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    Arkansas County
    Arkansas County
    Arkansas County
    Ebook189 pages1 hour

    Arkansas County

    By Steven Hanley and Ray Hanley

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    About this ebook

    First established by the French in 1686, Arkansas Post was the first permanent European settlement in the Mississippi River Valley. It played a key role in the long struggle between France, Spain, and England for control of the lucrative fur trade. The only battle of the American Revolution fought west of the Mississippi took place in Arkansas County. Located in the heart of the Grand Prairie, Stuttgart, one of two Arkansas County seats, is known as the duck and rice capital of the world. Bayou Meto and several lakes draw waterfowl to the area each fall, and ducks flocking to Stuttgart attract hunters from across the nation. Each November, the community hosts the World Championship Duck Calling Contest.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateApr 28, 2008
    ISBN9781439619537
    Arkansas County
    Author

    Steven Hanley

    Brothers Steven and Ray Hanley are natives of Malvern. Using a wealth of archival materials, they share the colorful story of their hometown and county. Readers will learn about the historic day in 1936 when Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt visited the community and about the evolution from dirt streets, horses, and buggies to a modern highway bringing thousands of motorists through the city. They will witness the changes that technology and growth have wrought in small-town life, a microcosm of small towns across the nation. The authors of 10 Arcadia Publishing titles, Steven and Ray Hanley are also the producers of �Arkansas Post Card Past,� a daily feature appearing in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette since 1986. During the past 24 years, they have published more than 6,500 historic Arkansas photographs and the stories behind the images.

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      Book preview

      Arkansas County - Steven Hanley

      2007

      INTRODUCTION

      Located in the heart of the Grand Prairie, Arkansas County is the oldest in Arkansas and is adorned with a colorful history. Though unusual, the county has a dual seat, with courthouses in DeWitt and Stuttgart. The oldest records in Arkansas are in the Stuttgart Courthouse; they date from 1796 and are written in Spanish. These records begin the tale a century earlier, with the arrival in June 1686 of French explorer Henri deTonti, who established a post for trading with the native population near the juncture of the Arkansas and Mississippi Rivers. Poste de Arkansea, or Arkansas Post, was the first semi-permanent European settlement in the long Mississippi River Valley.

      Over the years, the settlement was relocated from time to time because of flooding on the Arkansas River. Its position was consistently strategic for the French, Spanish, Confederate, and Union military. In April 1783, during the American Revolution—in which Spain sided with the colonies—Capt. James Colbert led a band of British partisans and Chickasaw Indians in an attack on Arkansas Post. The engagement was the only battle of the American Revolution fought west of the Mississippi River.

      Created by the legislature of the Missouri Territory in 1813, Arkansas County comprised about two-thirds of what is now the state of Arkansas, along with part of eastern Oklahoma. In 1819, more than half of the state’s counties were carved off of this original county when the Arkansas Territory was created. Arkansas Post was named the capital of this new territory.

      On November 20, 1819, less than a month after arriving at Arkansas Post, a 23- year-old New York native named William Woodruff published the inaugural issue of the Arkansas Gazette, the first newspaper of the Arkansas Territory. Post residents celebrated with a barrel of whiskey donated by two local merchants. Woodruff printed the paper at Arkansas Post until November 24, 1821; when the capital moved to Little Rock, Woodruff brought his office there.

      The most important battle fought in Arkansas County during the Civil War was the capture of Fort Hindman at Arkansas Post by Union forces in January 1863. The Confederate government had built the huge earthen fortress as a base for harassing enemy efforts on the Mississippi River and to help guard Little Rock, 117 miles upstream. Destroyed in the fighting, the town of Arkansas Post was never rebuilt. Today the site is a national monument.

      After the war, the towns of Crockett’s Bluff, Casscoe, and St. Charles became thriving river ports, thanks to the return of steamboat traffic to the White River. Railroads eventually connected the towns of Stuttgart, DeWitt, Gillett, Almyra, and Humphrey with the outside world and hauled the Grand Prairie’s bountiful harvest to distant markets.

      Stuttgart, the largest town in Arkansas County, began as a dream of Rev. Adam Buerkle, a Lutheran minister who immigrated to the United States from near Stuttgart, Germany, around 1852. By 1877, Reverend Buerkle was seeking a certain spot to establish a colony of his fellow German immigrants. He realized he had found just the spot when he visited the Grand Prairie region. The town he founded was named for the city in his homeland.

      With the introduction of rice to the area in 1904, the region’s agriculture was changed forever. The state’s first rice mill was established at Stuttgart in 1907 by a group of the community’s leading farmers and businessmen. Their vision helped make Stuttgart the Rice Capital of the World, as merchants, lawyers, and other professionals flocked to the Grand Prairie to profit from providing support services to the farmers.

      Today Arkansas is a national and international leader in rice production. The state devotes 1.4 million acres to the crop—43 percent of the total rice acreage in the country. Arkansas is home to the world’s largest rice processing and export company, Riceland Foods, a farmer-owned cooperative located at Stuttgart, where Arkansas rice farming started over a century ago.

      One

      FRONTIER TO CIVIL WAR

      Early life was challenging and often uncertain in the newly settled regions of Arkansas. Capt. James Colbert led a band of British partisans and Chickasaw Indians in an attack on Arkansas Post during the Revolutionary War. The attackers, their oars muffled by leather, paddled up to the sleeping village before dawn and captured it easily. Their assault on the nearby stockade failed, however. The retreating raiders were pursued by the Spaniards and taken prisoner the next day. The engagement was the only battle of the Revolutionary War fought west of the Mississippi.

      Spanish soldiers manned the ramparts of the stockade at Arkansas Post with cannons like the six-pound smooth bore, as demonstrated in 2006 by re-enactors and employees of the National Park Service. Spain later ceded the territory to France, who in turn sold it to the United States as part of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. (Photograph by Edward Wood Jr., courtesy of the National Park Service.)

      The British/Chickasaw attack during the Revolutionary War was not the first assault faced by the settlers. More than 30 years earlier, in May 1749, a force of 150 Chickasaw Indians had been urged by British allies to attack Arkansas Post. Six settlers were killed, and eight women and children were taken captive while the survivors fled to the nearby fort. After looting and burning the settlement, the raiders attempted to storm the stockade. A heavy volley from the defenders killed two of the attackers and seriously wounded their leader, forcing

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