Center Point

Robert Messer, his wife and two daughters settled near a spring here around 1818, and the post office that gave Center Point its name opened in 1849. The town incorporated in 1859 but lost that status during the war. When Howard County was formed in 1873, Center Point became its first county seat. A fire in 1901 destroyed nine businesses and eight homes, and after an October 1904 countywide vote the records moved to Nashville in 1905. The post office closed in January 1972. By 2016 only a few houses, a service station and a hair salon remained.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Crater of Diamonds State Park — 16 mi
  A volcanic crater where anyone can dig for diamonds and keep what they find.
• Historic Washington State Park — 23 mi
  A Southwest Trail town that was Arkansas's Confederate capital from 1863 to 1865, then lost the railroad and kept its buildings, with a blacksmith shop and the 1836 courthouse.
• Millwood State Park — 24 mi
  A park at the foot of the 3.3-mile Millwood Dam, built in 1966 on the Little River, where flooded timber makes serious bass fishing and the lake counts as a bird-conservation area.
• President William Jefferson Clinton Birthplace Home National Historic Site — 32 mi
  The two-story Hervey Street house in Hope where Bill Clinton lived his first four years with his widowed mother and her parents, now a National Park Service site with a ranger-led tour.

More markers nearby

• Howard County in the Civil War — steps away
• Sevier County in the Civil War — 14 mi
• Pike County Court House — 15 mi
• Henry Merrell — 15 mi