The Indian Territory in the Civil War Message Board

Location of Laynesport

Reminiscences of an Arkansas Pioneer
The below excerpt comes from the article “Reminiscences of an Arkansas Pioneer as
Recorded in 1890” by H. M. McIver of Texarkana, Arkansas. The article was featured in
the Arkansas Historical Quarterly, spring 1958. The pioneer’s name is Clark Ward and he is remembering his experiences of traveling to the Arkansas Territory with his family in a covered wagon, as well as witnessing the removal of Native Americans (Indian Removal Act of 1830) from his town.

After we had been at Willow Springs a year or so people began to come in to the country pretty fast. A number of people settled at Laynesport, at what we now know as the Jones farm and in the black lands west of Rocky Comfort, thinking they were in the Indian Territory (what is now the state of Oklahoma). In fact none of us knew whether we were in Arkansas or the Indian Territory until the country was surveyed. The Hopsons and the Simpsons were the first settlers I remember moving in to the Black land, thinking they were in the Indian Nation.

From Ghost Towns of Arkansas
Laynesport
This former bustling river port and cross roads community was tucked into the little corner of the state on the north side of the Red River, northwest of Texarkana, and just ¾ mile east of the Oklahoma state line and south of SH 108.

Ctr of S line of Sec 12/N line Sec 13, T13S, R33W, Fifth Principal Meridian
Lat: 33° 38’ 57” N, Long: 94° 28’ 23” W
Lat: 33.6492828, Long: -94.4729830