More on the First Telegraph Lines in Arkansas

Picture taken in 1970's of the commissary at Fort Smith.


The first telegraph wire to span between Little Rock and Memphis was completed in 1860.

The first telegraph sent from Little Rock was sent on January 31, 1861, and was sent by an attorney, John M. Harrel.

"The United States Troops at the outposts of the western frontier of the state and in the Indian nation have all been recalled from winter quarters to reinforce the garrison at Ft. Smith. The garrison at Ft. Smith had been previously transferred to the United States Arsenal in this city(Little Rock). The arsenal is one of the richest depositories of military store in the United States and is supposed to be the ultimate destination of the tropps (sic) ordered from the frontier."

Old Wire Road has a history....

What do you see when you drive down Highway 352 in Franklin Co., Ar.

This cabin wasn't here before the Civil War but I bet there was one nearby . If it could talk what a history it would tell us.

These look like they could of been used as spring houses or maybe a small cellars.

You use a bridge on a blacktop
road to cross Horsehead Creek now.

Close your eyes and pretend you are

are sitting on the back of a wagon with your legs dangling off the wagon. Can you feel the cool water as the wagon crosses the creek.

Scenes along Old Wire Road--

(State Highway 352 in Franklin

County, Arkansas)

Before the Civil War the telegraph wire crossed this great land of ours connecting family, friends and businesses. Roads ran along the wires and became known as Wire Road, Old Wire Road, etc. When we go to Clarksville, Ar. from our home north of Ozark we travel along state highway 352, also known as Wire Road and it has touched the lives of seven generations of my family. In 1865 my great grandfather Quinton Dillard Beasley was in the Union Army stationed at Clarksville. His duty was to patrol the telegraph line from Clarksville to Fort Smith. He rode his own mare and in his claim to the Southern Claims Commission he said it was a 'fine mare' and put the worth at $150.00. One day in January 1865 the 2nd Kansas Calvary came to Clarksville and they attempted to buy Grandpa's mare, telling him he could sell it or they would take anyway. He refused thinking his Colonel would not let them take his horse. When the 2nd Cav from Kansas left, the mare went too. In 1878 he received $125.00 from the government for the loss of his mare. Have wondered if he had to walk or did they furnish him another horse?

As we travel back and forth along Wire Road I find myself thinking Grandpa Dill rode up and down this road, and many members of the family as one of his daughters married a man from Ozark and they visited back and forth thru the years. A sister-in-law and family lived here before going to Arizona in the 1880's. The stretch of road we travel is pasture land, reclaimed mining land, timberland, and goes by a cemetery and a country church. We cross Horsehead Creek and Dirty Creek and I find myself wondering what it was like when Grandpa rode 'the wire'. I wish I was able to climb thru or over fences to get pictures close up but these pics may cause you to look closer at what you pass and never reflect on. Seven generations of the Beasley family have traveled this road, from the time the telegraph wire began to sing to now as the telephone line follows along Wire Road. As communications advance it won't long that there will be no wires for a road to follow.