FORT SMITH – Where the New South meets the Old West

Early in the history of Arkansas and the city, Fort Smith was an important point of contact to the American West. Today Fort Smith is the second-largest city in Arkansas (after Little Rock) and shares county seat status with Greenwood as the county seat of Sebastian County.

The area was populated with Stone Age communities known as “bluff dwellers” as long ago as 10,000 BC. Over time other cultures arrived with invading tribes, although no permanent encampments have been identified. The indigenous of Arkansas were of the Quapaw tribe.

Spanish explorer, Hernando de Soto traveled the area in 1541. In 1682, French explorer Robert cavelier de La Salle claimed the area for France as part of the Louisiana Territory. Place names in western Arkansas (Poteau, Belle Point, and Massard Prairie) are evidence of the presence of French trappers and others who used the Arkansas River and its tributary, the Poteau River.

The 1700s saw an increasing mix of native tribes west of the Mississippi and this often resulted in tension and conflicts, endangering not just the tribes themselves but also the increasing population of fur traders and pioneers who were using the Arkansas River Valley as a route to the west. The river valley provided fertile bottom land to earlier settlers and Belle Point, a river bluff, along the Arkansas River, afforded an excellent vantage point looking west and a defensible position.

In 1817, the United States established a series of frontier garrisons in the area annexed as part of the Louisiana Purchase. At one time, Federal marshals rode out of the US and into Indian Territory from Fort Smith. In 1822, John Rogers arrived and established himself as a supplier to the fort and trader with trappers, Native Americans, and other settlers.
Around the fort, a small settlement began forming. In the 1830s, Congress funded several military roads to improve transportation in territorial Arkansas. Rogers lobbied successfully for the military to return and by 1836 the second Fort Smith was under construction. Because of his association with both forts and his efforts to promote the town, many consider him the founder of the city of Fort Smith.

Fort Smith became central to communications on the frontier and points west as stage, steamboat, and mail transportation networks grew. The fort was important in outfitting and supplying military companies as well as civilians. Soldiers for the Mexican War (1846-1848) came through Fort Smith along with the Fourty-Niners (1848-1849) headed west in the Gold Rush.

St. Andrew’s College was established in 1849 but it did not last past 1860.

During the Civil War, the North met the South in northwest Arkansas with devastating results.  With the secession crisis in 1860, the Department of War prepared to abandon Fort Smith. The commander viewed his military position as impossible to defend; Federal troops remained until just before Arkansas seceded. Arkansas volunteers and Confederates took control of the fort. Union forces returned permanently in September 1863.

Although the Union held the fort, maintaining a hold on the surrounding area was increasingly difficult in 1864 as bushwhackers and Confederate regular and irregular forces marauded and conducted raids on Union forces and their supporters. Encounters include an “action at Fort Smith” in July, an “affair at Fort Smith” in September, and the “Fort Smith Expedition” in September and October.

By May 1864, about 1,000 refugees were at Fort Smith, and another 1,000 were at Fayetteville, relying on support from the Union troops. Some commanders distributed food to the families of Union soldiers, while others gave cash to women and children in need. After the war, Federal forces worked to restore order to the rural areas.

Military farm colonies were established in an effort to help refugees become self-sufficient. Federal commanders allowed groups to grow subsistence crops and work together to provide mutual self-defense from marauding enemy units. The colonies in northwestern Arkansas were established around the families of white Unionists, while other colonies in central and eastern Arkansas were populated by freedmen and their families.

The city also was the site of the Fort Smith Conference of 1865, a gathering of federal and tribal representatives for the purpose of negotiating the terms under which the former Confederate Indian nations could resume their relationship with the United States.

After fires destroyed officers’ quarters at the fort in 1870, the federal government officials initially resolved to sell it but later decided to move the Western Arkansas Federal District Court from Van Buren to the land at Belle Point. Judge William Story presided over the court but was replaced in May 1875 by Judge Isaac C. Parker, “the hanging judge,” a former congressman from Missouri.

Parker’s judgeship lasted until just before his death in 1896 and marks one of the most celebrated periods in Fort Smith history. US and deputy marshals headquartered in Fort Smith not only enforced the law in western Arkansas but also in the frequently lawless neighboring Indian Territory.

The railroad arrived in the 1870s and by the 1880s, the city of Fort Smith was in a period of booming growth. Population nearly tripled, commercial trade expanded, and Garrison Avenue became the wholesale and retail center of the region.

Natural gas was discovered in the area in 1887 and became an important feature that attracted manufacturers to the city.

An electric streetcar network within the city grew as the city did. Between 1907 and 1924, the city became one of the few in US history to not only legalize but also regulate prostitution in a restricted district (known as “the Row”).

Although Fort Smith did not have a large African-American population, streetcar lines, public bathrooms, water fountains, and other public facilities separated black and white citizens. Howard Elementary School and Lincoln High School provided public education to the city’s black children. On March 23, 1912, a mob of almost 1,000 lynched Sanford Lewis, an African American accused of shooting a constable. Unlike many cases of lynching, several police officers were tried and convicted for failing to stand against the mob.

On May 11, 1922, a bridge to accommodate automobile traffic was constructed to span the Arkansas River at the west end of Garrison, connecting downtown Fort Smith to Oklahoma.

During the Great Depression, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow hid in Fort Smith to elude capture while Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd robbed and did the same in nearby Oklahoma. The New Deal brought public works projects to the area, and federal workers built a dam to create a city water source, Lake Fort Smith.

Camp Chaffee was activated by the army on March 27, 1942. Used for training Armored Divisions during World War II, the army built 3 prison compounds covering about 53 acres to house 3,400 German prisoners of war. After the war, it was deactivated and activated many times and the city had to struggle and diversify its economy to become less reliant on Fort Chaffee.

Manufacturing, trucking, and food-processing employ thousands of people in the Fort Smith economy. The city is home to Hiram Walker’s blending and bottling facility .

In 1975, Fort Chaffee was the center for federal resettlement of Vietnamese refugees. Many remained in the community. A sizable Laotian community settled in Fort Smith beginning in the 1980s. A Laotian Buddhist temple, two Vietnamese Buddhist temples; and Vietnamese Christian churches serve the local Asian population. Hispanic immigrants are a recent addition to the city.

Social change came with economic growth. Fort Smith sought to avoid the divisive integration struggle that Little Rock underwent and, for the most part, did so.