[Crosstimbers Okie]

Originally Posted by CraigCreek

There's also some very interesting Civil War history associated with the Waldron-Greenwood-Fort Smith area, especially from the civilian side of things. Guerillas infested the area and murdered civilians almost at random, both armies helped themselves to civilians' crops and livestock, and several skirmishes and small battles were fought in the area (my g-grandmother helped nurse injured survivors of one such battle).

While Fort Smith National Historic Park has the very well preserved and maintained old fort, the total story has still not been completely told in one convenient form or place, though there are several books which deal with various aspects of what occurred here during the Civil War years. All are worth reading. There's also a small local history museum (in the old jail) in Greenwood which contains a lot of material that's worth digging through.

You can find several accounts online: check out the battle of Backbone Mountain, aka Devil's Backbone, the 1st Arkansas Artillery, the many times the fort changed hands, as control was key to controlling next-door Indian Territory, the little-known story of local civilians being gathered into the fort to avoid starvation (and the guerillas) and the evacuation of many of them by steamboat down the Arkansas and up the Mississippi Rivers to southern Illinois during the last winter of the war...

Surely wish some local historian would try to pull it all together into a book, and that more local historic sites were marked better and preserved. Meanwhile, I do what I can to share my own family stories from that time, and am thankful my family who were around then wrote things down!

Here's some of that local history.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007T9X1J2...ng=UTF8&btkr=1

[TRex2]

Originally Posted by Crosstimbers Okie

Here's some of that local history.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007T9X1J2...ng=UTF8&btkr=1

The paperback version of that book is somewhat of a collector's item.
Lists for $102.

[Rock Climber]

Originally Posted by Crosstimbers Okie

There are as many Asians as Hispanics, bought from other areas to work in the poultry industry.

What I know of the local Asian population is that many of them wound up in Western Arkansas due to Ft. Chafee being a processing center for Vietnamese and Laotian refugees after the fall of Saigon.

I don't believe they were "brought from other areas" to work in the poultry industry, even if that is where many of them wound up.

[Crosstimbers Okie]

Originally Posted by TRex2

The paperback version of that book is somewhat of a collector's item.
Lists for $102.

I bought the Kindle version. Brett is proud of his work. He has a daughter in college for God's sake...

[Crosstimbers Okie]

Originally Posted by Rock Climber

What I know of the local Asian population is that many of them wound up in Western Arkansas due to Ft. Chafee being a processing center for Vietnamese and Laotian refugees after the fall of Saigon.

I don't believe they were "brought from other areas" to work in the poultry industry, even if that is where many of them wound up.

I know many who migrated from Minnesota around the turn of the century. Their kids became Americanized and are probationers on my caseload now.