A Brief History of Paragould and Greene County, Arkansas and the railroads that have layed rails there.       I've found many conflicting dates and have for the most part left them intact in the bits of information that I was supplied. If I find hard evidence of a particular date, I'll correct all dates directly effected. Until then, the dates ae approximate at best.        In 1811-12 a great natural cataclysm, known as the New Madrid Earthquake, laid waste a large part of the area that would become Greene County. The three great quakes are now judged to have been of an intensity Geologist call "total destruction." These quakes affected a three-state area, and for years was a scene of desolation which delayed the settlement by several decades. The earth sank in places 15 to 20 feet, and raised in others, destroying the channel of the St. Francis River. This was also the cause of the St. Francis Swamps on the eastern boundary of Greene County. Long narrow lakes appeared causing a series of islands, great pockets of sand were forced from the earth, and the fields were channeled by fissures. The natural drainage pattern was upset and it was to take years of drainage projects to make it suitable for tilling. However, there were still the beautiful high timbered slopes of the ridge.        The Federal government had awarded Bounty Certificates to Veterans of the War of 1812 for their services, but the land set aside for this purpose was in the area that had been made uninhabitable. The Bounty holders were then issued New Madrid Certificates, permitting them to seek undamaged land.        In the spring of 1821, Benjamin Crowley, a 65-year old surveyor and a holder of a New Madrid Certificate, left his home in Kentucky in the company of his two older sons and several slaves, seeking suitable land on which to settle with his wife and 8 children. They crossed the Mississippi at Cairo and came down the ridge to the Missouri line, into Lawrence County and stopped at Davidsonville. They stopped there long enough to plant a crop and then proceeded down the ridge, which was to bear the Crowley name. When the party reached a large spring, which had been used for many years by Indians for their pow-wows, the elder Crowley is reported to have said to his sons, "this is good enough." He had located a choice spot at these springs which are now part of Crowley State Park, located about 12 miles west of Paragould.        Crowley returned to Davidsonville, harvested his crop, and sent his sons and his slaves back to his selected site to build a dwelling and a stockade. The family was sent for and arrived on Christmas day to move into their new home. Thus begun the history of Greene County.        It was in the Crowley home that the first post office was located. Also, the first church was organized there by Isaac Brookfield, a young Methodist missionary from New Jersey. When news of Crowley's discovery was sent back to friends and relatives in Kentucky, others began arriving to make homes on the ridge. In 1833 a new county was organized in the Crowley home. Brookfield became the first judge and is credited with naming the county after Gen. Nathaniel Greene, one of Washington's most trusted generals.        In 1836, Arkansas achieved statehood. The county seat was located at a place called Paris because it was centrally located. The original county included what is now Clay County and a part of Craighead County. The location of Paris has long been forgotten.        When the national highway was put through, the county seat was moved in 1848 to a small village which they named Gainesville. The county seat remained there until 1883.       In 1872 the government authorized the St. Louis Iron Mountain and Southern (StLIM&S) to construct 24 miles of track through Gainesville. The first survey placed the railroad through the center of town on land belonging to Dr. Calvin Wall. Dr. Wall refused to give up the land for the use of the railroad and ordered a second survey. This time they placed the tracks about a mile east of the center of the town. Had it gone according to the first survey, the history of Gainesville might have been different. The railroad was built in 1881.       Gainesville's life was short with only a 40 year span between beginning and end. Gainesville was established in 1840 and survived until 1884.       There is still a Gainesville today, but it's mostly comprised of a country store, 3 churches, and a group of people anchored in the community and hanging onto their own way of living.        The year of 1882 was an historic one for Greene County. In that year two railroads built their lines into the county and crossed at a point where a town would be built. One was the St. Louis and Iron Mountain Railroad, later to be known as the Missouri Pacific. This railroad was headed by the famous railroad magnate Jay Gould, who already controlled some 5000 miles of track in Arkansas and the Southwest. The other railroad was the Texas and St. Louis, later called the Cotton Belt. This was a narrow-gauge line with J. W. Paramore as president. This line originated in Texas and was originally built to ship Texas cotton to the compresses in St. Louis by direct line. The crossing of the two railroads was not just a chance crossing, but Gould's tactics to cut the business of the fledgling road.        When a name was sought for the newly created town at the junction of the two railroads, a group of citizens promoting the new town wished to use the name of Beulah (Bula) which was the nearest point of mail delivery. Finally the name evolved by combining syllables from the names of the two railroad presidents- joining together the two protagonists. "Para" for Paramore and "Gould" for Mr. Gould, thus making Paragould a truly original name for an unusual town.        Legend says Mr. Gould who considered himself first in railroading, objected to having his name consigned as the last syllable. For a time he refused to use the name on his schedules and used instead a local name of Parmley. I have seen several old maps that actually make mention of Parmely. There was finally a compromise to use the name "Para-Gould". As time passed, the hyphen was dropped and the one word, Paragould, without a capital "G" became the name.        Paragould was incorporated March 3, 1883, while it was still an uncultivated timber covered tract. Most of the area for the town was part of a 281 acre farm owned by a settler from Tennessee, Willie Pruett, who had purchased it in 1869.       There was agitation to move the county seat to the new town. The citizens of Gainesville put up a fight, but the railroad had bypassed the center of the little town. A county vote gave the county seat to Paragould. On October 6, 1884, the great iron safe containing the county records was moved to Paragould under armed guard because the sheriff feared a protest from the defeated Gainesville citizens. The county seat was relocated without incident or bloodshed.        The great stands of virgin timber in Greene County, particularly in the eastern lowlands where the earthquake had left a quagmire of swamp and small islands, became extremely valuable. With transportation facilities available, a great timber industry was created and thereby drawing speculators and eastern commercial interests to Paragould. A series of boomtowns were built almost over night. These were connected to Paragould by a local railroad that gave access to the timberland and many small manufacturing plants producing wood products. Within the county there were some 40 sawmills and several were within the town limits.        The new town had to be virtually hewn from the woodlands and swamps. To accommodate the great influx of timber workers, business people, tradesman, professional people and their families, the new town council had to organize a town government very quickly and pass many ordinances for law enforcement, sanitation measures, restraints on public conduct, and to insure a safe environment for a broad assortment of citizens.        Many of the business firms and professional people moved from Gainesville to establish themselves in Paragould. The life in the little pioneer town was drained away and there nothing to keep the businessmen there. In 1890, a disastrous fire swept through the center of Gainesville, and in 1904, a destructive tornado leveled much of the remaining buildings in the small town. Today the site is marked by only a very few buildings and scattered foundations.        Paragould made fast strides toward becoming a flourishing town. By 1890 the population was 2528. Within ten years of the founding, both a municipal water plant and an electrical power plant were organized and there were several private telephone companies.        The Thompson Classical Institute, established in 1891, drew students from far outside the Northeast Arkansas area. There was also a business college and a Bible Institute.       On October 11, 1887, the Paragould and Buffalo Island Railroad was incorporated. The railroad was built by Paragould businessmen across the St. Francis River bottoms to transport logs from the valuable stands located there, to their mills located in Paragould. To have the railroad cross the swampy land would not be easy. Building upon the 40 mile long by 15 mile wide sandy ridge of Buffalo Island was the logical choice. The railroad passed through several small boomtowns east of Paragould. Bard, Brighton, Bertig, and finally Cardwell and Hornersville, MO were some of those that sprang up. Eventually, the line would extend into Blytheville, AR.       Also about this time, it was written that Paragould was a, "thriving town of about 4,500 inhabitants".       Interestingly, the little narrow-gauge railroad had become very important to Paragould, but was still using wooden rails laid on log ties. This was common for a lot of the small, temporary lines throughout logging regions. Until a few years ago, it was said that farmers along the old railroad bed would sometimes drag a log tie up while cultivating their fields.       In 1893, the Ware-Rossen mill in Paragould was sold to H.P. Hasty and Sons, located out of Detroit, MI. They were engaged in in the timber industry in Michigan and had acquired hundreds of acres of timber in the St. Francis bottoms. The tram line was not included in the sale of the business, and was purchased by the Berig brothers, Sol and Ad. The Bertig brothers also had a lot of land around the St. Francis River and the islands formed by the New Madrid quakes.       Soon a partnership was formed with the Bertig brothers and the new mill.       It was soon discovered that the outdated and rickety tramline was in need of an upgrade.. To obtain capital for these upgrades and improvements, the Bertig brothers and the Hasty Mill entered into an agreement with the Southwestern Railroad (Cotton Belt) permitting the company to buy into the Paragould company. Cotton Belt surrendered $25,000 in forst mortgage bonds of Paragould and Buffalo Island railway in exchange for $25,000 in capital stock.       Provisions in the contract required that the railroad be extended across the Bertig property and to the mill on the opposite side of the river. The name was changed to the Paragoould Southeastern (PSE). As part of the agreement, the Cotton Belt furnished 35-pound steel rail to replace the wooden ones that were still being used, along with proper ties. They also furnished a narrow-gaue locomotive.       Rails were laid across many miles of marshes near the St. Francis River. To construct the line, it was neccesary to construct earth viaducts and wooden trestles across several miles of the swamp land.       A "turn-around track" (unclear whether a wye, turntable, or a loop) was built at the end of the line on Bowlin Island. Bowlin Island was one of the numerous logging camps along the line.       A short period later the railroad was widened to standard gauge and operated as a seperate company, but Cotton Belt held the controlling interest. Eventually, the PSE extended on to Cardwell, MO in 1895, to Hornersville, MO in 1897 by way of Buffalo Island, and onto Blytheville in 1903. The PSE was finally absorbed into the Cotton Belt in 1914.       The St. Francis River was nothing more than a wide stream at the PSE's crossing point, but it did still receive barge traffic. A turntable was built mid river to allow the railroad section to be turned and let the river traffic pass by. The turntable is now long gone, but during the dry summer months the river's level will drop enough to allow you a good look at the center section of the turntale that remains to this day. It's really nothing more than a large pillar of concrete with a few steel support parts, but it's very interesting to see it. It's also interesting to look across the island nearby and still be able to see the traces of bygone days.       At the point of the rail crossing the river, the channel has now been diverted and runs parallel the old line. As you near the east bank side of the river channel, a large, heavily constructed trestle remains. I'm very glad to see that these two reminders have been spared.       If you follow the path of the old PSE line across the country side, you will be able to see several old trestles remaining where it crossed the numerous streams, creeks, and low lands. There are several at the edge of fields and in fence rows.       When traveling backroads near what was once Bertig, the steel girder trestle that crosses Big Slough Ditch can still be seen running parallel to the car traffic bridge. Although not terribly safe, you can walk across the ditch on the beams of the trestle. Don't let the word "ditch" fool you. The bridge is approxiamtely 125 feet long and about 30 feet above the water. The old trestle seems to be a favorite place for grafitti artists and party crowds.       Back to the history.       Bertig was quite a prosporous community. Everything had to be built on stilts in the town, but there were two streets, a depot, store, post office, a couple of saloons, and a large hotel. A late friend told me stories of life along the St. Francis River that were passed along by his father. Although his father never lived there himself, his father had taken him there on numerous occasions for various business transactions. He described the raised wooden sidewalks, planks in the road to cover mud holes, and the large amount of activity that was always going on. He went further to say that it was a very rough place and was considered a place not to be after dark. He also recalled mention of a "gambling house" being there at one time.        During the first part of the century, Paragould took on a cosmopolitan appearance. Great white way lights were installed downtown along with several buildings. One of the first of several elegant department stores with rugs, elevators and special departments, even a grocery department was built in 1900 by the Bertig Bros. The Vandervort Hotel of modern and special design was well-known throughout the state. Streets were paved and the young city flourished.        However, as the 1920s opened, the great timber industry was beginning to draw to a close and the Depression was approaching. The denuded acres surrounding the town where the vast tracts of timber had been cut, were starting to turn to agriculture. This would become the county's most important industry. However, as population continued to decline, it was time to turn to some other types of industry that had been drawn to the community.        World War II brought a halt to several building projects that could not be resumed until after the war. One of the first community projects was the construction of a new hospital. Through a public subscription and a bond issue, a modern facility was opened in 1949 on Kingshighway. A great community achievement. Today, the hospital is completely modern and is operated as the Arkansas Methodist Hospital. Drawing patients from a wide area, it is now self-sustaining. Also through subscription and a community tax, the community built Greene Acres Nursing Home to replace an old outmoded poor farm. Located on South Linwood Drive, it too has continued to grow and is now self-supporting.        The Paragould Library opened in an upstairs room in 1933, supported by service clubs and individuals. Through subscriptions and a millage tax the library finally achieved its own building. The widow of Ruport Wright, publisher of the Daily Press, left a generous bequest to build a modern library building. It opened in 1974 as the Wright Memorial Library which is now the headquarters for the Northeast Arkansas Regional Library System. A recent bequest of $100,000 by Sam Lipscomb for use as a historical and genealogical division makes it an outstanding research library for Arkansas history and geneology.        Another civic achievement has been the Community Center built near the library. It is fully equipped with kitchen and auditorium for use of community activities. A great many Senior Citizens' activities and adult league sports activities are scheduled there.        In a recent effort by the city of Paraoguld, a new community center and sports complex is being built south of the center of town. The new facility will have several softball parks, soccer fields, walking trails, swimming pool, an indoor basketball and volleyball courts. This has been a much needed facility as our town continues to grow.        Besides the existing and new community centers, there are seven city parks: Harmon Playfield, with a football field; Labor Park with a baseball diamond and a neighborhood center building; Reynolds Park a mile from town with a lake, picnic areas, and swimming pools; Rotary Park, near the high school with tennis courts; Rotary Park on Carroll Road with 6 ball fields and the Francis Bland Community Park. Crowley's Ridge State Park was a project of the Paragould Chamber of Commerce. It is located near the site of Crowley's Farm and has become an important park in the State Parks system since its opening in 1936.        The County Fairgrounds was acquired by the Fair Association before 1900 and sponsors a lively and interesting County Fair each year in September.        There are also two country clubs, Paragould Country Club and Fox Hills Country Club, both with golf courses and swimming pools.        The early timber industry gave way to industrial plants which continue to grow in number today. However, agriculture is still the largest industry in the county.        Paragould's population is estimated at around 23,000 today. It has not been so much the numbers, but the spirit of the people of Paragould that points to the continuing growth as shown in the first hundred years.