Visitors Guide to Greene County, Arkansas

Greene County is one of the many Arkansas counties that Crowley’s Ridge traverses. Crowley’s Ridge is a unique geological feature that stands 100 to 200 feet above the fertile flood plains of the Delta and runs for 150 miles in eastern Arkansas and southeastern Missouri. In a sense it is the western bluffs of the Mississippi River as the river’s course continuously changes over the eons, but never farther west than Crowley’s Ridge. Native Americans had inhabited Greene County as far back as 10,500 years ago. In 1974 the Arkansas Archeological Survey uncovered the earliest recognized cemetery in the United States in southwest Greene County. Other archaeological finds in the county reveal that Native Americans have occupied the ridge area through a long history of changing cultural traditions. In 1715 Louisiana Governor Antoine de La Mothe Cadillac was the first European to visit this part of northeast Arkansas when he was ordered to explore the headwaters of the St. Francis River. The governor was unimpressed by the land saying that he never had “seen anything so worthless.” Records show that Pierre LeMieux was the first European to settle in the area. In the early 1790s, he developed a place he called “petite baril,” later translated to Peach Orchard.

In 1821, Benjamin Crowley crossed the Black and Cache rivers to explore the ridge area of what is now Greene County. Using a War of 1812 land grant, “Old Ben” selected a vacated Delaware Indian site that had developed around a large spring on a ridge. It is Benjamin Crowley that the ridge is named for though no one knows when or why the term came into use. Crowley’s home became the community meeting place where county officers discussed and solved civic matters. When the volume of legal and court activities required a seat of law, a petition seeking permission to organize a county was organized. The territorial legislature approved the petition in 1833. Local historians report that the county seat remained in Crowley’s home until it was moved to Paris, but no document or town site has been found to prove that Paris even existed. In 1840, the county voted to move the seat of government to Gainesville, so named because “it gained the county seat.”

The lowlands of the St. Francis, Cache and Black rivers slowed settlement in Greene County. All of the land that surrounded Crowley’s Ridge swampland. In 1849, the U.S. Congress passed an act intended to reclaim the swamplands. It transferred all the Arkansas swamplands to the state, which when sold provided funds for locating, evaluating, and draining. Greene County began a boom years period when an improved road connected Gainesville to Helena, the swamps began to be drained, and land speculators arrived on the scene.

The Civil War interrupted the county’s economic growth. The Greene County representative voted twice against secession but finally followed the majority on May 6, 1861. A Home Guard unit, one cavalry, and four infantry companies were formed, mostly from Greene County. All saw considerable action fighting with the Army of Tennessee. Casualties were high. Another cavalry company was formed to join General Sterling Price’s raid into Missouri in the fall of 1864. Postwar recovery was slow. County offices were filled by Unionist officials, but the control was not harsh. However, Governor Powell Clayton declared martial law in Greene County in 1868 because of reports that African Americans were being mistreated at a Walcott mill. When Clayton’s militia moved up the Greensboro Road toward Walcott, the unit was met by the Greene County “Home Guards” (Ku Klux Klan) commanded by Benjamin H. Crowley, “Old Ben’s” grandson. They fought a skirmish around Wiley’s Mill at just south of the Greene County line after which the militia retreated to Jonesboro. Martial law was lifted several weeks later. Reconstruction ended in the county in 1873. After newly elected State Representative B. H. Crowley negotiated a deal with the liberal Republicans, a new election was held in the county, and ex-Confederates were elected to all of the county offices.

Greene County’s largest community, Paragould, was created as a result of a rivalry between two railroad barons. After Jay Gould gained control of the Iron Mountain Railroad in 1880 he learned that his rival James Paramore’s St. Louis-Texas Railroad (Cotton Belt) was building a cheap narrow gauge line through Arkansas to Texas. Gould decided to construct a regular gauge line to closely parallel Paramore’s route. It would branch off the main line at Knobel and run through south through Greene County. The two railroads crossed six miles south of Gainesville. After “The Crossing” gained a post office, the postmaster named the town Paragould, deriving the name from Paramore and Gould. Gould was incensed that his rival’s name was used first and refused to list the new town on his schedules. The new town grew rapidly and became the county seat in 1884, beginning the sharp and sudden decline of Gainesville. Paragould celebrates its railroad heritage by holding the Loose Caboose Festival on the third weekend in May.

Like most of northeastern Arkansas, Greene County offered one of the few remaining hardwood forests in the nation. With rail transportation and drainage improvements, Greene County experienced another boom period involving timber and timber-related products industries. The drained and newly cleared bottomland on both sides of Crowley’s Ridge led to the development of large farm operations before the turn of the century. Timber-related businesses continued to spur industrial growth through the 1920s, but as the timber business declined, production of cotton, corn, and soybeans increased. The economy of Greene County surged during the 1920s, but the stock market crash of 1929 and the drop in cotton prices bankrupted many area families. The federal government, in response to the Depression, established the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) to provide work for unemployed young men. The CCC moved onto the old Crowley plantation site to construct a state park.Workers built an attractive pavilion, an amphitheater overlooking a spring-fed lake, and many camp sites on the 270 acres that Crowley had settled in 1822. More than 10,000 people attended the opening of Crowley’s Ridge State Park in 1933, the 100th anniversary of Greene County.

Most of Greene County’s attractions and events center on Paragould. The downtown area is a historic district and the courthouse square features the oldest Statue of Liberty outside this date of New York, which was erected in 1924 as a memorial to veterans of World War I. The Greene County Museum is located in a home that was originally built by Junius Marion Futrell, governor of Arkansas from 1933 to 1937. The historic Art Deco Collins Theater is home to the Eastern Arkansas Ballet and is the venue of KASU of Arkansas State University’s "Bluegrass Monday" held every fourth Monday night of each month. Nature enthusiasts will enjoy both Crowley’s Ridge State Park but St. Francis Sunken Lands Wildlife Management Area as well.

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