The earliest known inhabitants of the hardwood forest of the Ozarks migrated to Arkansas over 12 thousand years ago through the Great Bering Strait. For the next two thousand years Bluff Dwellers hunted the mountain plateaus before the Quapaws, Cherokee and Osage fished the bountiful lakes and streams and hunted the grassland prairies of the Arkansas highlands. Buffalo herds roamed this area.

It was not until 1819 that the first white man saw Fayetteville’s hilltop terrain. On March 2, 1819, Congress created the Arkansas Territory. On October 17, 1828, Washington County was established, and Fayetteville was chosen as the capital site.

The county commissioners were authorized in 1834 by Congress to sell 160 acres to underwrite the building of a proper Courthouse on this Square. The sale that took from 1835-1837 raised $6340.00 and the courthouse was built in 1837. Several Courthouses graced this site until 1911 when the “Old Post Office” was constructed.

Dedicated to the City of Fayetteville by

Dr. Donald E. and Edna Bumpass and Ron E. Bumpass

Marker is at the intersection of Center Street and East Avenue, on the left when traveling west on Center Street.

Courtesy hmdb.org

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