ARKANSAS HISTORICAL QUARTERLY, Volume 16, Winter 1957, p. 383
SALT SPRINGS AND SALT WORKS IN ARKANSAS
BY VIRGINIA BUXTON
Nashville, Arkansas
Salt springs, with six sections of land around each, were granted to the state of Arkansas by Congress in 1836 in an act supplementary to the act admitting Arkansas to the Union. The act provided that the springs were to be selected by a state commission and were not to include those springs already vested in individuals. It provided also that the state could not sell the springs and tracts, nor lease them for longer than ten years without the consent of Congress.
In 1838 the Arkansas General Assembly provided for the appointment of Commissioners to select the salt springs and the six sections of land around each and to report on individual claimants of such springs and lands. The act also provided for the appointment by the governor of an agent to rent or lease the springs for a period of five years, the agent to receive ten per cent of the proceeds and the remainder to be paid into the school fund. At the end of the first five years of operation, the legislature authorized the lease of the springs for a period of ten years and two years later, another act provided for the sinking of a salt well in Van Buren County to be leased by the state.
There were seventeen springs in eleven localities in what were Johnson, Franklin, Cleburne, Pope, Hot Spring, Little River, Clark, and Sevier counties.
In 1873, April 17, when Howard County was formed from Hempstead, Sevier, Pike, and Polk counties, one of the springs was located in Howard County and two springs remained in Sevier County, according to the map made by David F. Shall.
