Desha, AR

Desha is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Independence County, Arkansas, southwest of Batesville along Arkansas Highway 25. The area was once called Alderbrook after Alderbrook Creek. A trading post appeared in the 1830s, followed by a post office at Desha in 1883. The old name still survives in Alderbrook Cemetery, the main cemetery for Desha and nearby communities. The setting also carries the Greenbrier Bottoms, farmland between Desha and Locust Grove where cotton once held an important place and soybeans now fill more of the fields.

ATTRBrandonrush / CC0

Desha's past has a rougher edge too. Jamestown Mountain and Brock Mountain were once used as hiding places by outlaws, and the area became linked to the 1893 Olyphant Train Robbery and the 1935 killing of Independence County chief deputy Everett Wheeler. The old Searcy and Desha cotton gin is no longer active, but the family name remains on the main highway and at Fox Hill, where a restored house stood near a Civil War-era Confederate encampment. School consolidation also ties Desha to neighboring Locust Grove, Jamestown, and later Batesville. The place is small in the present, with its history spread across creek, fields, roads, and ridges.