On this date in 1873 Gov. Elisha Baxter signed legislation creating Lonoke County. With land taken from Prairie and Pulaski Counties, the Legislature created a county that would become an agricultural powerhouse, the home to two future governors, and the location of bedroom communities to Little Rock.
Tradition holds that the new county was named for a solitary oak tree used as a landmark when the Memphis & Little Rock Railroad route was surveyed.
Shirley McGraw, the author of the entry on Lonoke County in the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture, notes that the area has three distinct geographic areas: a northern region with rolling hills, with Cabot being the major town in that area; the middle section, which is home to the cities of Lonoke and Carlisle, with soil well suited to rice farming; and the southern portion of the county, which has the deep alluvial soil typical of the Delta. England is the major town in this section.
Lonoke County is home to Toltec Mounds, one of the largest prehistoric sites in the lower Mississippi Valley--which is not only on the National Register of Historic Places but is also recognized by the Interior Department as a National Historic Landmark. It is also a state park, and the Arkansas Archeological Survey has a station at the site.
Located on an old oxbow lake which had once been part of the Arkansas River, Toltec Mounds was built during the period of 650-1050 A.D. Originally the site contained 18 earthen mounds, all surrounded by a 10-foot-high earthen embankment and a moat. The site was primarily used for ceremonies; only one mound contained burial remains.
Like so many early residents, the first American settler in what is Lonoke County came from Tennessee. Arriving in 1821, Sampson Gray established a settlement at Moss Prairie. Another early settler was James Eagle--progenitor of an important political and religious family which we will hear more about shortly.
Transportation has been important to Lonoke County from the beginning. An early military road ran through what would become Lonoke County. A stagecoach line served the area with a stop at Brownsville. The state's first railroad, the Memphis & Little Rock, ran through the area, and in more recent years the county was bisected by Interstate 40.
While no major Civil War battles took place in what would become Lonoke County, the area saw much skirmishing during the Union campaign to take Little Rock in the late summer of 1863. A large Confederate cemetery is situated at Camp Nelson, about four miles southeast of Cabot.
The Civil War might have ended slavery, but it did nothing to end racial violence. Only a few months after the county was formed in 1873, racial conflict resulted in several deaths, including three members of the prominent Eagle family. In 1897-98 Lonoke County was the scene of what the New York Times described as a "race war." The trouble began when a white gang attacked a black teacher-training session, with one of the teachers beaten and later murdered. The situation escalated and before long a full-fledged effort was underway to force blacks from the county.
In January 1898, notices began appearing warning blacks to leave the county: "If you don't go you will be hung to the limb of a tree and your black carcasses filled with lead." Many blacks left, but most stayed, with blacks comprising about 40 percent of the population until the great outmigration during the 1920s and 1930s. About six percent of the county population was black in 2010.
Lonoke County has been an important agricultural area from the very beginning. Prehistoric Indians grew a variety of crops. Cotton was king in the county for generations, but beginning in 1904 the cultivation of rice rapidly caught on in the area. Within five years Arkansas farmers were producing an incredible 1.25 million bushels of rice annually. The county is also known for its numerous fish farms.
Lonoke County has produced two governors and one lieutenant governor. In 1888, with the Democratic Party facing a serious challenge from an unlikely farmer-labor-Republican coalition, it nominated James P. Eagle of near Lonoke for governor. After casting an amazing 126 ballots, Eagle was nominated--probably due to his upstanding reputation, having served 24 years as president of the Baptist State Convention. The 1888 elections are considered among the most corrupt in Arkansas history, putting Eagle's administration under a cloud.
Joe T. Robinson was the second governor hailing from Lonoke County. Robinson had a remarkable political career, serving as a U.S. congressman and U.S. senator in addition to governor.
Maurice "Footsie" Britt, a famed athlete and World War II hero, served as lieutenant governor during the governorship of Winthrop Rockefeller. Britt, like Rockefeller, was a Republican.
Lonoke County also produced the first woman to serve on the Arkansas Supreme Court, Elsijane Trimble Roy. Additionally, Roy was the state's first female circuit judge as well as the first woman named to a federal judgeship in Arkansas.
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Tom Dillard is a historian and retired archivist living near Glen Rose in rural Hot Spring County. Email him at Arktopia.td@gmail.com.
Editorial on 04/16/2017