Newport and the Town That Refused the Railroad

Newport, Arkansas, exists because the town next door made a mistake. When the Cairo and Fulton Railroad came through Jackson County in the early eighteen seventies, it bypassed the established river settlement of Jacksonport. The railroad platted, platted a brand-new town on the White River, and called it Newport, a new port on the water.

Within a generation, Newport had grown into the county's commercial center. In the early eighteen nineties, the county seat moved from Jacksonport to Newport. Today Jacksonport survives as a state park and a courthouse museum, while Newport, the seat of Jackson County, ships soybeans, rice, and cattle from the same river landing the railroad chose over its stubborn neighbor.