Fort Smith Arkansas History & Facts

Fort Smith is the third-largest city in Arkansas and one of the two county seats of Sebastian County. As of the 2020 census, the population was 89,142. It is the principal city of the Fort Smith, Arkansas–Oklahoma Metropolitan Statistical Area, a region of 298,592 residents that encompasses the Arkansas counties of Crawford, Franklin, and Sebastian, and the Oklahoma counties of Le Flore and Sequoyah.

Fort Smith lies on the Arkansas–Oklahoma state border, situated at the confluence of the Arkansas and Poteau rivers, also known as Belle Point. Fort Smith was established as a western frontier military post in 1817, when it was also a center of fur trading. The city developed there. It became well known as a base for migrants' settling of the "Wild West" and for its law enforcement heritage.

The city government is led by Mayor George McGill (D), who made history in 2018 when he was elected as the city's first African American mayor, and a city Board of Directors composed of three members elected at-large and four members elected by ward.

Before the European colonization of the Americas, this region was inhabited by various indigenous American peoples, attracted by the proximity to two rivers. They used the waterways for transportation and trading, and to supply fish and water to their villages. The French claimed this area as part of their New France and La Louisiana. Some colonial fur traders traveled the Arkansas and other rivers to exchange goods with the tribes.

The United States acquired the territory and large areas west of the Mississippi River from France in the Louisiana Purchase (1803). Soon after, the government sent the Pike Expedition (1806) to explore the areas along the Arkansas River. The US founded Fort Smith in 1817 as a military post. It was named after General Thomas Adams Smith (1781–1844), who commanded the United States Army Rifle Regiment in 1817, headquartered near St. Louis. General Smith had ordered Army topographical engineer Stephen H. Long (1784–1864) to find a suitable site on the Arkansas River for a fort. General Smith never visited the town or the forts that bore his name.

A stockade was built and occupied from 1817 until 1822 by a small troop of regulars commanded by Major William Bradford. A small settlement began forming around the fort, but the Army abandoned the first Fort Smith in 1824 and moved 80 miles further west to Fort Gibson. John Rogers, an Army sutler and land speculator, bought up former government-owned lands at this site and promoted growth of the new civilian town of Fort Smith.

Due to the strategic location of this site, the federal government re-established a military presence at Fort Smith during the Indian Removal era of the 1830s, primarily of tribes from the American Southeast to west of the Mississippi River in Indian Territory, which is present-day Oklahoma.

In 1838 the Army moved back into the old military post near Belle Point, and expanded the base. They used troops to forcibly relocate the Choctaw and Cherokee, from their ancestral homelands in the Southeast; they were the last of the tribes to leave. Remnants of the Five ‘Civilized’ Tribes remained in the southeast, and some of their descendants have reorganized and been federally recognized. The Cherokee called the forced migration the Trail of Tears, as some of their people and the people who were enslaved died from starvation, hypothermi, exhaustion and many illnesses along the way. The army enforced the removal of these tribes to the reserved Indian Territory, where the federal government set aside land that was less fertile while imposing detentes between distinct nations. Many displaced people stopped walking and settled in Fort Smith and adjoining Van Buren, Arkansas on the other side of the river.

The US Army also used Fort Smith as a base during the Mexican War (1846-1848). As a result, the US acquired large territories in the Southwest, and later annexed the Republic of Texas, which had been independent from 1836-1846.

Fort Smith is located at 35°22′7″N 94°23′55″W (35.368691, −94.398737).

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 64.6 square miles (167 km2), of which 61.7 square miles (160 km2) is land and 3.9 square miles (10 km2) (6.3%) is water.

Famous Peoples From Fort Smith Arkansas

Hunter Doohan

(born January 18, 1994) is an American actor. He is best known for his roles in the television series Your Honor (2020) and Wednesday (2022).

Doohan grew up "all over the south" but chiefly in Fort Smith, Arkansas. He became interested in acting via high school and community theatre programs; after high school he took up an internship at Elizabeth Barnes Casting in Los Angeles before working in a variety of day jobs including background extra, waiter, and Universal Studios tour guide while studying acting and auditioning for parts.

Doohan's breakthrough role was playing the younger version of Aaron Paul's character Warren Cave in the first season of the Apple TV+ series Truth Be Told. In 2020, he appeared with a main role in the legal drama series Your Honor, playing Adam Desiato. In 2022, he portrayed Tyler Galpin in the Netflix series Wednesday.

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