Some Conway County History...

The Cherokee Indians owned land temporarily in north central Arkansas between 1817 and 1828 which included most of Conway County. The Southeast corner of the Western Cherokee Nation was located on Point Remove Creek, not far from Morrilton. Sequoyah, father of the Cherokee Alphabet, came to Arkansas in 1818 to bring his Alphabet.  The Cherokee were eventually pressured into signing a treaty to give up their Arkansas lands.

There is a marker on the corner of Jackson and S. Cherokee in Morrilton that reads as follows:  Conway County Cherokee Indian Boundary. On the north bank of the Arkansas River at the mouth of Point Remove Creek a line was run in a Northwesterly direction to Batesville. On White River this line crosses the highway here and was designated as the Eastern Boundary of the lands ceded by treaty in 1817 to the Western Cherokee Indians in exchange for lands given up by them  in the states of Georgia and Tennessee.
1836 Arkansas Centennial Commission * Arkansas History Commission 1936

Conway County  was formed in 1825 out of Pulaski County and is named for the Conway family.  At one time, Conway County covered an area of about 2,500 square miles and included most of Faulkner, Van Buren, Pope, Perry and part of Yell County. The county seat was moved numerous times as the county kept reforming and it was the intention to keep the county seat housed in a central location in the county.

The first county seat was at Cadron. The house of Stephen Harris was the second location of the county seat in Harrisburg (now Portland).  In 1831 the seat was moved to Lewisburg. The courthouse was moved to Springfield in 1850. The Springfield courthouse was demolished by a tornado in 1858 and a new courthouse built in its place. There was a fire in 1863 which destroyed the courthouse in Springfield a second time. Another court house was built in 1869 in Springfield. The courthouse was returned to Lewisburg in 1873.  The county seat was moved to Morrilton in 1883-1884.

The Cherokee Nation followed the TRAIL OF TEARS  through Conway County.  It is estimated that the forced emigration claimed over 4,000 lives by the time the last Cherokee reached Oklahoma in 1839.  At times, the line formed by the Indains on their trek was about eighty-five miles long.

Submitted by Cathy Barnes
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