Entries - Entry Type: Place - Starting with M

McHue (Independence County)

The community of McHue in Independence County is located about four miles away from Hutchinson Mountain and the community of Hutchinson (Independence County), or about six miles south of the White River. Before McHue was founded in 1896, the Alderbrook (or Alder Brook) post office, located just south of what is today Desha (Independence County) on the Jamestown Road, served the entire area—as did, for a short time, a post office which opened in Jamestown (Independence County) in 1881—and the settlement was often referred to as Alderbrook. The small community was once a commercial hub for the region, but, in the twenty-first century, agriculture is the chief vocation for residents. In the vicinity of where McHue now sits was a Native American town …

McNab (Hempstead County)

McNab is a town on State Highway 355 in western Hempstead County. Created as a railroad depot, McNab is known in the twenty-first century for its Twin Rivers Festival, held every April. Caddo Indians inhabited the Red River valley when French and Spanish explorers first arrived in the region. Shortly after the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, a boat landing and settlement named Fulton (Hempstead County) arose on the Red River. Settlers came to the town by boat or by land using the Southwest Trail, a military road that ended at Fulton. Some settlers cleared land a few miles north of Fulton, where the town of McNab would later appear. William McElroy and Thomas Reed both acquired land patents in the …

McNeil (Columbia County)

The community of McNeil in Columbia County emerged as a railroad depot in the 1880s. Just to the east of the community is Logoly State Park. One of the earliest families of European descent to settle the area was that of Ananias Godbold in 1845. Milton G. Kelso purchased two lots of Columbia County land on March 1, 1855, adding three additional lots five years later. Around 1855, William B. McNeill—a graduate of the University of North Carolina—arrived in the area and opened a school. McNeill married Mary Jane Kelso on December 21, 1859, and other families settled around the school, so that by the time of the Civil War, the area could be described as “thickly settled.” Because of …

McRae (White County)

McRae is an incorporated city in southern White County, located about nine miles southwest of Searcy (White County). McRae has its origins in the construction of the Cairo and Fulton Railroad through White County in 1872, which entailed the use of abundant virgin timber and arable lands in the area, but McRae did not exist as a defined community until the establishment of its first post office in 1889. The construction of McRae’s own rail depot in 1897 enabled further development and robust growth, which allowed it to emerge as a local contender in timber and strawberry production. The community was named in honor of Searcy attorney and Confederate brigadier general Dandridge McRae. Two men instrumental in shaping McRae during …

Medical Arts Building

The sixteen-story Medical Arts Building at 236 Central Avenue in downtown Hot Springs (Garland County) was the tallest building in Arkansas from its completion in 1930 until 1960, when the Tower Building was completed in downtown Little Rock (Pulaski County). (The tallest building in Arkansas currently is the forty-story Metropolitan Tower in Little Rock, which was built in 1986.) The upper floors of the Medical Arts Building are now vacant. The Historic Preservation Alliance of Arkansas (HPAA) listed it in 2012 as one of the state’s most endangered places. The Medical Arts Building was constructed by general contractor G. C. Gordon Walker with work beginning on December 1, 1929. Investors from Little Rock and New Orleans, Louisiana, purchased the site, …

Melbourne (Izard County)

Melbourne is Izard County’s second-largest city and has served as the county seat since 1875. Located near the county’s center, it serves as a governmental and commercial center. The home of Ozarka College, it is also a regional educational center. Louisiana Purchase through the Gilded Age The first settlers to the area near the present town arrived before 1820. A post office, named Mill Creek, was established about one mile east of the present town on January 14, 1854. William Sublett was the postmaster. With the creation of Stone County and Baxter County in 1873, county boundary lines were redrawn, and there was a push to locate the county seat more centrally. A special election in 1875 relocated the county …

Memphis to Little Rock Road

aka: Military Road (Memphis to Little Rock)

The Memphis to Little Rock Road was one of the first major public works projects in the Arkansas Territory. Spanning the swamplands of eastern Arkansas, the heights of Crowley’s Ridge, and the expanse of the Grand Prairie, it opened the state to emigrants from the east. The road was also a major route for Native Americans during the forced relocations of the 1830s. The Memphis to Little Rock Road, also known as the Military Road (as were most of the early Arkansas roads constructed under the auspices of the U.S. Army), was authorized on January 31, 1824, when the U.S. Congress passed an act for construction of a road opposite Memphis, Tennessee, through the swamps of eastern Arkansas to the …

Mena (Polk County)

Mena was founded in the late nineteenth century as a railroad town in western Arkansas. Situated amid the Ouachita National Forest and surrounded by noteworthy state parks and trails, the city is now something of a tourist destination, though it also has a diversified economy based upon agriculture and manufacturing. Post Reconstruction through the Gilded Age Mena was one of many towns founded along the route of Arthur E. Stilwell’s Kansas City, Pittsburg & Gulf Railroad (later the Kansas City Southern), stretching from Kansas City, Missouri, to Port Arthur, Texas. The town of Mena takes its name from the nickname of Folmina Margaretha Janssen deGeoijen, the wife of one of Stilwell’s financiers (Janssen Park is also named after her). The …

Mena Intermountain Municipal Airport

The Mena Intermountain Municipal Airport near the city of Mena (Polk County) in the Ouachita Mountains of western Arkansas is located approximately 160 miles west of Little Rock (Pulaski County). It is an airport that focuses on private aircraft and does not have scheduled commercial air service. Beginnings The first rough airstrip was located south of the town on the McBride family’s property, and a hangar and flying school opened in 1942, run by Hartzell Geyer. The initial runway was a grass one that a local farmer would mow and bale for hay. Due to increased commercial traffic, the Civil Aeronautics Commission (CAC) after World War II determined that Mena would be needed as an emergency landing site for airplanes. …

Menard-Hodges Site

Archaeological investigations at the Menard-Hodges site near Nady in Arkansas County since the late 1800s have yielded information about both Native American and European colonial settlement of the region of the lower Arkansas River. Two large mounds, thirty-nine-foot-tall Mound A and flanking thirteen-foot-tall Mound B, overlook a square plaza some two acres in area, with smaller mounds around the other sides of the plaza. Also adjacent to the plaza are the locations of two nineteenth-century farmsteads of French descendants. The Menard-Hodges Site was widely considered to be the location of the first Arkansas Post and also the location of the Quapaw village of Osotouy. However, recent research indicates that while the Menard-Hodges Site is an important part of an early historic …

Menifee (Conway County)

The town of Menifee has its origins in the 1820s when Dr. Nimrod P. Menifee bought property west of Cadron Creek and along the Arkansas River. The location was adjacent to the Cadron Settlement, once considered as the site for the capital of the new Arkansas Territory and for the seat of Pulaski County. After Little Rock (Pulaski County) was designated the territorial capital, Cadron declined in importance. However, the settlement on the western side of Cadron Creek developed and prospered as the Menifee plantation. The post–Civil War era created the community that continues into the twenty-first century as an incorporated city. Menifee and his son, Dr. Lewis Menifee, organized a large plantation in addition to a river crossing known …

Methodist Children’s Home

The Methodist Children’s Home, located in Little Rock (Pulaski County), began as a movement to create an orphanage in the denomination’s Little Rock Conference in 1897. The institution was incorporated on May 3, 1899, in Pulaski County and called the Arkansas Methodist Orphanage of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. The trustees were Colonel George Thornburgh, Dr. James Thomas, Reverend J. A. Cason, and George Culberhouse. Soon afterward, the stockholders of the Women’s Industrial Home at Fifteenth and Commerce Streets offered their property, consisting of three lots and a two-story building, to the orphanage incorporators. Mrs. L. R. Tabor and Mrs. Logan H. Roots were the property’s largest stockholders. Orphanage officials accepted the property, and the home began receiving children. The …

Mid-America Science Museum

Mid-America Science Museum’s mission is to stimulate interest in science, to promote public understanding of the sciences, and to encourage lifelong science education through interactive exhibits and programs. Located near National Park College (NPC) in Hot Springs (Garland County), the museum is a major tourist attraction in Arkansas, with an estimated 100,000 visitors annually. In the mid-1960s, Governor Winthrop Rockefeller conceptualized the Mid-America Science Museum as Arkansas’s first interactive, informal learning environment. Rockefeller held an exploratory symposium with various state leaders and engaged one of the nation’s foremost museum consultants to determine the feasibility of such a project. Eventually, Hot Springs was deemed the ideal location for such a museum. Governor Dale Bumpers continued the support of the idea, and …

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 …

Midland Holm

Midland Holm was a 5,000-acre plantation situated in the Oil Trough Bottoms on the White River in Independence County. It was established by Virgil Young (V. Y.) Cook. Described by his contemporaries as a young man “with keen foresight and ability, coupled with indomitable energy,” Cook, at age eighteen, began life in Arkansas as a merchant in Grand Glaise (Jackson County) in 1866. Showing an early interest in the Oil Trough Bottoms, he bought his first eighty acres there in 1873 for $500. He would eventually own a plantation of 5,000 acres of the fertile bottomland, making him the largest landowner in the county. After being appointed receiving agent for the Cairo and Fulton Railroad, Cook moved with the railroad …

Midway (Clark County)

Midway is an unincorporated community located in Clark County about one mile northeast of Curtis (Clark County) and three miles southwest of Gum Springs (Clark County). The community is centered on the east side of U.S. Highway 67. Early settlers include Mary Rountree, who obtained a federal land patent for eighty acres in 1848. In the 1850 federal census, she appears along with her four sons. (The name of the family appears in some records as Roundtree.) Mary’s oldest son, Robert, obtained forty acres in 1855. In the 1860 census, Robert appears with his wife, son, and daughter. He worked as a farmer on the land and owned $350 of personal property. Robert enlisted in the Thirty-Seventh Arkansas Infantry Regiment …

Midway (Hot Spring County)

Midway is a town in southern Hot Spring County. Situated on U.S. Highway 67, it lies between Interstate 30 and the Ouachita River. Although several other communities in Arkansas are also called Midway, the town in Hot Spring County is the only incorporated community in Arkansas with that name. Caddo Indians inhabited the Hot Spring County area until 1700. In a treaty in 1818, the Quapaw ceded control of the area to the U.S. government. Over the following years, a network of routes known as the Southwest Trail extended across the state from Jackson (Randolph County) through Little Rock (Pulaski County) and south to Fulton (Hempstead County) on the Red River. One of those highways passed through the Midway area, …

Military Farm Colonies (Arkansas Delta)

As the Federal army moved across Arkansas during the Civil War, thousands of newly freed slaves attached themselves to military units and eventually began to amass in Union strongholds. Helena (Phillips County) and Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) were just two of the towns where Union commanders struggled to provide for this massive influx of refugees. As more freedmen arrived at Helena after it fell to Union forces in 1862, military officers worked to alleviate the strain these civilians put on the supply lines. Eventually, a program that saw some success in Tennessee and Mississippi was adopted by the commanders at Helena. Realizing that the freedmen were an untapped source of labor, Union officers east of the Mississippi River leased abandoned …

Miller County

Miller County’s location in southwest Arkansas made it the “Gateway to the Southwestern United States” through its rivers, stagecoach roads, and Native American trails. It is an area of flat plains and gentle hills with an abundance of pine and hardwood forests. The northern and eastern border is marked by the meandering Red River, and the climate is moderate with a growing season of 254 days. The rich soil grows cotton, sorghum, rice, corn, and other crops. The county is also known for its seat of Texarkana, which borders its sister city of Texarkana, Texas. Pre-European Exploration through European Exploration and Settlement People have lived in the Miller County area for at least 10,000 years. Over 400 archaeological sites known …

Miller’s Bluff (Ouachita County)

Miller’s Bluff is an unincorporated community located in Ouachita County along the Ouachita River. Located in the southeast corner of the county, Miller’s Bluff is about five miles north of Norphlet (Union County), six miles northeast of Smackover (Union County), and seventeen miles southeast of the county seat of Camden (Ouachita County). The community is directly across the river from Calhoun County. The Hunter-Dunbar Expedition passed the future site of the community while exploring the Ouachita River valley in 1804 and 1805 but did not make any special notes of the area. The community is named for an early settler (although the exact details including the settler’s first name are not recorded). Early settlers in the area include Anderson Farris, …

Milligan Ridge (Mississippi County)

Milligan Ridge is a small farming community located along State Highway 158 in the western portion of Mississippi County. It is a part of what is known as “Buffalo Island.” Big Lake and Little River separate the island from the remainder of Mississippi County on the east. The area has the distinction of being one of the last in the state to be claimed for farming from the swampy land around the Mississippi River. A few people inhabited the mosquito-infested swamplands as late as the 1890s. They came to the area to trap, hunt, and fish, or to hide from the law. For example, Lucilius Steven Milligan and his sons, James Riley and Jacob Minton Milligan, were running from the …

Millwood State Park

Located just outside of Ashdown (Little River County) in southwest Arkansas, Millwood State Park is known for its excellent fishing and wildlife habitats. It was established about a decade after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built 29,500-acre Millwood Lake north of Texarkana (Miller County). Held in place by a 3.3-mile-long earthen dam—the longest of its type in Arkansas—the lake’s trademark timber stands have made it a bass-fishing haven by providing cover vegetation and a food source that keep the fish in shallow, more accessible water. The lake was built in 1966 on the Little River, some sixteen miles above its confluence with the Red River. In addition to the Little River, the Cossatot and Saline rivers also contribute to …

Mineral Springs (Howard County)

Mineral Springs is the second-largest city in Howard County. The springs for which it was named were once touted as medicinal—the best and purest such water in Arkansas. A cotton center for much of the twentieth century, Mineral Springs is now home to many of Howard County’s industrial workers. The Caddo Indians once lived in the area that became Howard County. After Arkansas became a state, the first settler to make a home near the springs was Cokely Williams, who arrived in 1840. At that time, Howard County had not yet been established, and the springs were located near the line separating Hempstead and Sevier counties. As other settlers arrived, Williams established a post office in Sevier County. This post …

Minturn (Lawrence County)

Minturn is a town on U.S. Highway 67 in Lawrence County. Created as a railroad depot, the town prospered while the timber industry flourished in the county, but it has since declined in population. Margarete Ethel Neel, a poster-child of the Red Cross during World War II, was born in Minturn. The first white dwellers in the area were French settlers who built homes along the Black River. Although the Minturn area is watered by a pair of creeks, it probably was not settled until after the Civil War. During Arkansas’s territorial period, the U.S. government created a military road that passed through the future location of Minturn. Known as the Southwest Trail, it stretched from Missouri to Texas along …

Miss Laura’s Social Club

The former Miss Laura’s Social Club, a house of prostitution, serves as a unique visitor center for Fort Smith (Sebastian County) and is a reminder of the town’s rich history. Located at 123 First Street, it is the only former bordello in Arkansas listed on the National Register of Historic Places. On the border between what was the known United States and Indian Territory, Fort Smith was one of the historic Old West towns. Being a border town invited the business of prostitution into the town, and several bordellos were established around the turn of the century. Built in 1896 as the Riverfront Commercial Hotel, the house at 123 First Street was bought by Laura Ziegler in 1898. Zeigler borrowed …

Mississippi Alluvial Plain

aka: Mississippi Delta
aka: Arkansas Delta
aka: Delta
aka: Mississippi River Delta
aka: Mississippi River Valley

The Mississippi Alluvial Plain (a.k.a. Delta) is a distinctive natural region, in part because of its flat surface configuration and the dominance of physical features created by the flow of large streams. This unique physiography occupies much of eastern Arkansas including all or parts of twenty-seven counties. The Alluvial Plain, flatter than any other region in the state, has elevations ranging from 100 to 300 feet above sea level. In Arkansas, the Alluvial Plain extends some 250 miles in length from north to south and varies in width from east to west from only twelve miles in Desha County to as much as ninety-one miles measured from Little Rock (Pulaski County) to the Mississippi River. The work of large rivers …

Mississippi County

Mississippi County, in the northeastern corner of the state, is named for the river that forms its eastern boundary. It is noted for its agricultural production (especially cotton, soybeans, rice, and corn), which has contributed greatly to the economy of the area and the state. Eight steel-related industries have located in the county in recent years, making it the largest steel-producing county in the nation. These and other industries have chosen Mississippi County because of its transportation system that combines river, rail, and interstate highway movement. Pre-European Exploration Mississippi County was home to many prehistoric cultures. About 800 known archeological sites exist in the county. Numerous Indian mounds can be seen throughout the county, and many artifacts of the Nodena …

Mississippi Flyway

The Mississippi Flyway is one of four loosely defined routes used by some species of migratory birds as they travel each autumn from breeding areas in northern North America to wintering sites in the southern United States, Mexico, and Central and South America, and back again in spring. Other North American flyways are the Atlantic, to the east of the Mississippi Flyway; the Central, through the Plains states; and the Pacific, west of the Rocky Mountains. In northern latitudes, summer brings long days and abundant insects and other invertebrates for food, conducive to nesting success for birds. Winter, however, means harsh weather conditions, the disappearance of invertebrates, and frozen lakes and rivers. As a result, most birds nesting in the …

Mitchellville (Desha County)

Mitchellville, a city in the Arkansas Delta that borders Dumas (Desha County), is the result of experiments in city planning. A church association acquired the land in the 1940s, divided it into lots, and sold the lots to a specific group of buyers, while also planning the placement of roads and electric service. With the highest percentage of African-American citizens of any city in Arkansas, Mitchellville is also one of the poorest cities in the state. The rich soil of the Arkansas Delta drew investors who created plantations and grew cotton. Until the Civil War, work on the plantations was performed almost entirely by slaves. The Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution abolished slavery, but many of the former slaves and their descendants …

Monastery of Our Lady of Charity and Refuge

aka: Good Shepherd Home

The Monastery of Our Lady of Charity and Refuge, also known as the Good Shepherd Home, has provided education and childcare in Hot Springs (Garland County) since its inception in the early twentieth century. The Sisters of Our Lady of Charity and Refuge, a Catholic order of nuns who operate the monastery daycare, attracted national and state attention in 2007 when most of their members were excommunicated by the Roman Catholic Church for heresy; these constitute the only excommunications issued in the history of the Diocese of Little Rock. The monastery began with the arrival of five French-speaking Canadian nuns to Hot Springs from Ottawa on September 18, 1908. They came at the request of Bishop John Baptist Morris, who …

Monette (Craighead County)

Monette in Craighead County is one of the principal cities in the region of northeastern Arkansas called Buffalo Island. Founded when the railroad was built across the region around the beginning of the twentieth century, Monette quickly became an agricultural center and later added light industry, surviving the economic changes that have sent so many similar cities in Arkansas and other southern states into decline. Buffalo Island was shaken by the New Madrid Earthquakes of 1811–1812, causing much of the land to sink and become swampland. The hardwood forests and marshy areas made travel and settlement difficult, but a few families made their homes in the region during the nineteenth century. Arnold Stotts (some sources show the name as Stott) acquired high …

Monkey Run (Baxter County)

The small community of Monkey Run is located in a narrow valley on the western border of modern-day Baxter County. During its heyday in the early 1920s, it was home to a number of thriving businesses and as many as seven zinc mining operations. The settlement reportedly came into existence with the establishment of the nearby Pilgrim’s Rest Baptist Church in 1872. Early families who helped settle the area included the Hodges, Reeds, Staffords, and Messicks. By the early 1900s, a school had been established and a few businesses were in operation. A name change came sometime shortly after its founding as Pilgrim’s Rest. At least three versions of the story regarding the name change exist, though all concern a …

Monroe County

Monroe County, named for President James Monroe, is located approximately halfway between Little Rock (Pulaski County) and Memphis, Tennessee. Notable communities include Brinkley, Clarendon, Holly Grove, Indian Bay, Blackton, Fargo, and Roe. Monroe County is adjacent to Arkansas, Prairie, and Woodruff counties. The White River separates Monroe and Arkansas counties, while the Cache River separates Monroe and Prairie counties. The county’s economic base is farming, and the land is among some of the most fertile in the state. About 1,500 acres in the county’s southeastern corner are protected by levee, but much of the remainder is subject to flooding. The area is drained by the White and Cache rivers, DeView and Roc Roe bayous, and several sloughs and creeks. Pre-European …

Monte Ne (Benton County)

Monte Ne (Benton County) was a resort town founded by William H. “Coin” Harvey in 1900. It had the world’s largest log hotels, designed by architect A. O. Clark, and attracted visitors from across the country for more than two decades. It was the site of Harvey’s nomination to the Liberty Party’s 1932 presidential ticket and the location for his planned monument to the future. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. Located five miles southeast of Rogers (Benton County), Monte Ne began as the community of Silver Springs. Betty Blake Rogers, financial advisor and spouse to entertainer Will Rogers, was born here in 1879. Harvey, who had worked all over the country as a lawyer, silver …

Montgomery County

Montgomery County is noted for its quartz crystal deposits, the rugged beauty of the Ouachita Mountains and its sparkling, clear waters. Every year, thousands enjoy hunting, hiking, observing nature, fishing, and participating in water sports on Lake Ouachita, Arkansas’s largest lake with 48,300 surface acres, and the Ouachita, Caddo, and Little Missouri rivers; the latter drops thirty-five feet per mile in its twenty-nine-mile journey through southern Montgomery County. The county is also the home of fictional characters Lum and Abner. Pre-European Exploration through European Exploration and Settlement The Arkansas Archeological Survey has listed a number of sites in the county. Stone spear or dart points indicate that people of the Dalton culture (ca. 8500 BC) and Tom’s Brook culture (ca. …

Monticello (Drew County)

Monticello is the largest town in southeast Arkansas south of Pine Bluff (Jefferson County). Its history is one of continued growth and prosperity. Located at the intersection of two major roads and served early by railroads, it became an enduring commercial hub. A diversified infrastructure consisting of commerce, agriculture, and the timber industry created a strong foundation and sustained the town’s growth. The town also became an important educational and medical center. Louisiana Purchase through Early Statehood The first center of business and county court were at nearby Rough and Ready Hill, which was settled by 1836. Soon after Drew County formed in 1846, leading citizens decided that a new town should be built for the county seat. In 1849, …

Monticello Academy

Monticello Academy in Drew County was under the sponsorship of the Board of Missions for Freedmen of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. (PCUSA), or the “Northern” Presbyterian Church, which first began opening schools for freed slaves in the South in the 1860s. However, it was not until the 1880s, when a new presbytery had been established in the state and numbers of African Americans from the eastern states were resettling there, that the board felt confident enough to begin its work in Arkansas. The academy was started in 1891 by the Reverend C. S. Mebane, who had come to Monticello (Drew County) in 1888 as the pastor of Second Presbyterian Church there. He was closely aided in his work …

Montrose (Ashley County)

Located at an important railroad junction, the city of Montrose in eastern Ashley County is at the intersection of U.S. Highways 165 and 82. Always an agriculturally based city, Montrose is best known today as the home of the Sassy Jones Sauce & Spice Company. Montrose is also the birthplace of Helen Corrothers, who served with the Arkansas Department of Correction before going on to serve on the United States Parole Board. Although western Ashley County is noted for the timber industry, which was centered in Crossett (Ashley County), the eastern part of the county belongs to the Mississippi Delta region, which was home to numerous cotton plantations before and after the Civil War. Dugald McMillan was the first landowner who registered …

Moorefield (Independence County)

Moorefield is an incorporated town located on Highway 69 midway between Sulphur Rock (Independence County) and Batesville (Independence County). A railroad and farming town, it is named for Jesse Alison Moore, the most prominent landowner in the community at the time the post office was established in the 1880s. Jesse A. Moore was born in Jefferson County, Tennessee, in 1840. He came to Ruddell Hill (Independence County) shortly after the Civil War and married Elizabeth Jane Moore, who may have been a distant cousin. They moved to Gainsboro (Independence County), where she lived. He became a prominent farmer in Big Bottom along the banks of the Black and White rivers. Moore was a member of the Masonic fraternity and held …

Moose Addition Neighborhood Historic District

The Moose Addition Neighborhood Historic District was the first residential area of Morrilton (Conway County) to be developed. Its center (now known as Division Street) marked the dividing line between the Moose and Morrill farms, whose owners donated land so that the railroad could be built. The district encompasses portions of Division Street, Moose Avenue, Green Street, West and East Valley Streets, Green Street, and Brown Street. The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on September 3, 2013, and is considered locally significant under Criterion C for significant and distinct architecture. The neighborhood’s boundaries encompass thirty-one structures and twenty ancillary buildings. The building composition includes mainly brick and originally wood-sided residential structures, with the exception of …

Morgan (Pulaski County)

Morgan is an unincorporated settlement in northern Pulaski County. It is located on State Highway 365 (also known as MacArthur Drive) between Maumelle (Pulaski County) and Camp Joseph T. Robinson. Most people who travel through Morgan do not even know that they have been there. The origins of the name of Morgan are unknown, particularly since it never had a post office or a railroad depot. The earliest use of the land around Morgan was as a cemetery, called Palarm Bayou Pioneer Cemetery, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2005. Several citizens of Little Rock (Pulaski County) are buried there, including Daniel E. Wilson, buried in 1837, and John Ferguson, buried in 1886. Wilson, a businessman …

Moro (Lee County)

Located at the intersection of State Highways 238 and 78, Moro is the second-largest incorporated community in Lee County, exceeded in size only by Marianna, the county seat. Despite a population of only approximately 200 residents, it has about thirty businesses in the twenty-first century. The present town of Moro is the second one in Hampton Township to carry that name. The two towns were not in the same location, and the first one vanished nearly a decade before the current town was founded. Today, that earlier village is remembered as “Old Moro.” Old Moro emerged as settlers claimed land around an intersection of military roads constructed in 1835 connecting Helena (Phillips County) to the capital at Little Rock (Pulaski …

Moro Bay State Park

Moro Bay State Park is one of the most popular locations for fishing and water sports in south central Arkansas. Located at the convergence of Raymond Lake, Moro Bay, and the Ouachita River, the park also marks the junction of Bradley, Calhoun, and Union counties. Records from November 18, 1804, of the Hunter-Dunbar Expedition up the Ouachita River described “Bay Morau” as “a large inlet on the right, which swells into a considerable lake during an inundation.” Before railroads, the Ouachita River was the primary means of travel in the region, and many cotton barges used it to make their way from south Arkansas to New Orleans. In days past, the only way to get across the river was by ferry. …

Morrilton (Conway County)

Morrilton, the seat of Conway County, is located on Interstate 40 fifty-four miles northwest of Little Rock (Pulaski County). It is home to the Winthrop Rockefeller Institute and the University of Arkansas Community College at Morrilton. Louisiana Purchase through Early Statehood In 1820, Major William Lewis and his son, Stephen D. Lewis, settled about a mile south of present-day Morrilton. In 1825, they established a trading post and called it Lewisburg. The new town thrived due to its location on the Arkansas River, and it soon had a large population and numerous businesses, including two newspapers and an opera house. A Masonic lodge served as the town’s first school. From November to December 1836, during the Trail of Tears forced migration, …

Morris House (White County)

aka: Conley-Siler Residence

The pre–Civil War Morris House is one of the oldest surviving rural houses in White County. Constructed along the Military Road in 1860, the house served as a stopover station for many visitors traveling through the state during the early nineteenth century. In the late 1840s, Henry Patrick Morris, one of four brothers who left Virginia for Arkansas, settled on a farm just north of Searcy (White County) with his wife, Sarah Howerton Morris. In 1860, Henry and Sarah Morris made a contract with the builder John Ransom for a house to be built on the farm at the cost of $200. They built the house about halfway between the developing towns of Searcy and Batesville (Independence County) on a …

Morrison Bluff (Logan County)

Morrison Bluff is a town in northern Logan County. It is on the south bank of the Arkansas River and was once a significant stopping point for keel boats and steamboats. According to local lore, a settler whose last name was Morrison traveled by keel boat around 1800 to the bluff that now bears his name and settled there. In its earlier years, it was often called Morrison’s Bluff. However, no evidence of a white settlement from that time exists. In 1820, Matthew Lyon, U.S. factor to the Cherokee Nation in Arkansas Territory, settled at the trading post in Spadra (Johnson County), on the north shore of the river. By the end of the decade, about a dozen families had …

Mount Comfort (Washington County)

Mount Comfort is a historical community located near Fayetteville (Washington County). The local citizens helped to make the area a center of education, including the establishment of what is now the University of Arkansas (UA). With the 1803 Louisiana Purchase by the United States, lands opened to additional white settlement and the U.S. government signaled limited interest in maintaining partnerships with Native American peoples. In the Arkansas Territory, hostilities between the Osage, the Cherokee, and the white settlers grew. By 1816, to reduce hostilities, Major William Lovely purchased a tract of land as buffer between the Osage and Cherokee. The Lovely purchase—originally composed of Washington, Benton, and parts of Madison and Carroll counties—eventually became Washington and Benton counties. A slow …

Mount Elba (Cleveland County)

Mount Elba, located on the Saline River in present-day Cleveland County, was established in the 1830s and became a thriving southern Arkansas commercial center. The town reached its pinnacle of importance by the 1860s. However, though surviving the Civil War, the town never regained its pre-war status, in part due to the decline of the importance of river commerce in the area. In 1818, much of the land in southern Arkansas was ceded to the Quapaw, delaying white settlement for many years, but the Treaty of 1824 made that land open to white settlement. By the early 1830s, Mount Elba was established on a rise of high ground on the east side of the Saline River south of the present-day …

Mount Holly Cemetery

Located in Little Rock (Pulaski County), Mount Holly Cemetery is often called the Westminster Abbey of Arkansas, a name that seems justified by the great number of individuals of significance in the fields of art, literature, religion, and politics who are buried there. Eleven Arkansas governors are interred therein, as well as thirteen Arkansas Supreme Court justices, four United States senators, four Confederate generals, and twenty-one Little Rock mayors. Mount Holly Cemetery dates from February 23, 1843, when ground was deeded by two leading citizens, Chester Ashley and Roswell Beebe, to the city of Little Rock. The cemetery is located on a four-square-block site between 11th and 13th streets and from Broadway to Gaines Street. Before the establishment of Mount …

Mount Ida (Montgomery County)

Mount Ida is near the center of the Ouachita National Forest, the South’s oldest and largest national forest. Nearby Lake Ouachita and many rivers and streams make it a favorite of nature lovers. For rock collectors, a layer of topsoil hides countless tons of clear quartz crystals. Early Statehood The first name given to the county seat of Montgomery County was Montgomery. Robert McConnell, who homesteaded the land, which later became city lots, was appointed commissioner to superintend the erection of a “log building” to accommodate the holding of court. The “County House,” as the courthouse was then called, was built in 1846 on the present courthouse square. The first post office in the area was established on June 28, …