Monroe County First Courthouse

Monroe County's first courthouse was a borrowed house. The Encyclopedia of Arkansas says that when the county was formed on November 2, 1829, Ester Maddox's house in Lawrenceville served as a temporary courthouse. Commissioners later picked a permanent site on Joseph Jacobs's farm, but the first actual courthouse was not built at Lawrenceville until 1846. The seat moved to Clarendon in 1857, and the present Italian Renaissance Revival courthouse dates from 1911. By 1860 the county held 2,226 enslaved people alongside 3,431 white residents.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Louisiana Purchase State Park — 15 mi
  A National Historic Landmark in a headwater swamp where Phillips, Lee and Monroe counties meet, marking the initial point of every survey of the Louisiana Purchase lands.

More markers nearby

• Clarendon in the Civil War — steps away
• DeValls Bluff in the Civil War — 10 mi
• The Memphis & Little Rock Railroad — 10 mi
• Memphis & Little Rock Railroad — 10 mi