1. BUFFALO CITY: The additional of Buffalo City, which was a on the White River just above the Buffalo Fork and had a freight road to Yellville. This additional would depend on increased map modification to develop an appropriate TC2M to represent it in the simulation.
2. FORSYTHE: THE OZARKS CAMPAIGN allows movement into and through southern Missouri in Taney and Ozark Counties. Along with the northern section of Marion County, this was an area where lead was found and mined. (Worth was also called Lead Hill.) Lawrence Mills is represented in Missouri north of Dubuque on the campaign map, because there were camps and activity there during the war, but the point on the map may be re-named to Forsythe, the county seat of Taney County.
3. LUNENBURG: This was a town east of Mt. Olive that may be added. There was a skirmish there during the war.
In this section of a Mitchel 1859 map, Buffalo City is shown. (It is incorrectly placed on several other early maps.) Dubuque does not appear to be in the correct location on this map. It was clearly on the White River.
THE HISTORY OF MARION COUNTY has a section on Old Buffalo City by Mrs. Ray Blankenship, from which this excerpt is taken and quoted:
These big-hearted, hard-working, trustworthy people had ability to over come the hardships which were sure to befall all those who came and stayed.
No records are known to show people living in the Buffalo City community sooner than the 1820s, but from this time forward facts related to the town and its business establishments are numerous. Recently several letters were found by people of the county on file in the Arkansas Gazette's office which are very revealing about Buffalo City during early times as they were written by an intelligent young gentleman from Hartford, Connecticut, who had just located and gone into business here. The first letter which is headed Buffalo City, Sept. 22, 1848, is a source of the very finest information about the area. He goes into detail describing the country and the people to his mother and father.
At this time the town had fewer than a dozen families living in it, but at least one family, the Morelands, had been living here since the late l820s and were holding most of the bottom land known later as the Buffalo City farm.
It is not known when the first steamboat landed here, but Buffalo City was considered the head of navigation for these crafts for the greater part of the year. By the 1840s, many tons of supplies and goods were being delivered to this area by White River transportation. Much of it still was being delivered on the keel boats and the flat bottoms.
The Independence County Chronicle, July, 1969, Vol. X, No. 4, says the first steamboat reached Batesville in 1831. It is reasonable to believe that they were reaching the important landings in this area soon after.
This was long before cotton was grown as a cash crop and the people cashed in on the natural resources to provide for needs such as salt, coffee, sugar, and some clothing.
Everard Dickenson, the earlier mentioned businessman, stated in his letter of Sept. 22, 1848, that peltery and bear oil were some of the things sold or traded for goods and he had taken in forty bear skins the day before. He was doing business in a log storehouse for which he was to pay $30.00 rent per annum. This letter also stated that he was being encouraged by Major Jacob Wolf to move his business down to Norfork and his letter dated June 22, 1849, (Page 349 Top) shows him set up in business at the new location. He indicated that men wore buckskin shirts and leather britches much of the time. He also said, "The girls in this country are the right sort for a poor man. They can all weave and make up their own clothing and most of them can make a good suit of clothes for a man and make the cloth too. One of the Major Wolf's girls made me a pair of homespun pants in about two-and-a-half hours that
fit me first rate. Price of making them was fifty cents. I got another young lady to cut and make me a homespun coat for $1.25, so you see a man can live and dress cheap in this country."
Another firm that was doing business at Buffalo City in 1848 was that of Hogan and Tunsells.
As this region became more heavily populated, Buffalo City continued to grow as a business and trade center. In these early times, a road was used for the freight wagons called "the Buffalo to Yellville" road. Freight wagons pulled by oxen used this route for many years as supplies and goods moved from the steamboats across Marion and Boone Counties. John W. Olvey, now deceased, informed the writer of this and stated his people ran a freight line from Buffalo City to Harrison back in those days.
Buffalo City Boom. The Des Arc Citizen, September 28, 1859, pub. A letter from A. G. Cochran about the prospects of Buffalo City, a new town freshly laid out on the south side of White River one mile above the mouth of Buffalo River. The most impressive structure in the town, according to the Cochran letter, was a tavern called the Shoal House, which had a wide thirty-six-foot long porch, a smokehouse full of meat, and good stables for guests' horses. A warehouse had been built at the steamboat landing, and a steam grist mill was in operation. Among the town's pressing needs were a shoemaker, a druggist, a doctor, a blacksmith, and a preacher, not necessarily in that order. The letter ended: "Buffalo City will one day be one of the most flourishing towns in the State - the opinion of the Yellvilleians and Carrolltonites to the contrary notwithstanding."Although individuals were holding parts of the land by what was known as preemption rights, the abstracts of the farm and townsite show the first claim being filed at the land office in Batesville in 1844 by William F. Denton. This may be the Denton who was well known in the area of Batesville in the 1830s and 1840's as an owner of land and race horses.
Others who were taking up lands who homesteaded parts of the Buffalo City farm in the 1840s were the Hogans and Tunsells. The abstract of the farm contains the record of a deed dated Dec. 6, 1858, which was made to James M. Tunsell giving him title to some lots in the townsite and it has this interesting stipulation. "With the distinct contract that the citizens of Buffalo City are not to be prohibited the use of any spring water on said land and the street immediately east of said Tunsell's still house shed which runs through said lands is not to be stopped up."
From Civil War days until well into the early 1900s, virgin timber was being marketed and much of it was rafted down the river. Uncle Levi Cox, an oldtimer of this community, used to tell about this (Page 350 Top Photo: Turkey Mountain, Buffalo City, Arkansas in late 1800s [man plowing is not identified]) and he would mention the cedar log that he had hauled to the river at Buffalo City with two yokes of oxen. This log was seventy-two feet long and six inches at the top.
Throughout this period cotton was the cash crop and hundreds of bales were ginned and shipped from this point down river on the steamboats.
When the mining boom came to Marion County, Buffalo City flourished greatly. The mines in the area which milled and shipped ore were the Chickasaw and Bonanza mines on Cow Creek, the Lion Hill mine on Warner Creek, and the Dixie Girl on Boat Creek. An interesting advertisement in these days was as follows:
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