COTTER

Exploration and settlement

White River is one of the most beautiful and enchanting streams, and by far the most transparent, which discharge their waters into the Mississippi ... We here behold the assembled tributaries flowing in a smooth, broad. deep, and majestic current ... skirted at a short distance by mountains of the most imposing grandeur.... [The] extreme limpidity and want of colour ... was early seized upon by the French traders on first visiting this stream, in calling it "La Rivière Blanche" (White River).

In 1868, Jonathan Cunningham homesteaded 300 acres on a peninsula of the White River. In 1883, he sold it to L.P. Kemp. During that time, there was a ferry landing about 100 yards downriver called Lake's Ferry. The only power to operate the ferry was the current of the river. At the time, it was the only means of transportation across. Families would travel from Mountain Home and Yellville to visit the area, picnic, fish, and enjoy the nearby spring that was created naturally via the caves under the ground.

Future president, Herbert Hoover, spent the summer of 1892 helping Geologist John C. Branner survey the northern Ozarks. By the early 1900s, there were many mining companies active in both Baxter and Marion Counties. Cotter quickly became a central point where minerals could be shipped via steamboat to much larger cities in central Arkansas or southern Missouri.

In 1902, the city opened a post office. In 1903, L.P. Kemp sold the 300 acres to the Red Bud Realty Company for an unknown amount. Red Bud's principles, W.V. Powell, Jerry South, and Thomas Combs all ended up having avenues named in their honor. A school opened in 1904. On July 7, 1904, 36 of the community's leaders petitioned to incorporate the town and on November 23, 1905, the city officially opened.

White River Line

bought the area and sold over one thousand lots, mostly to railroad employees. The city was incorporated in 1905 as Cotter, Arkansas. By that time, the population was over 600. The town was named after William Cotter, an official for the Iron Mountain. The materials required to build the town and railroad had to be brought in by steamboats down the White River. Once the railroad was completed, the use of steamboats on the rivers of Arkansas decreased and eventually ceased altogether. In 1906, the first passenger train arrived, and the tourist era began. The Missouri Pacific was merged in the Union Pacific in 1982, and the White River division was spun off as the Missouri and Northern Arkansas Railroad MNA in 1992.

Expulsion of African Americans

The construction of the railroad brought many laborers, including African Americans, to the area. However, once the work was completed the sentiment among white residents turned against them. The anti-Black attitude was encouraged by a visit from Arkansas Governor Jeff Davis, who gave a racist speech in Cotter in 1904, and by the local newspaper, the Cotter Courier. In April 1906 the Courier ran an editorial titled "Too Many Negroes", which said that local residents had a "feeling...that the negroes should move on." In and around August 1906, all of Cotter's African Americans were run out of town, except for one family of three, the Masons. In the 1950s advertisements for Cotter boasted that it was "100 per cent white", and the 1960 census recorded no African American residents.

Cotter Bridge

The mercurial White River caused many motorists problems, as the nearest crossing was over 100 miles (160 km) to the north in Branson, Missouri. An inconvenient ferry system made the need for a bridge apparent. Locals wanted a bridge, but they strongly opposed a toll bridge. Arkansas did not have a central highway body at the time, and was instead a patchwork of "road districts", which made the bridge-building efforts even more difficult. Without a toll, funding was not available until Arkansas Highway 12 was redesignated U.S. Route 62 in 1930. The Cotter Bridge was constructed through the area using a unique rainbow arch design.

Flooding