instructed female students in the subjects of the day, such as English and music, in addition to drawing, needle-work, and domestic subjects. In August 1849, George D. Alexander established the Alexander Institute in Tulip for the education of both girls and boys. In August of 1850, community leaders in Tulip gathered to discuss dividing the Alexander Institute into two schools, one for girls and the other for boys. Among those prominent citizens was the state representative, Major George Clark Eaton, who represented the interests of those wishing to establish the two schools. On December 17, a legislative charter …

Tull (Grant County)

Tull is a town in northwestern Grant County. Incorporated in 1966, Tull had already been an established community for more than 100 years. It is best known as the location of Old Folks’ Singing, an annual event that has been held every May since 1885. Tull is named for the John, Arch, and Abe Tull family, who made their homes in the area by 1841. Other early settlers include Henry Bennett, George Keesee, James Cox, Isma Kellum, Lott Williams, and Eli Lindsey, a pioneer in Arkansas Methodism. Charlie Jordan operated a horse-powered cotton gin in the area between 1836 and 1860. Ephraim Burrow operated a water-powered mill between 1845 and 1860. Jim Barnes had a tanning yard said to date …

Tupelo (Jackson County)

Tupelo is an incorporated town located in the southern tip of Jackson County along a sandy ridge that runs along the edge of the White River bottoms from Augusta (Woodruff County) north to Jacksonport (Jackson County). Located about eighteen miles south of Newport (Jackson County), the town was at one time a station on the narrow gauge Batesville and Brinkley Railroad (B&B). The railroad allowed local crops, especially cotton and timber, to be shipped to market. Micajah B. McCoy came to the area from South Carolina in the early 1840s. Acquiring both land and influence, McCoy represented Jackson County in the Arkansas House of Representatives in 1844 and 1845, and his plantation was called “Tupelo.” McCoy obtained land patents granted under the …

Turkey Creek (Stone County)

Turkey Creek is a valley of rugged, rocky soil, isolated in the hills. It is located at the intersection of Highway 9 and Brushy Creek Road, almost nine miles southwest of Mountain View, the seat of Stone County. Fox (Stone County) is five miles north-northwest, and Rushing (Stone County) is about four miles southwest. The community is named for the creek that flows nearby and joins Brushy Creek. Settlers began subsistence farming along Turkey and Brushy creeks following the Civil War. The passage of the Homestead Act in 1862 encouraged a few hardy farmers to make claims along the Little Red River at Meadowcreek (Stone County) about ten miles away. Gradually, some of the farmers inched their way up the …

Turrell (Crittenden County)

Turrell is an incorporated city located along Interstate 55 in northern Crittenden County, about five miles south of the border with neighboring Mississippi County. The town first coalesced in the 1880s around timber-cutting operations owned by Wisconsin native Fletcher E. Turrell, for whom the town is named. Turrell ran the Turrell-Lily Lumber Company, among other local business ventures, and also served as the first postmaster. Aided by the presence of a railroad constructed in 1883, other timber-related businesses thrived at Turrell throughout its history until the cleared forest acreage was utilized as farmland, as it is today. Well before the construction of the railroad, Native Americans once had an established village and built several mounds at what is now Turrell, …

Twelve Corners (Benton County)

The community of Twelve Corners, which contains one of the oldest established Baptist churches in Benton County, was pivotal to Arkansas’s history. Located three and a half miles northeast of Pea Ridge (Benton County), Twelve Corners was notable for its location on the Bentonville Detour, the former bypass from Telegraph Road in Missouri to the county seat. It was also located close to the Arkansas–Missouri state line, the Pea Ridge Plateau, and Elkhorn Tavern, which made it a significant area for a Confederate camp during the Battle of Pea Ridge. Settlement in the northwest corner of Arkansas Territory began around 1828. In 1842, some of the earliest homesteaders in the area formed the Benton County Baptist Society in an upper …

Twin Groves (Faulkner County)

Twin Groves is a town in northern Faulkner County on Highway 65 between Greenbrier (Faulkner County) and Damascus (Van Buren and Faulkner counties). Twin Groves was formed in 1991 by the combination of two unincorporated communities, Solomon Grove and Zion Grove. Solomon (or Solomon’s) Grove was founded by a group of free African Americans from the Memphis, Tennessee, area before the Civil War. Solomon was the last name of one of those families. Apparently, the group remained at the location even after Act 151 of 1859 required all free blacks to leave the state or risk being sold into slavery. The national Homestead Act of 1862 allowed former slaves to own land, and after the Civil War ended, more former …

Tyronza (Poinsett County)

Tyronza is located on U.S. Highway 63, midway between Jonesboro (Craighead County) and Memphis, Tennessee, in southeastern Poinsett County. It is best known as the birthplace of the Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union (STFU). Pre-European Exploration through European Exploration and Settlement The town site was home to an earlier community existing at least as far back as AD 1300–1400. An 1884 archaeological survey conducted by the Smithsonian Institution’s Bureau of Ethnology reported that as many as forty-nine Native American mounds had existed in the immediate vicinity. At that time, only seventeen remained; most of the others were destroyed either by early settlers preparing the land for farming or by the crews who constructed the railroad bed in the early 1880s. The …

Tyronza River

The Tyronza River rises in Mississippi County and flows primarily southwest until it empties into the St. Francis River just north of Parkin (Cross County). It no longer resembles the stream that it was up until the early twentieth century, as it has been channelized, ditched, and had its meander loops cut-off. Before the formation of the levee and drainage districts in the late nineteenth century that rerouted and channelized existing streams, the Tyronza River arose out of a body of water called Carson Lake located southwest of Osceola (Mississippi County). From there, it flowed across low swampy land, a region the locals referred to as the “scatters of Tyronza,” into Tyronza Lake before narrowing down into the regular path …