ARKANSAS POST - 1686 AND LATER
Continued

People flooded into Arkansas Post. William Woodruff arrived in October of 1819 and on November 20, 1819, printed the first copy of the Arkansas Gazette. The first steamboat up the Arkansas, the Comet, docked on March 31, 1820.

The influx of respectable citizens, gamblers, speculators and outlaws increased. A frenzy of land speculation arose and two new towns, Rome and Arkansas, were platted just north of Arkansas Post. Colonel Frederic Notrebe, the most prominent citizen of Arkansas Post founded the town of Napoleon at the mouth of the Arkansas River. In the midst of the excitement the first Masonic lodge was established in November of 1819. The sky was the limit.

All good things must come to an end. Arkansas Post was in the eastern part of the Territory, was remote and the climate was unhealthy. The new town of Little Rock appeared to remedy the situation. The Territorial Capitol was moved to Little Rock on June 1, 1821, and the population plummeted. While no records were kept, it must have topped two to three thousand in 1820. By 1830 it had dropped to 114. The Arkansas Gazette abandoned Arkansas Post; the last issue from Arkansas Post was printed on November 24, 1921. But Arkansas Post was still the county seat, remained a river port and was the entry into Arkansas. Thomas Nuttall, a distinguished geographer and world traveler, passed through in 1819. John James Audubon, the naturalist-artist, stayed in Arkansas Post for a few months in the spring of 1822. While here he found, named and painted a new species, Traill’s Flycatcher.

The economy up to that time had been based on fur-trading with the Indians. But the Quapaws were “relocated” in 1824 and a new economy based on farming, principally cotton, and commerce grew up. The principal man in Arkansas Post was Colonel Frederic Notrebe who came as a fur-trader in 1811. By the time of his death in 1846, he owned many of the Arkansas Post properties, stores, warehouses, plantations both in Arkansas and Desha Counties, and over a hundred slaves. He had a friendly rival, Hewes Scull, who had a similar establishment not 100 yards away in the village. Colonel Notrebe and Scull worked together to charter a bank for Arkansas Post in 1839, building a large two-story brick building, named the Arkansas Post Branch of the State Bank of Arkansas. Unfortunately, neither Notrebe or Scull had a hand in managing the bank and it went bankrupt in 1842.

Arkansas achieved statehood in 1836. Arkansas Post still was the County Seat of Arkansas County, and indeed was the only village in Arkansas County. A great influx of settlers started in 1847 looking for new and low-priced lands. Despite a set-back due to an outbreak of Asiatic cholera in 1849, this influx continued into the 1850’s. Due to a redrawing of county boundaries, it became evident Arkansas Post, being on the southern boundary of the county, was no longer suitable as the county seat. In 1855 the seat was moved north 20 miles to the new town of Dewitt. But, Arkansas Post still survived as a river port.

In 1861, Arkansas seceded from the Union and joined the Confederacy. The Confederates built a fort at Arkansas Post and garrisoned it with 5,000 men, and unwittingly signed the death warrant for Arkansas Post. A Union army of 30,000 men led by Major General John McClernand came upriver in January of 1863, accompanied by nine gunboats. In a two day bombardment on January 10 and 11, the fort was reduced and in the process, the village of Arkansas Post was almost destroyed. The bank building was hit and burned. The Union forces named it Fort Hindman and retained a small force for the rest of the war.