Newton County Seat

Jasper has three explanations for its name, all in the Encyclopedia of Arkansas. In one legend, Cherokee travelers on the Trail of Tears named it for the warmth of the welcome they received. In another, a grateful traveler gave the postmaster a ring set with a jasper stone. In the third, postmaster John Ross chose the name for the mellow color of the local stone. Governor Archibald Yell signed the act creating the county on December 14, 1842, and Jasper became the seat in 1843. The present courthouse, finished in 1942, was a Works Progress Administration project.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Boxley Valley Historic District — 10.0 mi
  A seven-mile farm valley of log houses, a grist mill and a 1980s elk herd inside Buffalo National River, still lived in and still grazed by cattle.
• Lost Valley Trail — 11 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.
• Whitaker Point (Hawksbill Crag) — 17 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.
• Buffalo National River at Tyler Bend — 24 mi
  The country's first national river, kept free-flowing after a dam fight that ended in 1965, seen from the Middle District's visitor center, the Collier Homestead and the Riverview Trail.

More markers nearby

• Civil War in Newton County — steps away
• Caravan Spring — 12 mi
• Boone County Men Served Both Armies — 16 mi
• Military Activity in Boone County — 16 mi