Kensett, Arkansas

Kensett, in White County, was born when the Cairo and Fulton Railroad came through in eighteen seventy-two. The small settlement was named for Thomas Kensett, a member of the railroad's board of directors, and a post office followed shortly after. The town grew modestly as a agricultural shipping point on the line that would eventually become part of the Missouri Pacific system.

Kensett's most famous son arrived a generation later: Wilbur Mills was born here in nineteen oh nine and went on to become chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee from nineteen fifty-eight to nineteen seventy-four, widely called the most powerful man in Washington during his peak. The man who shaped American tax law for decades came from a small White County town.