December 9, 1886

J. M. C. Southard, a local civic leader, surveyed and platted a town he called Minersville near a rail terminus in Independence County. The community—later renamed Cushman in honor of the railroad vice president and operations officer of the Iron Mountain Railway, which carried passengers from Cushman to Newport and returned daily—was the center of a valuable manganese mining industry and was an important shipping and trade center for the next seventy-two years.