I recently took a tour of Lincoln County hosted by local history buff and district judge Phillip Green. Located south of Pine Bluff on the dividing line between the gentle hills of the Coastal Plain and the flat expanse of the Delta, Lincoln County stretches all the way to the Arkansas River. Star City is the county seat, but all too many Arkansans are more familiar with Varner and Cummins--the two primary units of the Arkansas Department of Corrections.
Bayou Bartholomew, said to be the longest bayou in the world, crosses the county from northwest to southeast. Rebecca DeArmond-Huskey, author of the entry on the bayou in the Central Arkansas Library System Encyclopedia of Arkansas, stressed its importance as a route of transportation prior to the arrival of railroads.
The Quapaw Indians occupied what is today Lincoln County before they were expelled by treaty in 1833. French hunters took advantage of the area for generations prior to the Louisiana Purchase. One of the major French-speaking landowners was Joseph Deruisseaux, who sold land near the Arkansas River in the 1840s to Dr. John A. Jordan to establish Southbend Plantation, a large farm which would one day have a stately home (built atop 12-foot-high foundations to defy regular flooding) and persist until 1950.
The area now comprising Lincoln County saw little action during the Civil War. In January 1864, a Union army party of 600 soldiers with four pieces of light artillery were traveling near the village of Branchville in the area's western edge when it encountered Confederates, resulting in a running battle that left 16 Confederates dead as well as two Union fatalities.
Established in 1871, Lincoln County is a product of Reconstruction, when several new counties were named in honor of Union leaders. Indeed, as early as 1868, in the first session of a Reconstruction legislature, a bill was introduced to establish a Lincoln county in west-central Arkansas, but it did not pass. Unlike Dorsey, Sarber, and Clayton counties--all named for Reconstruction leaders--the name of Lincoln County (and nearby Grant County) was never changed. Earlier local sentiment had supported naming the new county Bartholomew.
George H. Joslyn, who came to Arkansas with the Union Army, is considered the "father of Lincoln County." He served as a Republican in the Legislature on three different occasions during and after Reconstruction, and was the first Lincoln county judge. Joslyn was the primary organizer of Gould, and the post office was briefly named Joslyn in his honor. But when the village was platted and incorporated in 1907, organizers decided to name the town in honor of Jay Gould, the financier behind the construction of the Little Rock, Pine Bluff, and New Orleans Railroad. Other towns developed along the railroad, including Varner and Grady.
George Joslyn originally preferred that the county seat be located in the eastern part of the county where a railroad was in the planning. However, in the first of many conflicts between the lowlands and the timbered hills of the west, residents demanded that the courthouse be built in the center of the county. Joslyn, who was only in his 30s, managed to win in the long run when the county selected an unoccupied area where he owned considerable land. He donated the land for the courthouse square.
Star City was incorporated in July 1876. A wooden courthouse served the county from 1880 until 1910 when a large and stately brick structure was built. Although the 1910 courthouse was replaced during the New Deal, the clock from the old courthouse was saved and is now mounted in a tall brick tower, providing an imposing sentry over the downtown.
The Star City telephone system began in 1911. In 1920 a privately owned generating plant electrified the city. The population of the city was 2,215 in 2016. The largest industry in town is National Wire Fabric Corp. Cane Creek State Park, just east of Star City, opened in 1992. Eight properties in the county are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, including the Star City Commercial Historic District, which contains 13 historic structures.
Lincoln County is unusual these days because it has two local newspapers. The first newspaper established in the county was the Lincoln County Herald, though it failed soon after it began publication in 1875. The Lincoln Lance appeared on the streets in 1880, to be sold in 1887 to new owners and renamed the Lincoln Ledger--one of the two surviving papers.
The second county weekly is the Lincoln American. This newspaper, which dates to the 1990s, was established by a member of a religious group called the Church at Star City. The now-retired Rev. John Fuqua, who had earlier been pastor of Northside Baptist Church in Star City, was the religious leader of the group. Members of the Church at Star City were entrepreneurial, buying land and establishing businesses just outside of town at a location called the Country Village.
Fuqua's group followed a strict doctrine. According to Star City residents I have spoken with, at first the group was patriarchal. Women were expected to dress conservatively and wear no cosmetics, and they were often busy home-schooling their children. They tended to marry within the group, but not always. The issue of the Lincoln American I purchased during my recent visit contained a detailed religious essay as well as a long column by Mike Huckabee.
All of this might sound repressive. And Fuqua's congregation was at first considered a cult by some locals. Over time, however, the group has gained the trust and no small degree of admiration from most residents. Though they voted, the church eschewed local politics. The newspaper, for example, carefully separates news stories from commentary. They are considered good businessmen, all the Country Village businesses being individually owned.
Though it has declined a bit in recent years, the Country Village is still an impressive place. Despite the recent closing of a well-regarded steakhouse, the Village has a bakery, a barber shop, an auto repair facility, and much more. Earlier this month, the Rocky Road Café & Creamery opened in the Village, replete with a Chamber of Commerce ribbon-cutting ceremony. Also recently, the congregation became an independent Baptist congregation, Kirkwood Baptist Church.
Gould, located on both the railroad and U.S. 65, has been the scene of local political and racial discord. The slow pace of integration in Gould caused the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to establish a field office there in 1964. SNCC filed several successful lawsuits, and also integrated public facilities and restaurants.
In recent years Gould has attained considerable attention due to discord among municipal officials. In 2011 the conflict grew so heated that Mayor Ernest Nash Jr. was physically attacked.
Gould should also be remembered as the birthplace of the late Ozell Sutton, one of the key political activists during the civil rights movement. He had a distinguished career with the U.S. Department of Justice in Atlanta.
The family of T.J. and Ethel Kearney, a remarkable group of people, lived near Gould. The Kearneys had 19 children. Although they grew up during the era of segregation, all but one received college degrees--including from Harvard, Yale, Brown, Stanford, and Vanderbilt. Two of the Kearney siblings served in the Clinton White House. Janis F. Kearney has written several books, including an accounting of the family titled Sundays with T.J.: 100 Years of Memories on Varner Road (2014).
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 02/02/2020