Van Buren, Arkansas

Van Buren, Arkansas, sits on the south bank of the Arkansas River directly across from Fort Smith, and it was incorporated in eighteen forty-five, named for Martin Van Buren. It grew from a steamboat landing and trading post first settled in eighteen eighteen, a year after the Army founded Fort Smith. The Main Street historic district preserves a dense run of Victorian commercial buildings from the eighteen seventies through nineteen hundreds, among the most intact in Arkansas, anchored by the old Frisco Railroad depot.

Van Buren served as the Crawford County seat and a gateway to the Indian Territory across the river, where federal court at Fort Smith held jurisdiction over a vast stretch of what would become eastern Oklahoma. Today the two cities share a metro area, divided only by the river and a state line.