Entry Type: Place

Sebastian County

Sebastian County is located on Arkansas’s western border in the natural division known as the Arkansas Valley. The Arkansas River forms the county’s northern border, while its southern border touches upon the Ouachita Mountains. The county is home to Fort Smith, one of the state’s largest cities, as well as Fort Chaffee, and in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it was the site of the state’s largest coal-mining operations. From the earliest days of the territorial period to the present, Sebastian County has served as a major transportation corridor to points west. Pre-European Exploration The Arkansas Valley region served as a place of residence to Native Americans since the last Ice Age, and there are hundreds of pre-contact …

Sedgwick (Lawrence County)

Sedgwick, a town in eastern Lawrence County, is located on U.S. Highway 63 between Hoxie (Lawrence County) and Jonesboro (Craighead County). At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Osage from farther north hunted and fished in the area that would become northeastern Arkansas, but they had no permanent settlements there. Even after Arkansas became a state, settlement in the Cache River basin remained sparse. Eventually, after the Civil War, investors began to consider harvesting the timber in this part of Arkansas. The Kansas City, Fort Scott and Memphis Railroad built a line in the 1880s that ran through Hoxie and Jonesboro on the way to Memphis, Tennessee. George Washington Sedgwick, one of the railroad’s organizers, built a sawmill near the …

Sensation (Scott County)

Sensation is a historical community in western Scott County located near Lake Hinkle. Sensation was officially established circa 1916, although people had been living in the area prior to that time. The origin of its name is unknown. Agriculture and timber have contributed to the economy and way of life in the area. Prior to European exploration, the area surrounding Sensation 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 water ways such as the Fourche La Fave and Poteau rivers. Archaeological findings have provided evidence of early inhabitants dating to the Archaic, …

Sevier County

Sevier County is located in southwestern Arkansas and borders the state of Oklahoma. The county is located at the northern limits of the Gulf Coastal Plain. Sevier County has four rivers, each of which is impounded by a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers lake. The Little River forms the southern boundary, while the Saline River borders the east side of the county. The Cossatot River and Rolling Fork River both flow from north to south. Pre-European Exploration Dinosaur bones discovered in the county in 1972 led to the identification and description of Arkansaurus fridayi. In 2017, the Arkansaurus fridayi was named as the official state dinosaur. Artifacts indicate that human activity in Sevier County dates back as much as 10,000 …

Shannon Hills (Saline County)

Shannon Hills is a city in northern Saline County, adjacent to the southern portions of Little Rock (Pulaski County). Incorporated in 1977, Shannon Hills is largely a bedroom community, with few businesses and no industry. The population of northern Saline County centered around communities such as Benton (Saline County) for much of the county’s history. The area that would become Shannon Hills remained unclaimed and undeveloped until after World War II. Around 1960, plans were announced to create a housing development at that location, and a dedication ceremony was held to mark the ground-breaking. Of the houses standing in Shannon Hills, almost none were built before 1960; roughly ten percent were built in the 1960s, thirty percent in the 1970s, few …

Sharp County

Sharp County, in northern Arkansas, was established in 1868. Though long known as a location for good hunting and timber, it has remained rather sparsely populated, though the resort town of Cherokee Village is one of the state’s leading retirement communities, and Hardy is a well-known tourist destination. Pre-European Exploration Local tradition holds that Wahpeton Hill in what is now Hardy was home at one time to Osage and Sioux. However, the Osage, though they likely hunted in the area, maintained no settlements, and the real Wahpeton Sioux lived farther north in South Dakota and Canada. Archaeological finds in the area do include a large variety of arrowheads, spear points, pottery, and handicrafts linked which give convincing proof of the …

Shaw (Saline County)

Located six miles south of present-day Benton (Saline County) on Highway 35, the unincorporated community of Shaw is one of Saline County’s oldest settlements. Shaw’s northern boundary follows Highway 35 to Peacock Hill. Its eastern boundary takes in the original post office, named for French explorer Henri de Tonti. Its western boundary is a heavily wooded area adjoining the town of Haskell (Saline County). To the south, Shaw’s borders include some of northern Grant County. The founder of the community, Hiram M. Shaw, was born on December 24, 1805, in what was then Walker County, Georgia. In 1857, he and his wife, Elizabeth Arnold Shaw, moved their family to Arkansas, becoming some of the first white settlers in what is …

Sheridan (Grant County)

Sheridan, the county seat of rural Grant County, which lies approximately thirty-four miles south of Little Rock (Pulaski County), was named after Union general Philip Sheridan when the town was incorporated twenty-two years after the Civil War. Today, Sheridan is a growing community with expanding industries and one of the state’s largest school districts. Pre-European Exploration through European Exploration and Settlement The first inhabitants of Grant County are believed to have lived as early as circa 12,000 BC. Three Indian mounds on the John Ratliffe farm about twelve miles west of Sheridan were excavated by the late Francis Posey, an early settler, in the 1800s. He removed parts of a skeleton, ashes, projectile points, shells, and a piece of a …

Sherrill (Jefferson County)

Sherrill is a town in Jefferson County on State Highway 15 between Altheimer (Jefferson County) and England (Lonoke County). Like many Arkansas towns, Sherrill was created by the railroad industry late in the nineteenth century, although it did not incorporate as a town until 1935. Augustus S. Smith, a native of South Carolina, purchased many acres of land in Jefferson County in 1859; the land featured the rich soil of the Arkansas River Valley. That year, he transported about 200 slaves to his new plantation in Arkansas, where they worked in the cotton fields until their emancipation at the end of the Civil War. Many of these freed slaves remained on the same farmland, working as tenant farmers in the …

Sherwood (Pulaski County)

Sherwood is a city in Pulaski County central Arkansas just north of North Little Rock (Pulaski County). In 1990, Sherwood was named the fastest-growing town in Arkansas, in terms of both population and area, as it has annexed land many times over the years. Sherwood began in the late 1800s as a small farming community known as Sylvan Hills. Few families lived there until the early 1900s. For many years, they had no running water, electricity, or utilities. Another part of modern Sherwood is the lowland area known as Brushy Island, where both white and African American farmers lived; this area was the site of a series of events called the “Brushy Island Riots” in the late 1910s. Around 1923, …

Shiloh (Scott County)

Shiloh is an unincorporated community located in southwestern Scott County. Established about one mile west of the Nella community, Shiloh was likely named after the biblical place mentioned in Genesis. Agriculture and the timber industry have traditionally contributed to the culture and economy in Shiloh. Prior to European exploration, the area surrounding Shiloh was a wilderness. Several species of wildlife that no longer inhabit the area, such as elk, wolves, and buffalo, were present throughout the region. Numerous archaeological sites and burial mounds can be found along the banks of prominent waterways such as the Fourche La Fave River. Archaeological findings have provided evidence of early inhabitants dating to the Archaic, Woodland, and Mississippian periods. Further archaeological evidence has indicated …