ARKANSAS

After the United States completed negotiations with the French for the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the Indians wandered freely in Arkansas.  The French explorers had wandered through the area for the past two hundred sixty two hears and had come to the region with their parties in search of treasure.  They did not stay long.

As soon as the land came into United States ownership, it was immediately thrown open for settlement at very attractive low prices.  The first to come were mainly of English, Irish and Scottish stock.  Many moved into the area from nearby Kentucky and Tennessee.

Arkansas as we now know it, became part of the Missouri Territory in 1812.  When Missouri applied for statehood in 1819, Congress created the Arkansas Territory, which included what is now Oklahoma.  On 15 June 1836, Arkansas became the twenty-fifth state in the union.  Because of the territorial  changes, people searching for records in Oklahoma and Missouri, may need to also search the documents of Arkansas as well.  Your records could be in any of these three states depending on the time period involved.

In 1837, a financial panic drained most of the settlers in the older southern and eastern states and many of them set out for the new state of Arkansas to make a new start in life.  By the 1860, the rich lands between the Arkansas and White Rivers attracted several large groups of Southern European emigrants.  Pulaski County was established by a group of people from Poland.  Many Italian families moved into the northwestern section of the state, where they set up fruit farms.  The first two counties to be settled were Lawrence County in the northeast and Arkansas County in the southeast corner.