A look to the past
One of the oldest municipalities in the state, Batesville has a rich history that spans close to two centuries. With an ideal location on the White River, the town has seen prosperous times as a major river port and industrious area, and continues to be a regional hub of cultural and economic activity in Independence County.
The earliest documented settler in the town was John Reed, one of the mercantilists who lived at Poke Bayou, a creek that enters the White River from the north, in 1812. Seven years later in 1819, when Henry Schoolcraft visited the area, there was a village of a dozen houses there.
“[Mining] was why Henry Schoolcraft came into the area — he was looking for minerals and ultimately what they came to find was manganese out from Batesville,” said Twyla Gill Wright, curator at the Old Independence Regional Museum.
Schoolcraft’s host was Robert Bean, a settler who had moved there a year earlier and bought the preemption deeds of many who lived in the area.
The same year that Schoolcraft passed through, Arkansas Territory was separated from Missouri Territory and by 1820, Independence County was created from Lawrence County. Bean offered the land of the Poke Bayou settlement for sale as the county seat.
This new town was named Batesville in honor of James Woodson Bates, a territorial delegate who played a role in the establishment of the Arkansas Territory.
Batesville’s original plat of 1821 consisted of a pattern of 14 blocks, with a public square. It soon had a two-story brick courthouse, a brick jail and other buildings, all situated on the lower blocks of the plat, an area subject to flooding that caused relocation up Main Street to higher ground.
With a federal land office for the region, many settlers, including entrepreneurs, began moving into White River country. After the west bank of the river came open to settlement when the Cherokee Indians returned the land to the government in 1828 and steamboat transportation began in 1831, Batesville became a major river port of the southeastern Ozarks.
“The river was the primary highway of getting things [back then],” Wright said.
Batesville was a center for steamboats and river traffic flourished until it was slowed by the building of three lock-and-dams and replaced years later in the 20th century by railroads.
The town was surrounded by farmland and several plantation owners lived in the city limits.
When the Civil War began, Batesville was an economic powerhouse, serving as a mercantile and cultural center for northeastern Arkansas. But after the war ended, the town became impoverished and took years to recover.
Despite rough economic times, however, Arkansas College — later Lyon College — was founded in 1872 by the Presbyterian Church and produced many graduates who settled locally and strengthened the economy.
“It was an important institution for people who really wanted their [children], people with a little more money, … to get an education right here instead of sending them away,” Wright said.
Today, Lyon is a highly ranked liberal ar ts college with an international faculty and student body.
“It still is a point of pride here in Batesville,” Wright said.
The late 19th century brought new businesses and banking buildings in the downtown area, in addition to the St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern Railroad in 1883, which extended up the White River valley in 1905.
Fifteen years later in 1920, a major fire destroyed numerous buildings in the downtown area, including more than 40 houses. The courthouse was spared, however, with all documents intact. The rise of the poultry industry and the addition of many small industries, including the International Shoe factory, helped balance Batesville’s original focus on agriculture and trade.
In the latter decades of the 20th century, the town continued to prosper with large companies making their home in the area, such as Arkansas Eastman and the Independence County Steam Plant. To preserve the beauty of the town, Batesville Historic Residential District, centered on Main Street, includes numerous blocks of lovely historic homes that survived the devastating 1920 fire, and the Main Street Project works to preserve the original downtown business district.