The northeast part of Arkansas was sparsely populated in 1821 when Benjamin Crowley settled atop the ridge that now bears his name.
Crowley had served in the War of 1812 and received a land grant of 160 acres west of the Mississippi River in lieu of payment. It was only during his journey west from Kentucky that he learned that his land had sunk during the New Madrid earthquakes of 1811-12 and become a swamp. What's now Greene County was slow to settle due to extensive lowlands.
A post office named for Crowley was established near his plantation in 1832. Settlers in the area began pushing for a new county soon afterward so they wouldn't have to travel the 30 miles over bad roads to the courthouse at Davidsonville. A temporary county seat was established at Crowley's home in November 1833, and the first session of court for Greene County was held in the house. The county seat was moved to Gainesville several years later and to Paragould in 1884. Growth really began to take off in the area with the arrival of the St Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Railroad.
James Paramore, president of the St. Louis Southwestern Railway (commonly known as the Cotton Belt), wanted to ship Texas cotton to St. Louis. He cut a deal to connect his railroad with the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern at Texarkana. Paramore, who also owned the St. Louis Compress Co., believed that the railroad had the potential to make St. Louis the gateway for selling cotton from the Southwest to markets on the East Coast. Jay Gould, who already owned the Missouri Pacific and Texas & Pacific lines, purchased the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern in 1881 and canceled all agreements with Paramore's railroad. Paramore then began work on a railroad that would connect Texarkana with St. Louis. Gould's line ran through Greene County toward Helena on the Mississippi River. Gould's railroad and Paramore's route crossed six miles south of Gainesville. When the community that grew up around the crossing received a post office, postmaster Marcus Meriwether combined the names Paramore and Gould and named the town Paragould.
"Paragould became a thriving community," Mack Hamblen wrote for the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture. "Investors knew that the forests covering eastern Arkansas contained one of the few remaining quality hardwood sources in the nation. The availability of rail transportation brought about a surge of large corporate investments. Men abandoned their farms and flocked to work in the timber mills and factories that had been hurriedly constructed in the area. Merchants and professionals followed."
Race relations were a problem. Paragould long had the reputation of being among the state's so-called sundown towns, towns in which it was understood that blacks would not spend the night. There were attempts to expel the black population in 1888, 1892, 1889 and 1908. There were no provisions for educating black children until 1948, when arrangements were made to bus them to Jonesboro. The black population of Greene County was down to 160 people by the 1890 census. By 1960, there were only 14 black residents.
With the rapid mechanization of agriculture in the years following World War II, most cities in east Arkansas began losing population. Paragould was an exception to that rule due to its success in attracting manufacturing facilities. The Ed White Shoe Co. arrived in 1947. The dairy division of Foremost Foods built a large facility in 1952. Three years later, Emerson Electric Co. of St. Louis began manufacturing electric motors for laundry appliances and eventually employed more than 1,500 people. The city-owned Paragould Light Water & Cable Co. gave Paragould some of the lowest electrical rates in the country. Paragould grew from 9,668 residents in the 1950 census to 26,113 residents in the 2010 census. Greene County grew from a population of 29,149 in 1950 to 42,090 in 2010. While much has been written about the economic boom in Jonesboro, many Arkansans fail to realize that the good times extend north on U.S. 49 into Paragould.
Paragould attorney Harry Truman Moore has practiced in the city since graduating from the University of Arkansas Law School at Fayetteville in 1975. Moore, a Walnut Ridge native, recently gave me a tour of the 1923 National Bank of Commerce building downtown, which was built in 1923 and now houses his law firm.
The law firm was founded in 1889 when Jefferson Davis Block moved from Cross County to Paragould. He had already served a term in the state House of Representatives even though he was just 28 years old. Block participated in litigation between the federal government and those who had title to the swampy lands in eastern Greene County. He acquired major farming interests, which his family still owns. Block also helped form National Bank of Commerce, which later merged with First National Bank, organized three months prior to Block's arrival in Paragould. The bank is considered the oldest business in the county, and the law firm is the second-oldest.
"We still have about 6,000 industrial jobs in the county, and we're in the top 5 percent of counties nationally when it comes to the percentage of residents working in industrial jobs," Moore says. He's equally proud of the efforts of the Main Street Paragould organization to restore the city's downtown. A downtown centerpiece is the Collins movie theater, which is celebrating its 90th year in 2015 and now hosts everything from plays to musical performances.
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Freelance columnist Rex Nelson is the president of Arkansas' Independent Colleges and Universities. He's also the author of the Southern Fried blog at rexnelsonsouthernfried.com.
Editorial on 05/20/2015