1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Fayetteville (Arkansas)

FAYETTEVILLE, a city and the county-seat of Washington county, Arkansas, U.S.A., about 150 m. N.W. of Little Rock. Pop. (1890) 2942; (1900) 4061; (1910) 4471. It is served by the St Louis & San Francisco railway. The city lies about 1400 ft. above the sea, in the Ozark Mountain region. There is much fine scenery in the neighbourhood, there are mineral springs near by, and the place has become known as a summer resort. Fayetteville is the seat of the University of Arkansas (incorporated 1871; opened 1872; co-educational), which includes the following departments: at Fayetteville, a college of liberal arts, science and engineering, a conservatory of music and art, a preparatory school, and an agricultural college and agricultural experiment station; at Little Rock, a medical school and a law school, and at Pine Bluff, the Branch Normal College for negroes. In 1908 the university had 122 instructors and a total enrolment of 1725 students. In Fayetteville there are a National cemetery with 1236 soldiers’ graves (782 “unknown”) and a Confederate cemetery with 725 graves and a memorial monument. In the vicinity of Fayetteville there are deposits of coal; and the city is in a fine fruit-growing region, apples being the principal crop. Much of the surrounding country is still covered with timber. Among manufactures are lumber, spokes, handles, waggons, lime, evaporated fruit and flour.

The first settlement on the site of what is now Fayetteville was made between 1820 and 1825; when Washington county was created in 1828 the place became the county-seat, and it was called Washington Court-house until 1829, when it received its present name. The citizens of Fayetteville were mainly Confederate sympathizers; Fayetteville was raided by Federal cavalry on the 14th of July 1862, and was permanently occupied by Federal troops in the autumn of the same year. Confederate cavalry under Brigadier-General William Lewis Cabell attacked the city on the 18th of April 1863, but were driven off. The town was burned in August 1863, and shelled on the 3rd of November 1864, after the battle of Pea Ridge, by a detachment of General Price’s army. Fayetteville was incorporated as a town in 1841, and in 1859 received a city charter, which was abolished by act of the Legislature in 1867; under a general law of 1869 the town was re-incorporated; and in 1906 it became a city of the first class.