FORT

SMITH  , a city and the county-seat of Sebastian county, on the extreme W. border of Arkansas, U.S.A., lying about 440 ft. above sea-level, on the S. bank of the Arkansas river, at its junction with the Poteau, and at the point where the Arkansas breaks through the Boston mountains . Pop . (1890) 11,311; (1900) 11,587, of whom 2407 were of negro descent and 684 -were foreign-born; (1910 census) 23,975 . Transportation is afforded by the river and by six railways, the St Louis & San Francisco, the St Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern, the Arkansas Central, the Fort Smith & Western, the Midland Valley and the Kansas City Southern . A belt line round the business centre of the city facilitates freight transfers . Some of the business streets are unusually broad, and the streets in the residential district are well shaded . Fort Smith is the business centre of a fine agricultural country and of the Arkansas coal and natural gas region . It has extensive wholesale jobbing interests and a large miscellaneous trade, partly in its own manufactures, among which are cotton and timber products, chairs, mattresses and other furniture, wagons, brooms and bricks . In 1905 the total value of the factory product was $2,329,454, an increase of 66.2% since 1900 . The public schools have a rich endowment: the proceeds of lands (about200 acres) once belonging to the local military reservation, which—except the part occupied by a national cemetery—was given by Congress to the city in 1884 . Near the centre of the city are a Catholic academy, convent and infirmary; and there is a Carnegie library . A United States army post was established here in 1817; the town was laid out in 1821; and the county was created in 1851 .

Fort Smith was incorporated as a town in 1842, and was chartered as a city in 1845 . All transportation was by river and

wagon until 1876, when the railway was completed from Little Rock . The military post, in earlier years the chief depot for the western forts, was abandoned in 1871 . During the Civil War Fort Smith was strongly in sympathy with the Confederacy . The fort was seized by state troops in April 1861, and was reoccupied by the Union forces in September 1863 . There was considerable unrest due to border " bush-whacking " throughout the war, and several skirmishes took place here in 1864 . The area of the city was more than doubled in 1905 .