The public is invited to attend a special historical presentation, “The Making of America and Lawrence County, Arkansas,” at 2:30 p.m. on Sunday, July 12, at the Male and Female Academy at Historic Powhatan State Park.
Dr. Blake Perkin’s program will explore the founding of Lawrence County and its pivotal role in the early development of Arkansas and the American frontier.
On January 15, 1815, William Clark, the famous explorer turned Missouri territorial governor, signed the legislation that formally created Lawrence County. Amid a new “rage to move” following the Louisiana Purchase, U.S. treaties with Native Americans west of the Mississippi, and a rush to cash in on War of 1812 government land bounties, early Anglo, Scots-Irish, and German settlers—accompanied by enslaved African Americans—arrived via Missouri from places such as the Carolinas, Kentucky, and Tennessee. They settled into a broad “White River Country” now on the young United States’s western frontier that was still in flux as it rapidly transitioned from a “Native Ground” and colonial possession of the Spanish and French empires.
Separated from St. Louis’s political orbit during the wrangling surrounding Missouri’s statehood and incorporated into the new Arkansas Territory in 1819, Lawrence County emerged as a vital frontier community and became northern Arkansas’s “Mother of Counties” during the transformative years of early American expansion. Beginning in the 1830s and 40s and ramping up in the 1850s, however, a combination of natural and, especially, man-made forces increasingly eroded the area’s early “western” orientation in favor of a new “southern” identity. Thus, by 1861, despite its comparatively small enslaved population, Lawrence County had few reservations about casting its lot with Southern secession and the Confederacy—a fateful decision forever embedded in its historical experience.
History enthusiasts, local residents, and visitors are encouraged to attend this engaging program to gain a deeper understanding of Lawrence County’s place in the story of America’s westward expansion and the forces that shaped Arkansas’s early history.
Event Details:
Date: Sunday, July 12
Time: 2:30 p.m.
Location: Male and Female Academy, Historic Powhatan State Park
The program is open to the public! Please join us!