Madison County Government

Huntsville's name came from Alabama. Explorers from there arrived in 1827 and named the settlement after their hometown, and Thomas McCuistion surveyed the town in 1837. One postmaster, John Buchanan, tried to rename it Sevierville after Ambrose Sevier and failed, and the post office officially became Huntsville on January 17, 1840. The first courthouse, built in 1837 on the central square, burned during the Civil War, when guerrilla activity wrecked the town's economy. The present Art Deco courthouse was dedicated November 30, 1939, and listed on the National Register in 1993.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Withrow Springs State Park — 4.8 mi
  A 54-degree spring that runs underground into War Eagle Cave and out to War Eagle Creek, on land Roscoe Hobbs gave the state in 1962, with float trips and an oak-hickory forest.
• Hobbs State Park-Conservation Area — 18 mi
  Arkansas's largest state park, about 12,000 acres on Beaver Lake, with the Van Winkle mill site, a graveyard of enslaved people, 54 miles of trail and regulated hunting.
• Whitaker Point (Hawksbill Crag) — 20 mi
  The one designated trail in the Upper Buffalo Wilderness leads to Hawksbill Crag, a bluff over the river's headwaters in a valley no one has lived in since 1948.
• Lost Valley Trail — 21 mi
  A box-canyon walk past a natural bridge, a 2,000-year-old bluff shelter and a 53-foot waterfall, the most popular hike in Buffalo National River.

More markers nearby

• Governor Isaac Murphy — steps away
• Huntsville Massacre — steps away
• Van Winkle's Mill — 19 mi
• Berryville in the Civil War — 21 mi