HISTORY OF WHITE CO., ARK. ************************************************************** Submitted by: Bonnie Palmer Date:8/21/97 Copyright: All rights reserved. USGENWEB ARCHIVES DISCLAIMER: In keeping with our policy of providing free Information on the Internet, data may be used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material. These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or for presentation by other persons or organizations. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material for purposes other than stated above must obtain the written consent of the file contributor. ************************************************************* Note! Looking for an old area you can't find? Special mini-histories of Romance, Pangburn, Searcy, Bald Knob, Hickory Flat, Judsonia , West Point, Georgetown, Kensett, Mt. Pisgah & Beebe at end! (There are also mentions of old place names here in addition to these & some very interesting side stories to a couple.) Check these out! ************************************************************* White County, Arkansas sits nestled in the foothills of the Ozark Mountains. It is a beautiful area with many creeks, ridges, & hills. Most of the creek bottoms are smooth rock & mountain fed spring water. You'll find small caves in the area & wildlife still abounds in the wooded areas. Some of the nicest people you'd ever care to meet are there & most of them have a deep sense of family since many of them have had generations of relatives living in the area from the time the county was first settled. The earliest settlers were, of course, the Indians. The Osage Indians roamed the area by the time of the American Revolution, hunting bear, deer & buffalo, among other things. By this time, Arkansas had already changed ownership several times; first the Spanish (DeSoto in 1541), then the French (LaSalle in 1682), & after the Indian War in 1782, to Spain again. The American Revolution changed this as Spain started giving more & more land to the colonists, one land grant at a time. The Spanish then, behind the United States back, signed a treaty with France in 1800 & gave the area of "Louisiana" (including Ark.) back to France. This confusing situation was finally settled with the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 & Arkansas was finally in possesion of the United States. (Only about 10% of the original Spanish Land Grants were honored.) White County, along with the rest, was bought for a mere 4 cents per acre. Frontiersmen flooded into the Arkansas area after the Louisiana Purchase. They followed the old Indian Trails typically, one of which was the Old Southwest Trail which led to Texas. Many Kentucky & Tennessee pioneers came down this trail on their way to better lands. It was later called the "Old Military Road". It entered White County at Ten Mile Creek to the north & exited at Center Hill on the other end. The Cherokee Indians had started moving into the area by this time, also. In 1811 & 1812 the largest earthquakes in modern North American history struck in New Madrid, Missouri. The effects of this were felt all the way down into White County. A few years later, in 1817, the US government gave the Cherokee a treaty to lands stretching west of the present county seat at Searcy. This caused many problems since white settlers kept moving into the area and the expected differences of opinion between the two finally got to a point where the Indians, in 1828, with just a little treachary on the govenment's part, were made to cede their land in the area to the US government & forced to move into the Oklahoma Indian Territory. In 1825, the area of White Co. was described as having houses about eight to ten miles apart, but sometimes six or eight families would cluster together in one area. Nearly all the homes had a number of bearskins stretched out to dry, which were used for trading. By 1834, the "medicinal" Sulphur & Shlybeate Springs had turned into a crude tourist area which even had a hotel of frontier quality. This was the original location of Searcy. On June 15, 1836, Arkansas was admitted as a state to the Union as a "slave state". The year before, on Oct. 23, 1835, White Co. had been formed from 1020 sq. miles of land taken from Pulaski, Jackson & Independence Counties. In 1840, after numerous legal problems, the county seat of Searcy was finally ready for construction of the courthouse. Since then, Searcy has grown into a large town with a wonderful historical flavor. The surrounding area is largely rural and the people are proud proof of the survival skills of their brave anscestors. I hope everyone who has family ties back to this wonderful area are as proud to have been a part of it as I am. BALD KNOB: Was started near the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern RR in 1878. Most of the people who moved into Bald Knob were from Stevens Creek originally (near there). At one time there was a huge outcrop of rock that the town was named for, but that was quarried out so none of the town's namesake remains. BEEBEE: Was originally Stoney Point but in 1872, storekeepers moved their 5 buisnesses to be near the new Cairo & Fulton RR & renamed the town Beebee, after the president of the said RR. (Stoney Point got its first post office in 1849.) Ark. State University (Beebee Branch) is there. GEORGETOWN: Known as Negro Flats as far back as 1808 because at that time it was reportedly settled by escaped slaves. It is also said to have been established by the Francure brothers from 1745-1820. HICKORY FLAT: In the 1830s, this area was about 6 mi. from where the Southwest Trail crossed the Little Red River at Hilger's Ferry. Formerly Davenport from 1890-1932, Hickory Flat boasts of the Philadelphia Baptist Church, the oldest church in the county (since gone) which used to be located where the cemetery at Little Red is now at. JUDSONIA: Formerly Prospect Bluff (1840), it was at one time a thriving steamboat landing. After the Civil War, Northerners invaded the town in response to Judson University's recruitment program & settled in the northern side of town, close to the university. In 1874, the "subdivision" of Judsonia was incorporated in & the town was renamed after it to help promote the University. It has the unusual honor of having a Union Army Cemetery here because of all the Yankees who lived there during the war. (Evergreen Cemetery) An old story from our family says that Judsonia was ripped apart by tornados way back. (If someone has info on this, please forward) This was kindly forwarded to me by Regina Baugh: About the tornado in Judsonia. I have an article from a Dallas newspaper. I also have a note in my g-grandmothers Jornal. She lived in Judsonia at the time: 1956, April 2. Dallas newspaper. (Photo of Edna Wright Turner) "NOT ENOUGH ROOM is the plight of Mrs. G. Earl Turner, 5833 Belmont Ave., who will leave for her home town of Kinsett (that's how they spelled it). Ark., Friday morning with gifts of food, clothing and cash for the 500 residents of the tornado-stricken community. Mrs. Turner has received scores of calls since she let it be known Tuesday that she planned to make the "relief" trip to Arkansas. She has received more than $100 cash and more than enough food and clothing to fill up two automobiles." Minnie Pruitt Hill wrote (in her journal): "Tornadio swept Judsonia Ark. March 21, 1952." BE SURE TO SEE THE JUDSONIA TORNADO OF 1852 on the main page index. KENSETT See West Point. See also above article about the tornado in Judsonia/Kinsett. MT. PISGAH: A mountain in the area which is used as an identifier for the old Southwest Trail. The Magness family cemetary is at the base (they settled in the area around 1816). PANGBURN: First known as Judson in 1858, the name was changed to Pangburn after David Pangburn, a local doctor. It is now a recreational area on the Little Red River. Population is 673. ROMANCE: Was originally called Kentucky Valley since it was first settled by families from Kentucky. In 1884 it was renamed Romance after the government refused to let them reapply for another post office under that name. The name Romance was put forward by J. J. Walters because he thought the area was so Romantic. It is located close to Des Arc creek & there are a few waterfalls in the area. ROSE BUD Rose Bud is a small community situated on Hwy. 36 where the cut-off to Heber Springs is. It is a tight-knit community where everyone knows everyone else. A description of the town in 1914 stated, "It was a shabby little place. There was only one painted house in it. All the others were of boards warped and grayed by the weather. The little group of stores on its one street had neither signs nor show windows. One of the front windows of the biggest store was boarded up because lumber was cheaper than glass. Razorback hogs sauntered and rooted and grunted in the street and slept in the yellow dust of it..." Later, it changed for the better! By the 1920's new building had been going on with many renovations (including glass windows) and a new sense of pride had been born by the installation of one of the most up-to-date and progressive schools in the nation. It then burned almost entirely in 1925 & between that & the Great Depression in 1929, almost disappeared. In the 1960's when I went to school there it was a typical small town with many older stores, but had a wonderfully quaint feel to it. The small town has lots of pine trees & is nestled in the large hills of the area. Unfortunately the hamlet of Rose Bud has had more than its fair share of disasters. The following are 2 reports of these. The Fire of 1925 It started at 2 o'clock in the morning on Thursday, Oct. 29, 1925 and it was arson. Three buildings had been set fire to at the same time (E. A. Robbins old store & brand-new warehouse & J. C. R. Davis's Estate Store) and because of strong winds, the fire spread rapidly. Hassell O'Guinn & Alonzo Fisher saw the fire & started shooting guns in the street to wake everyone up. Jake Fisher woke up & reported having seen someone running from the Davis Estate Store (the last fire that was set). Everyone started screaming and people were in a blind panic because the fire raged in a matter of seconds from the discovery, consuming the entire town. Hassell O'Guinn's family barely made it out in time. There was no water supply nor no fire department of any kind, volunteer or otherwise. The buildings destroyed to the best of everyone's recollection were: E. A. Robbins & Co., A. B. O'Guinn & Brother's store, J. C. R. Davis's store, W. E. Plant's store, Maddox & Shaw Garage, T. A. Grubbs house & bard, Edgar D. Maddox's Barber Shopwith the W. W. Owens Estate Store the only one left standing. Charles M. May who lived across the street from the Davis store had his home spared, also. The town was not rebuilt immediately & has slowly came back to life over many spanning later years, although never back to what it was in the 1920's. The 1982 Tornado On Dec., 2, 1982, two tornados came through Rose Bud, virtually destroying the entire town. The day started as a "tornado day" with the sky staying black all day & occasionally "going green", a sure sign of tornados threatening. At the Rose Bud school it is reported that the concrete was sweating & one of the teachers said that was a sure sign of a tornado. Everyone who lives in the White Co. area is very alert to tornado signs, having lived with them constantly during tornado season & most can spot tornado clouds in a split second. This was one of those days. Everyone was uncomfortable all day long, spending most of the day staring out windows & doors, rather than concentrating on what they should have been doing, knowing in their gut that real trouble was brewing. Knowing & waiting. Finally, around 4:30 in the afternoon, the first tornado was spotted. It blew through the Rose Bud area, scaring everyone, but not doing too much damage. The sky didn't change! There were still tornados brewing & everyone knew it. Everyone got ready for dinner nervously & most people stayed close to their storm cellars, if not in them, watching & trying to keep a light spirit, for the sake of the children. Finally, at five-fifty-five in the afternoon, the second huge tornado hit the small town. Since it was so late in the year, the sun was setting, although you couldn't tell with all the clouds. The sky was green with a yellowish-orange tint and a huge black mass hanging down in the middle of it. It looked and sounded like everyone had just been transported to hell. Debris started flying everywhere and the whole sky roared. It sounded like a freight train would sound if you were right under it. It seemed to last forever. Finally all was quiet. Rosebud had been destroyed. There was only one building left standing, intact, Culwell's Variety Store. Then came the looters. Many of the people armed themselves & stand guard to keep out the greedy tourists who came just to gawk at the destruction & try to take advantage of Rose Bud's disaster. The town was painstakingly rebuilt afterwards. (from an annonomous source) SEARCY: Known by Frankfort (1837), Searcy (1839), Sulphur Springs (1840s) & then Searcy again in 1840s (both of the latter names are shown on maps at that time). It is the county seat of White County, named for Richard Searcy, a territorial judge. Harding University is here. WEST POINT: A previous steamboat port (1852) on the Little Red River that went slowly by the way after the Cairo & Fulton RR went through. Kensett was then created nearby in 1873.