calsfoundation@cals.org
June 11, 1793
Don Joseph Valliere, captain of the Sixth Regiment of Louisiana under the Spanish government, received a land grant from Baron de Carondelet, governor-general of the Spanish Province of Louisiana and Florida, extending about twenty miles on each side of the White River to its source beginning at the mouth of the Buffalo and the Big North Fork. Searcy County would eventually be formed in this area. Because European population was sparse, European and American administrators had known of this area only from Native American reports. But Spanish officials never visited the land, and Valliere did not settle it. This grant is the first mention of the area in European-American archives.