Magnolia Square and the Columbia County Courthouse

Magnolia was laid out in 1853 after Columbia County was created, on land deeded by J. J. Thomas and John L. McCarty, and a one-room log cabin served as the first courthouse. Cotton drove the early economy, and the Encyclopedia of Arkansas says many early settlers were slaveholders. The current courthouse, finished in 1906 and designed by William S. Hull, is the third on the site and a Second Renaissance Revival building with a three-bay arcade and a colonnaded portico. It reached the National Register on April 15, 1978. Logoly State Park's founders met here in the 1970s.

The square is also where Jordan Jameson died. Jameson, a Black man, reportedly shot and killed Sheriff Benjamin Greer on November 7, 1919, when the sheriff came to arrest him. A posse captured him early on November 11, and a mob took him from it. At about 5 a.m., the Encyclopedia says, he was tied to a stake on the public square, a fire was built around him, and he burned to death as a growing crowd watched. The National Equal Rights League asked Governor Charles Brough to punish the white people who burned him. Brough said he deplored the lynching but would not be swayed by the league on cases arising from the Elaine Massacre.

Oil came to the county on June 8, 1922, and later bromine from oil-field brine. Southern Arkansas University began in 1909 as the Third District Agricultural School, and its campus, once north of the city, has been joined to it by later growth.