It was a natural spot for a town to thrive, this place called Pine Bluff. The Arkansas River provided a transportation route connecting the interior of Arkansas to the Mississippi River and thus to cities such as New Orleans and St. Louis. On one side were vast pine forests that would fuel a lucrative timber industry. On the other side were lowlands filled with bottomland hardwoods that would be harvested so the rich soil could grow cotton.
"In the autumn of 1819, Joseph Bonne, making his way upstream from Arkansas Post, built a crude cabin for his Quapaw wife and family on a high bluff covered with pine trees on the river's south bank," Russell Bearden wrote for the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture. "A few years later, James Scull, also from Arkansas Post, arrived and set up an encampment on the north bank across from the future site of Pine Bluff. The encampment soon became a tavern and small inn. On March 3, 1819, President James Monroe named Robert Crittenden territorial secretary. Crittenden quickly set about exploiting the remaining Quapaw in southeast Arkansas to relinquish their last tracts of land."
With the Quapaw gone and steamboat travel becoming more common, the area began attracting settlers such as French-born Antoine Barraque, for whom a major Pine Bluff street is named. Jefferson County was established in 1829, and Pine Bluff became the county seat in 1832. The town grew from 460 residents in 1850 to 9,952 residents in 1890, making it the third-largest city in the state. The railroad arrived in the 1880s, connecting Pine Bluff to Little Rock. The Cotton Belt located its main engine-maintenance shops in Pine Bluff in 1894. The railroad was the largest industrial employer in the county until the Pine Bluff Arsenal was built during World War II. Between the railroad, cotton industry, timber industry and arsenal, Pine Bluff boomed. The population almost tripled from 21,290 in 1940 to 57,389 in 1970.
Too often in recent years, it has seemed as if the news out of Pine Bluff is usually bad news. Pine Bluff lost 11 percent of its population between 2000 and 2010, falling below 50,000 in the 2010 census for the first time since 1960. The outmigration has continued. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the population dropped from 49,080 in 2010 to 45,332 in 2014.
On the Monday before Thanksgiving, a group gathered downtown to unveil Go Forward Pine Bluff. The multiyear, grass-roots initiative is designed to grow the tax base. Full disclosure: I work for Pine Bluff-based Simmons First National Corp., and Simmons executives are among the leaders of this effort. But I was writing about the importance of Pine Bluff long before I began working at Simmons. Last week, I spoke to the Arkansas Economic Development Commission staff. I told them that because Pine Bluff is the regional center of southeast Arkansas, a whole quadrant of the state depends in part on how it performs. Whether you live in Bentonville or Texarkana, you should be rooting for Pine Bluff.
"It's time for a comprehensive strategic plan that will guide this city into the next decade," said Mary Pringos, the chairman of the Go Forward Pine Bluff task force. "For the plan to be successful, all sectors of the community must be involved in the planning process. What we don't want is a report that will sit on a shelf and gather dust. The objective is to produce a plan that the community buys into, one that establishes clear, measurable goals and has concrete steps for achieving those goals."
The timetable is ambitious. The plan will be developed during 2016 with the help of the Institute for Economic Advancement at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Concrete steps for improvement will be identified with the implementation of recommendations slated for 2017-18. Pringos said: "By growing the tax base, we'll ensure that we can better fund city services and put an end to population loss. We're at a turning point in this city, and development of the plan will get us moving in the right direction. We hope to be able to point to visible results. The bottom line is that the city must decide where it wants to go and then start down that path. The plan will be our road map for the future. Our ultimate goal is to make Pine Bluff a city that people want to call home."
George Makris Jr., Simmons' chairman and CEO, has deep roots in Pine Bluff. "I was born in Pine Bluff 59 years ago at Davis Hospital, which was located on what's now a vacant lot," he said. "At that time, the area around the hospital was a vibrant hub of Pine Bluff. Things change. ... After years of ignoring change, Pine Bluff must recognize the changes that have occurred and begin to manage them."
Makris is a realist. "We have a lot to overcome," he said. "The good news is that areas surrounding Pine Bluff have done well, so the region is stable. But Pine Bluff is the center of commerce. Pine Bluff has excellent infrastructure, which we cannot take advantage of without addressing other issues. Tough decisions will be required. Elected officials will need to be committed and willing to stay on course as they allocate resources. There will be pain before gain. We can do it. The question is will we do it. I don't know the answer to that."
An entire state will watch to see if Pine Bluff's government, civic and business leaders can put aside personal interests and pull together to turn around an important Arkansas city.
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Freelance columnist Rex Nelson is the director of corporate communications for Simmons First National Corp. He's also the author of the Southern Fried blog at rexnelsonsouthernfried.com.
Editorial on 12/09/2015