This year Sebastian County is celebrating 150 years. I thought because so much history has occurred in this area, the Rootsweb line of Sebastian County, might be interested in some of this history. I will from day to day post the history as it happened since 1817...and includes the formal history as of 1851 to 2001. The Beginnings In late 1817, Major William Bradford and his men came up the Arkansas River and established a military post on a bluff know as "Belle Point." They called it Fort Smith, after brigadier general Thomas A. Smith, the man who had organized the expedition. The fort was part of a string of military posts intended to keep peace on what was being called the "western frontier." Congress organized the Arkansas Territory in 1819, it had just five counties, including Lawrence on the north and Arkansas to the east, Hempstead, Clark and Pulaski counties were parallel strips of land that continued west to the new Osage boundary line in present-day southeast Oklahoma. An estimated 14,000 people lived in Arkansas Territory by 1820. Despite the constant threat of Indian warfare, a few adventurers and profiteers set up dwellings outside the walls of the fort on the Arkansas. They sold their wares to the soldiers, and exchanged goods with the increasing traffic on the river. The first steamboat to play an important role in the development of the area was the Robert Thompson. It bought supplies and passengers to the garrison, including John Rogers from New Orleans and John Dillard, a lawyer from Lynchburg, Virginia. ** More to come Carolyn (Parsons) Smedley http://www.geocities.com/angelears1 angelears@alltel.net "Angelears are there to listen... Then hears the person's soul"... Psalms 18:24