We're visiting an old building and adjoining house that once served as Nashville's fire station and city hall. It's pouring rain outside, but inside, Freddie Horne of the Howard County Historical Society is giving us the grand tour of the society's latest rehabilitation project. I've been reading the Nashville News-Leader, and this week's edition has a color photo of a $2,000 check being presented to the society by the daughter of a former Nashville resident.
History is important in this southwest Arkansas town. So is high school football. I've just spoken to the Nashville Rotary Club at Western Sizzlin', and everyone was in a positive mood because the beloved Scrapper football team is having a good year.
The News-Leader features a photo on the front page of the homecoming queen. An entire page inside is devoted to a story about the homecoming game (the Scrappers beat Benton Harmony Grove), and another page is filled with photos from that game. Editor John Robert Schirmer writes: "The Nashville Scrappers played what Coach Mike Volarvich called 'one of our most complete games of the season on offense, defense and special teams' en route to a 42-6 homecoming victory."
I was accompanied on the two-hour drive from Little Rock by eminent historian Tom DeBlack, who recently retired after a teaching career at Arkansas Tech University. DeBlack was a Scrapper quarterback, which makes him royalty in these parts. On the drive down, DeBlack and I discussed what it is that sets Nashville apart from other Arkansas towns this size at a time when so many communities (especially in the southern half of the state) are struggling economically.
I've driven through too many sad downtowns in rural Arkansas that have more empty buildings than businesses. These are the places whose glory days were decades ago. A drive down Main Street in Nashville reveals a vibrant business sector. The newspaper is filled with ads for everything from the local automobile dealership to restaurants and funeral homes.
Though Nashville lost a small amount of its population between the 2000 census and the 2010 census, the 4,627 population recorded in the 2010 census was still far above the 3,579 people who lived here in 1960.
DeBlack and I determine that Nashville is helped by having what is perhaps the best weekly newspaper in the state, residents who take pride in their schools (no town supports high school football quite like Nashville supports its Scrappers) and families with a strong sense of history, continuity and place.
It was in Nashville that William T. Dillard established his first department store in 1938 before moving to Texarkana. Nashville, in addition to being the Howard County seat, was also at the center of a thriving peach industry at one time.
"Bert Johnson planted a demonstration orchard of 100 acres of peach trees in the hills near Nashville in the early 1900s," Steven Teske writes for the Central Arkansas Library System's Encyclopedia of Arkansas. "The success of his initial planting led to several more orchards in the area, eventually covering more than 13,000 acres and producing up to 1.25 million bushels of peaches each year. This industry, coupled with the increasing strength of the railroads, helped Nashville grow and prosper during the first half of the century, even when World War I depleted the supply of available working men."
By the way, Nate Coulter, the director of the Central Arkansas Library System, is from Nashville. So is Jay Chesshir, the president and chief executive officer of the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce. So too is Del Boyette, a former head of the Arkansas Economic Development Commission who went on to be among the nation's top economic development consultants. I could go on and on with the list of prominent Arkansans who have come from here.
Isaac Cooper Perkins, a traveling Baptist preacher, was a pioneer settler who moved here in the 1830s with his wife and five daughters. The settlement was first known as Mine Creek and later became known as Hell's Valley.
"In 1856, the name of the post office was changed to Nashville at the request of new resident Michael Womack, who felt that the name Hell's Valley was inappropriate for a community consisting largely of Baptists," Teske writes. "Although it is not known why he chose the name Nashville, many speculate that he named the settlement for Nashville, Tenn. By that time, two Baptist congregations had been established."
Howard County was created in April 1873 from parts of Hempstead, Sevier, Polk and Pike counties. The first county seat was at Center Point, but Nashville grew more quickly because of the railroad that passed through. By 1887, Nashville had five preachers, five doctors and a lawyer. Cotton was king by that time. There were four gins at Nashville and five gins at nearby Mineral Springs by 1919. There were even an estimated 6,500 sheep in the county in 1900. The county seat was moved to Nashville in 1905.
Cotton production began declining prior to World War II, and the peach industry started to decline in the 1950s. Beef cattle and poultry production took over.
The Nashville post office that opened in January 1938 is the site of a Depression-era mural painted by John Tazewell Robertson of New Jersey. The mural, titled simply Peach Growing, helped lead to the building being placed on the National Register of Historic Places in August 1998. It's yet another thing in which people here in Scrapper country take pride.
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Senior Editor Rex Nelson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. He's also the author of the Southern Fried blog at rexnelsonsouthernfried.com.
Editorial on 11/16/2019