Craighead County Court House

Jonesboro exists because of what may have been a joke. In 1858 state senator William Jones proposed a new county from the district of his colleague Thomas Craighead, who opposed it. When the bill passed, Jones suggested naming the county for Craighead, and Craighead replied by proposing that the county seat carry Jones's name. The Encyclopedia of Arkansas says accounts differ on whether Jones meant it as a joke or as goodwill. Farmer Fergus Snoddy gave fifteen acres on Crowley's Ridge for the town. County and town were established on February 19, 1859.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Arkansas State University Museum — 1.4 mi
  A free university museum in the Dean B. Ellis Library, with a mastodon cast, an Old Town Arkansas street, Native American and Rockabilly galleries and a tinkering studio, and the hub of the university heritage sites.
• Crowley's Ridge State Park — 14 mi
  A 1933 state park on the loess hills of Crowley's Ridge, built around Benjamin Crowley's homestead spring and the stone-and-log pavilion, dam and cabins of the Civilian Conservation Corps.
• Powhatan Historic State Park — 29 mi
  A river port and county seat on the Black River whose 1888 courthouse, 1873 jail, log house and academy still stand where they were built, with a state archives branch in the same park.
• Davidsonville Historic State Park — 30 mi
  The ghost-town site of Arkansas's first post office, courthouse and federal land office, on the Black River, with open-frame outlines of the courthouse and a dogtrot house.

More markers nearby

• Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church — steps away
• Troops Raised in Craighead County — 1.2 mi
• Last Confederate Veteran — 3.6 mi
• Confederate Headquarters in Harrisburg — 19 mi