Fordyce, AR

Fordyce is the Dallas County seat in southeast Arkansas, where Arkansas Highway 8 crosses the city and U.S. 79 and 167 pass around it. The 2020 census counted 3,396 residents. The town began in 1882 as a Cotton Belt railroad settlement named for Colonel Samuel Wesley Fordyce, a railroad builder and developer, and incorporated in 1884. The courthouse moved here from non-railroad Princeton in 1908, giving Fordyce the county role it still carries.

ATTRValis55 / CC BY-SA 3.0

Timber became the next big chapter. Fordyce Lumber Company opened in 1889, employed a quarter of the local working population by 1932, and was acquired by Georgia-Pacific in 1963. The old Cotton Belt depot now displays Steam Locomotive 101 and houses the Dallas County Museum annex, while the 1911 courthouse and the Fordyce Commercial and Charlotte Street historic districts keep the town's older blocks in view. The Fordyce on Cotton Belt Festival arrives in late April, and Fordyce School District serves local children. Railroad, timber, courthouse, and festival give the county seat a very legible small-town map.