Books for the Civil War Buff in Your Life

One of the oldest counties in Arkansas, Clark County was established in 1818 as part of the Missouri Territory and named for Missouri governor William Clark, also of the Lewis and Clark expedition. 

The presence of the Caddo and Ouachita Rivers and its location on historical travel routes—the Southwest Trail, the Military Road, and the Bankhead Highway—contributed to settlement and economic development from a frontier town to today. Arkadelphia, the county seat since 1842, has been a center of higher education since the late 19th century, with two universities, Henderson State and Ouachita Baptist. Each year the two universities compete in the famed “Battle of the Ravine,” dating back to 1895, the only college football rivalry in the nation for which the visiting team walks to the game. In March 1997, much of Arkadelphia’s main business district and several residential districts were leveled by a devastating F-4 tornado. After the process of recovery and rebuilding, the city continues to flourish as the county’s center of government, commerce, medicine, and education. 

Dr. Lisa Speer is the university archivist and a professor at Ouachita Baptist University. Speer previously served as director of the Arkansas State Archives and state historian from 2013 to 2018. She also serves as vice president of the Clark County Museum board. The photographs featured in this volume came primarily from the archives at Henderson State University, Ouachita Baptist University, and the Clark County Museum.

The first settlers came to the area that would become Palatine in 1837, shortly after a treaty with the local Indians. Farmers arrived first, merchants and tradesmen followed, and Palatine Township was formed in 1850. Joel Wood laid out a town and brought the railroad in 1855, and men of the area formed a Palatine company that fought in the Civil War.
 On April 2, 1866, 73 men voted to incorporate the Village of Palatine. The town served as a commercial center for the farms surrounding it. Growth was slow, and the population of Palatine in 1945 was still only 4,000. Then came the post-World War II boom. Chicagoans spread out searching for affordable housing, and the jobs and highways followed. Palatine, 35 miles northwest of the city, thus came to be considered a suburb of Chicago and is one of its oldest to the northwest. Its population today exceeds 72,000 residents. The village held special events throughout 2016 to celebrate its sesquicentennial. The articles in this book, which were published in the Daily Herald, were part of that celebration.