Entry Type: Place - Starting with S

Smyrna (Clark County)

Smyrna is a community located in western Clark County. It is about five miles north of Okolona (Clark County) and two miles east of the Clear Spring (Clark County) community. The land where Smyrna is located was obtained by land speculators Samuel Doresy and Henry Dawson on August 10, 1837, when they received a federal land patent at the office in Washington (Hempstead County). This plot was part of more than 4,000 acres that the pair obtained in Clark County that month. The area remained sparsely settled for decades. Located in the former Terre Noire Township, the community is centered on the Smyrna United Methodist Church and nearby cemetery. The land for the church and cemetery was donated by James …

Snapp (Woodruff County)

Located about twelve miles northeast of the county seat of Augusta (Woodruff County), Snapp was an agricultural, business, and postal center for that area of the county from the late 1800s until well into the twentieth century. The community took its name from Lafayette D. Snapp, who moved there in 1866 from Missouri. Born on April 22, 1842, to a pioneer family of German descent in Taney County, Missouri, Snapp—along with two of his brothers—enlisted in Company E, Third Missouri Cavalry (CS), during the Civil War. Following the war, Snapp moved to Woodruff County, where on March 4, 1869, he married Mary Hester Luckenbill. Snapp established a general mercantile store and grist mill, as well as a cotton gin with …

Snowball (Searcy County)

The unincorporated community of Snowball in Searcy County is typical of the many Arkansas towns established in the Ozark Mountains in the late nineteenth century. Located about thirteen miles west of the county seat of Marshall on state Highway 74, this once thriving commercial community today consists of a Masonic Hall, a few residences, and no commercial businesses. The area along the banks of Calf Creek, near modern-day Snowball, was settled by Native Americans dating back to the Late Archaic Period. A Native American site, Cooper’s Bluff, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. One of the earliest white settlers is believed to have been John Campbell, who settled with his family along the creek in about 1837. …

Social Hill (Hot Spring County)

Social Hill of Hot Spring County is located seven miles southwest of the junction of the Ouachita River and the Old Military Road at Highway 84, and about ten miles from Malvern (Hot Spring County). Adam Blakely was the first to homestead land at Social Hill, in the 1820s. He built the dogtrot-style Blakely House on the peak of the hill in 1837. Farming was the main economic activity in the community. The area’s Methodist church was first organized as Pisgah Methodist Church in 1874, but the name was later changed to Lone Hill Methodist. It then became known as Social Hill Methodist Church. The school building located at Haw Branch, a shallow stream, was occupied by students during the week, …

South Arkansas Arboretum State Park

South Arkansas Arboretum State Park preserves native flora and fauna of the West Gulf Coastal Plain while offering educational and recreational activities for visitors. Located in El Dorado (Union County), it is Arkansas’s only natural state park located within a city. Added to the state park system in the 1990s, it is Arkansas’s fiftieth state park. The late James Riley, a biology teacher at the adjacent El Dorado High School, is credited as the driving force behind the arboretum’s creation, including securing federal education grants for land acquisition and early development. Using an office in the high school, Riley devised a plan to use land belonging to the school system for educational displays, scientific studies, and a park-like setting for …

South Arkansas Community College (SouthArk)

South Arkansas Community College, commonly referred to as SouthArk, is a comprehensive two-year public college based in El Dorado (Union County). The college offers an extensive program of transfer credit courses, allied health degrees, associate’s degree and technical certificate programs, computer technology programs, skilled trades courses, GED courses, and non-credit continuing education programs for the general public. 1,715 students are enrolled as of September 2014. The college opened in 1992 when Governor Bill Clinton signed legislation merging the El Dorado branch of Southern Arkansas University (SAU) and Oil Belt Technical College into one college: South Arkansas Community College. Oil Belt had opened as Oil Belt Vocational-Technical School in 1967 just east of El Dorado, and it now serves as the East …

South Lead Hill (Boone County)

South Lead Hill is a residential town located on State Highway 7 in northern Boone County. It is one of three communities that formed after the construction of Bull Shoals Dam flooded the location of the earlier town of Lead Hill (Boone County). Osage hunted and fished in northern Arkansas before the Louisiana Purchase added the land to the United States in 1803. A series of treaties moved the Osage west to Indian Territory (now the state of Oklahoma), but the northern part of Arkansas Territory remained sparsely settled for many years. Eli Dodson and William Cantrell both acquired land patents east of the location that would become South Lead Hill in 1854. In 1884, Robert Hollis purchased the land …

Southeast Arkansas College (SEARK)

The mission of Southeast Arkansas College (SEARK College) in Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) is to provide comprehensive community college education and services, with an emphasis on technical education and workforce development, for the citizens of Jefferson, Cleveland, Desha, Drew, Grant, and Lincoln counties. The predecessor of Southeast Arkansas College was Arkansas Vocational-Technical School, which began offering postsecondary vocational-technical programs on September 21, 1959. Act 328 of 1957 set the stage for the establishment of the first vocational-technical school in Arkansas to meet the needs of industry and thus provide jobs and raise the standard of living for Arkansas citizens. The school’s first director was Leon Coker, who headed it from 1958 to 1974. The school’s name was later changed to …

Southern Arkansas University (SAU)

Southern Arkansas University (SAU) is a comprehensive regional public university located in Magnolia (Columbia County). For over a century, the school has provided increasing levels of educational opportunity in southwest Arkansas. Third District Agricultural School The school was established on April 1, 1909, when Governor George W. Donaghey signed Act 100 creating the Third District Agricultural School (TDAS) and three sister institutions at Jonesboro (Craighead County), Monticello (Drew County), and Russellville (Pope County). The Farmers Educational and Cooperative Union had campaigned vigorously in Arkansas and other states for these vocational agricultural high schools, an educational reform of the Progressive Era. Communities bid money and land in efforts to become sites for the Arkansas schools. Small farmers’ contributions won TDAS for Columbia …

Southern Arkansas University Tech (SAU Tech)

Southern Arkansas University Tech (SAU Tech) is a comprehensive two-year technical college located in Calhoun County, though its official address is in Camden (Ouachita County). The college was created by the Arkansas General Assembly as a technical trainer for the Highland Industrial Park, where the college is based. Today, SAU Tech provides technical training as well as transfer degrees as one of Arkansas’s two-year colleges. SAU Tech was founded as Southwest Technical Institute by Act 534 of the Arkansas General Assembly on April 5, 1967. The purpose of the institute was to provide a technically trained workforce for the Highland Industrial Park. Senator John L. McClellan approached the Brown Engineering Corporation, which had recently purchased the Shumaker Naval Ammunition Depot—a …

Southern Club

The Southern Club was a gambling and entertainment facility established in 1893 in Hot Springs (Garland County) that gained notoriety during the 1930s as a hangout for visiting gangsters. Among the oldest structures in Hot Springs, the club is located at 250 Central Avenue near the center of the downtown business district. The building was added to the National Register of Historic places on June 25, 1985, as part of the Hot Springs Central Avenue Historic District. At the end of the nineteenth century, Hot Springs experienced tremendous growth as a health resort and spa. One of the buildings constructed during this period was the private club of Charles Dugan and Dan Stuart, the Southern Club, which was built and …

Southern Tenant Farmers Museum

The Southern Tenant Farmers Museum in Tyronza (Poinsett County), which opened on October 6, 2006, focuses on the tenant farming system of agriculture in the South and the farm labor movement that arose in response to this system. The museum is owned and operated as an educational program of Arkansas State University (ASU) in Jonesboro (Craighead County). It is housed in the historic Mitchell-East Building, which served during the 1930s as a dry-cleaning business for H. L. Mitchell and a service station for Clay East, two of the principal founders of the Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union (STFU). The museum was created after the Tyronza community approached Arkansas State University for assistance in saving the rapidly deteriorating building and in utilizing it …

Southland College

Southland College emerged out of a Civil War–era mission by Indiana Quakers who came to Helena (Phillips County) in 1864 to care for lost and abandoned black children. Its founders, Alida and Calvin Clark, were abolitionist members of the Religious Society of Friends who arrived in Arkansas to render temporary relief to displaced orphans. They stayed for the remainder of their working lives, establishing the school that became the first institution of higher education for African Americans west of the Mississippi River. The school survived six decades of economic adversity and social strife. After operating an orphanage and school in Helena for two years, in 1866, the Clarks, with the vital assistance of the officers and men of the Fifty-sixth …