Hazen, Arkansas

Hazen is a city in Prairie County, Arkansas, and it started as a fuel stop. William C. Hazen established a station along the Memphis and Little Rock Railroad in eighteen seventy-one, and the town was surveyed two years later in eighteen seventy-three.

Hazen's widow later deeded the first tract of land for the city. The town was incorporated on July eighth, eighteen eighty-four, sitting at the junction of what became the St. Louis Southwestern and the Rock Island railroads, two crossing lines that made it a natural hub for shipping prairie hay, cotton, and dairy products out of the flat Delta farmland.

The railroad junction kept Hazen viable long after many neighboring communities faded, and it remains one of Prairie County's main towns today.