text:
Chicot County, Arkansas

Chicot County is a county located in the southeastern corner of the U.S. state of Arkansas. As of the 2020 census, the population was 10,208. The county seat is Lake Village. Chicot County is Arkansas's 10th county, formed on October 25, 1823, and named after Point Chicot on the Mississippi River. It is part of the Arkansas Delta, lowlands along the river that have been historically important as an area for large-scale cotton cultivation.

Landmarks around the county include Lake Chicot, North America's largest oxbow lake and Arkansas's largest natural lake; the site of Charles Lindbergh's first night-time flight; and the legendary burial site of Hernando De Soto, near Lake Village.

History
Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto came to this area with his expedition in 1542, settling for a time in the village or territory known as Guachoya. The European-American town of Lake Village later developed in the 19th century at Lake Chicot, formed by an oxbow of the Mississippi River. Eighteenth-century French colonists named it Chicot because of the many cypress trees in the waterways. The word is translated to "stumpy, or knobby".

The area along the Mississippi River and major tributaries was developed as cotton plantations, the major commodity crop before and after the American Civil War of 1861–1865. Enslaved African Americans formed the labor force, comprising a majority of the population in the antebellum years. Major large cotton plantations included Sunnyside (owned in the 20th century by LeRoy Percy, planter and US Senator from Greenville, Mississippi); Florence, Patria, Pastoria, Luna, and Lakeport.

On February 14, 1864, 13 Black Union soldiers of the 1st Mississippi Volunteer Infantry (African Descent) were ambushed and killed at the Tecumseh plantation near Ross's Landing by Confederate guerillas of the 9th Missouri Cavalry. Union and Confederate forces fought at the Battle of Old River Lake from June 5 to 6, 1864.

The population of the rural county has declined since its peak in 1940. Earlier in the century, boll weevils threatened the cotton crop, and many African Americans left in the Great Migration for opportunity in northern and midwestern industrial cities. In addition, mechanization of agriculture and consolidation into industrial-style farms has reduced the need for farm labor.

Geography
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 691 sqmi, of which 644 sqmi is land and 47 sqmi (6.7%) is water.

Major highways

 * [[Image:US 65.svg|20px]] U.S. Highway 65
 * [[Image:US 82.svg|20px]] U.S. Highway 82
 * [[Image:US 165.svg|25px]] U.S. Highway 165
 * [[Image:US 278.svg|25px]] U.S. Highway 278
 * [[Image:Arkansas 8.svg|20px]] Highway 8
 * [[Image:Arkansas 35.svg|20px]] Highway 35
 * [[Image:Arkansas 159.svg|25px]] Highway 159
 * [[Image:Arkansas 52.svg|25px]] Highway 52

Arkansas 144

Adjacent counties

 * Desha County (north)
 * Bolivar County, Mississippi (northeast)
 * Washington County, Mississippi (east)
 * Issaquena County, Mississippi (southeast)
 * East Carroll Parish, Louisiana (south)
 * West Carroll Parish, Louisiana (south)
 * Morehouse Parish, Louisiana (southwest)
 * Ashley County (west)
 * Drew County (northwest)

2020 census
As of the 2020 United States Census, there were 10,208 people, 4,068 households, and 2,636 families residing in the county.

2010 census
As of the 2010 census, there were 11,800 people living in the county. 54.1% were Black or African American, 41.2% White, 0.5% Asian, 0.2% Native American, 3.2% of some other race and 0.8 of two or more races. 4.6% were Hispanic or Latino (of any race).

2000 census
As of the 2000 census, there were 14,117 people, 5,205 households, and 3,643 families living in the county. The population density was 22 /mi2. There were 5,974 housing units at an average density of 9 /mi2. The racial makeup of the county was 53.96% Black or African American, 43.24% White, 0.13% Native American, 0.40% Asian, 0.02% Pacific Islander, 1.41% from other races, and 0.85% from two or more races. 2.88% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.

There were 5,205 households, out of which 31.70% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 43.70% were married couples living together, 22.00% had a female householder with no husband present, and 30.00% were non-families. 26.90% of all households were made up of individuals, and 13.00% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.58 and the average family size was 3.12.

In the county, the population was spread out, with 27.50% under the age of 18, 8.60% from 18 to 24, 26.40% from 25 to 44, 22.20% from 45 to 64, and 15.40% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 36 years. For every 100 females there were 94.20 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 89.90 males.

The median income for a household in the county was $22,024, and the median income for a family was $27,960. Males had a median income of $25,899 versus $17,115 for females. The per capita income for the county was $12,825. About 23.10% of families and 28.60% of the population were below the poverty line, including 38.30% of those under age 18 and 20.70% of those age 65 or over.

Since 1940, the population of the county has collapsed. Press reports indicate that in 2013, the largest settlement in the county, Lake Village, Arkansas had two bank branches, two pharmacies, some law firms, two dollar stores, a grocery store, and no retail shops.

Politics
The county voters have traditionally supported the Democratic Party. In the 20th century, the only Democratic presidential candidate to lose the county was George McGovern in 1972. The county is part of Arkansas's 1st congressional district. In the Arkansas Senate, the county is in District 26 and is represented by Republican Ben Gilmore. In the Arkansas House of Representatives, it is in District 1 and represented by Republican Mark McElroy. The county supported a measure prohibiting "co-habiting couples" from adopting.

Cities

 * Dermott
 * Eudora
 * Lake Village (county seat)

Unincorporated communities

 * Arkla
 * Bellaire
 * Cosgrove
 * Chicot Junction
 * Empire
 * Farmwood
 * Indian
 * Grand Lake
 * Hudspeth
 * Jennie
 * Lakeport
 * Lakehall
 * Luna
 * McMillian Corner
 * Readland
 * Ross Van Ness
 * Shives
 * Stuart Island
 * Wellford

Ghost town

 * Eunice

Townships

 * Bowie (Dermott)
 * Carlton (Lake Village)
 * Planters (Eudora)

Notable people

 * Larry D. Alexander- Visual artist, writer, Bible teacher
 * Jim Cain - American player of gridiron football
 * Ruby Grant Martin - lawyer, federal civil rights official
 * Robert L. Hill - founder of the Progressive Farmers and Household Union of America
 * Mark D. McElroy - State representative for Chicot County since 2013; resides in Desha County
 * Lycurgus Johnson, the owner of the Lakeport Plantation, later a state congressman.

title: Chicot County, Arkansas


text:
Carroll County, Arkansas

Carroll County is a county located in the U.S. state of Arkansas. As of the 2020 census, the population was 28,260. The county has two county seats, Berryville and Eureka Springs. Carroll County is Arkansas's 26th county, formed on November 1, 1833, and named after Charles Carroll, the last surviving signer of the United States Declaration of Independence.

Geography
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 639 sqmi, of which 630 sqmi is land and 8.7 sqmi (1.4%) is water.

Major highways

 * [[Image:US 62 (1961).svg|20px]] U.S. Highway 62
 * US 62S.svg U.S. Route 62 Spur
 * [[Image:US 412.svg|25px]] U.S. Highway 412
 * Arkansas 21.svg Arkansas Highway 21
 * Arkansas 23.svg Arkansas Highway 23
 * Arkansas 103.svg Arkansas Highway 103
 * Arkansas 143.svg Arkansas Highway 143
 * Arkansas 187.svg Arkansas Highway 187
 * Arkansas 221.svg Arkansas Highway 221
 * Arkansas 311.svg Arkansas Highway 311
 * Arkansas 980(Airport).svg Arkansas Highway 980

Transit

 * Jefferson Lines

Adjacent counties

 * Stone County, Missouri (north)
 * Taney County, Missouri (northeast)
 * Boone County (east)
 * Newton County (southeast)
 * Madison County (south)
 * Benton County (west)
 * Barry County, Missouri (northwest)

2020 census
As of the 2020 United States census, there were 28,260 people, 11,139 households, and 7,497 families residing in the county.

2000 census
As of the 2000 census, there were 25,357 people, 10,189 households, and 7,111 families residing in the county. The population density was 40 /mi2. There were 11,828 housing units at an average density of 19 /mi2. The racial composition of the county was 93.63% White, 0.11% Black or African American, 0.88% Native American, 0.41% Asian, 0.08% Pacific Islander, 3.34% from other races, and 1.55% from two or more races. 9.74% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. 10.03% reported speaking Spanish at home.

There were 10,189 households, out of which 29.20% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 57.10% were married couples living together, 8.60% had a female householder with no husband present, and 30.20% were non-families. 25.20% of all households were made up of individuals, and 10.30% had someone living alone, who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.47 and the average family size was 2.93.

In the county, the population was spread out, with 24.00% under the age of 18, 8.10% from 18 to 24, 26.20% from 25 to 44, 26.00% from 45 to 64, and 15.80% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 39 years. For every 100 females there were 97.40 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 95.30 males.

The median income for a household in the county was $27,924, and the median income for a family was $33,218. Males had a median income of $21,896 versus $18,159 for females. The per capita income for the county was $16,003. About 11.00% of families and 15.50% of the population were below the poverty line, including 20.70% of those under age 18 and 13.60% of those age 65 or over.

Government and politics
The Eastern District (Berryville and Green Forest) is heavily Republican. The Western District (Eureka Springs and Beaver) tilts Democratic despite the fact that Holiday Island, a community with a large percentage of relocated snowbirds in the Western District, is overwhelmingly Republican.

In presidential elections, Carroll County has voted for the Democratic candidate only twice since 1952. It voted for Southerners Jimmy Carter in 1976, and Bill Clinton in 1992.

Cities

 * Berryville (county seat)
 * Eureka Springs (county seat)
 * Green Forest
 * Holiday Island

Towns

 * Alpena (partly in Boone County)
 * Beaver
 * Blue Eye
 * Oak Grove

Other unincorporated communities
Rudd Osage
 * Carrollton

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Carroll County, Arkansas


text:
Calhoun County, Arkansas

Calhoun County is a county located in the south central part of the U.S. state of Arkansas. As of the 2020 census, the population was 4,739, making it the least populous county in Arkansas. The county seat is Hampton. Calhoun County is Arkansas's 55th county, formed on December 6, 1850, and named for John C. Calhoun, a Vice President of the United States.

The county is part of the Camden, AR Micropolitan Statistical Area.

History
This area was initially developed for plantation agriculture, based on large gangs of slave workers. The population was majority enslaved African Americans before the American Civil War. After the Reconstruction era, there was increasing white violence against blacks as the minority attempted to assert dominance over the freedmen. From 1877 to 1950, whites lynched 10 African Americans in the county, mostly in the decades around the turn of the century. Several other counties in the state had higher rates of such murders.

In September 1892, what became known as the Hampton Race War—also referred to as the Calhoun County Race War in many sources—broke out across the southern part of the county. In 1891 the Democratic-dominated state legislature had passed laws to make voter registration more difficult for illiterate people both black and white, which effectively disenfranchised many of the poorer residents. But tensions were rising in this period, and the economy was poor. Whites resented that freedmen would work for lower wages, even if they knew the latter men seldom had a choice. Whitecappers, also called night riders, were poor white farmers and workers who acted as vigilantes, attacking various residents to enforce their moral views. They met in secret societies to patrol both black and white communities. Their reasons were also economic; they hoped to drive out the black workers.

The African Americans resented these attacks. Newspapers printed rumors of armed blacks planning attacks against whites, as was typical in tense times, inflaming existing tensions. There was also violence associated with the September election. Some newspapers reported that a white man named Unsill, an ex-convict Republican, led 42 armed blacks to the polls, "where they demanded to vote." Accounts of this period are contradictory, but agree that major events seemed to take place within several days, beginning about September 17, while incidents were reported over the month of September. An estimated five to eight African Americans were killed during the violence, with one or more described as lynched. At least two whites were killed in these encounters; more men on both sides were wounded. Among the dead was a black man murdered by two whites; as he was a key witness in a trial in which they were defendants, this appeared to be a "murder of convenience" done while other violence was prevalent.

20th century to present
Due to such violence, social oppression, economic problems, and mechanization of agriculture, many African Americans and whites left the county in the first half of the 20th century. Population declined in every census after 1920 through 1970, as may be seen in the table in the Demographics section below. African Americans left in the Great Migration to northern and midwestern industrial cities for work before World War II; during and after that war, many others went to the West Coast, where defense industries had more jobs.

The Shumaker Naval Ammunition Depot in Calhoun and Ouachita counties operated from 1945 until 1957.

The Southern Arkansas University Tech is a two-year college specializing in technical training.

The Lost 40 Acres of Timber
There are 40 acres of timber that have never been cut along the Wolf Branch (a tributary of Moro Creek) in southeast Calhoun County. Some of its large trees are over 200 years old.

Geography
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 632 sqmi, of which 629 sqmi is land and 3.8 sqmi (0.6%) is water.

Major highways

 * [[Image:I-69 (Future).svg|20px]] Future Interstate 69
 * [[Image:US 79.svg|20px]] U.S. Highway 79
 * [[Image:US 167.svg|25px]] U.S. Highway 167
 * [[Image:US 278.svg|25px]] U.S. Highway 278
 * [[Image:Arkansas 160.svg|25px]] Highway 160

Adjacent counties

 * Dallas County (north)
 * Cleveland County (northeast)
 * Bradley County (east)
 * Union County (south)
 * Ouachita County (west)

2020 census
As of the 2020 United States census, there were 4,739 people, 1,850 households, and 1,302 families residing in the county.

2000 census
As of the 2000 United States Census, there were 5,744 people, 2,317 households, and 1,628 families residing in the county. The population density was 9 /mi2. There were 3,012 housing units at an average density of 5 /mi2. The racial makeup of the county was 74.51% White, 23.38% Black or African American, 0.21% Native American, 0.03% Asian, 0.92% from other races, and 0.94% from two or more races. 1.50% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.

There were 2,317 households, out of which 31.20% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 55.60% were married couples living together, 11.30% had a female householder with no husband present, and 29.70% were non-families. 27.30% of all households were made up of individuals, and 12.60% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.43 and the average family size was 2.94.

In the county, the population was spread out, with 24.60% under the age of 18, 7.00% from 18 to 24, 28.20% from 25 to 44, 24.30% from 45 to 64, and 16.00% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 39 years. For every 100 females, there were 92.70 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 88.30 males.

The median income for a household in the county was $28,438, and the median income for a family was $34,647. Males had a median income of $30,353 versus $17,452 for females. The per capita income for the county was $15,555. About 13.20% of families and 16.50% of the population were below the poverty line, including 19.90% of those under age 18 and 18.20% of those age 65 or over.

Government
Over the past few election cycles Calhoun County has trended heavily towards the GOP. The last Democrat (as of 2020) to carry this county was Bill Clinton in 1996.

Education
Public education for elementary and secondary school students is primarily provided by the Hampton School District, which leads to graduation from Hampton High School.

Cities

 * Hampton (county seat)
 * Thornton

Towns

 * Harrell
 * Tinsman

Townships
Note: Unlike most counties, Calhoun County has numbered townships instead of named townships.

 * Township 1 (Thornton)
 * Township 2
 * Township 3 (Tinsman)
 * Township 4 (Harrell)
 * Township 5
 * Township 6
 * Township 7
 * Township 8 (part of Hampton)
 * Township 9 (most of Hampton)

title: Calhoun County, Arkansas


text:
Bradley County, Arkansas

Bradley County is a county located in the U.S. state of Arkansas. As of the 2020 census, the population was 10,545. The county seat is Warren. It is Arkansas's 43rd county, formed on December 18, 1840, and named for Captain Hugh Bradley, who fought in the War of 1812.

Bradley County is a dry county, which means that the sale of alcoholic beverages is prohibited within the county. However, some cities within the county, such as Warren and Hermitage, may have their own laws allowing for the sale of alcohol within their city limits.

History
Indigenous peoples of various cultures had lived along the rivers of Arkansas for thousands of years and created complex societies. Mississippian culture peoples built massive earthwork mounds along the Ouachita River beginning about 1000 CE.

Caddo Tribe
The Felsenthal refuge at the south end of Bradley County contains over 200 native American archaeological sites, primarily from the Caddo tribe that lived in the area as long as 5,000 years ago. These sites include the remains of seasonal fishing camps, ceremonial plazas, temple mounds and large villages containing as many as 200 structures.

French and Spanish control
After Hernando de Soto's exploration of the Mississippi Valley during the 1540s, there is little evidence of any European activity in the Ouachita River valley until the latter 17th century.

The map of the "Route de Thionville" across Bradley County, Arkansas, the Ouachita River, the Saline river, and Bayou Bartholomew is show at Spanish Texas. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Adaie.jpg

Mississippi Company
Louis XIV's long reign and wars had nearly bankrupted the French monarchy. Rather than reduce spending, the Regency of Louis XV of France endorsed the monetary theories of John Law, a Scottish financier. In 1716, Law was given a charter for the Banque Royale under which the national debt was assigned to the bank in return for extraordinary privileges. The key to the Banque Royale agreement was that the national debt would be paid from revenues derived from opening the Mississippi Valley. The Bank was tied to other ventures of Law—the Company of the West and the Companies of the Indies. All were known as the Mississippi Company. The Mississippi Company had a monopoly on trade and mineral wealth. The Company boomed on paper. Law was given the title Duc d'Arkansas. Bernard de la Harpe and his party left New Orleans in 1719 to explore the Red River. In 1721, he explored the Arkansas River. At the Yazoo settlements in Mississippi he was joined by Jean Benjamin who became the scientist for the expedition.

In 1718, there were only 700 people in Louisiana. The Mississippi Company arranged ships to move hundred (800) people landed in Louisiana on one day in 1718, doubling the population.

John Law encouraged Germans, particularly Germans of the Alsatian region who had recently fallen under French rule, and the Swiss to emigrate.

Alsace was transformed into a mosaic of Catholic and Protestant territories. Alsace was sold to France within the greater context of the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648). Beset by enemies and to gain a free hand in Hungary, the Habsburgs sold their Sundgau territory (mostly in Upper Alsace) to France in 1646, which had occupied it, for the sum of 1.2 million Thalers.

Prisoners were set free in Paris in September 1719 and later, under the condition that they marry prostitutes and go with them to Louisiana. The newly married couples were chained together and taken to the port of embarkation. After complaints from the Mississippi Company and the concessioners about this class of French immigrants, in May 1720, the French government prohibited such deportations. But, there was a third shipment in 1721.

The Jesuit Charlevoix went from Canada to Louisiana. His letter said "these 9,000 Germans, who were raised in the Palatinate (Alsace part of France) were in Arkansas. The Germans left Arkansas en masse. They went to New Orleans and demanded passage to Europe. The Mississippi Company gave the Germans rich lands on the right bank of the Mississippi River about 25 miles above New Orleans. The area is now known as 'the German Coast'."

Estonia
Sweden lost Swedish Livonia, Swedish Estonia and Ingria to Russia almost 100 years later, by the Capitulation of Estonia and Livonia in 1710 and the Treaty of Nystad in 1721. Charles Frederic D'Arensbourg emigrated to Louisiana in 1721 with thirty officers. They would rather move to Louisiana, instead of living as Russians.

French
European interest in the region then came in three distinct waves. The French hunters, trappers, and traders appeared first and operated along the Ouachita River valley until the Natchez revolt of 1729, which frightened away any developers for a while. Next, in the 1740s and 1750s, French settlers meandered north from the Pointe Coupee Post in south French Louisiana and named many of bayous. These settlers returned south to Pointe Coupee before the Spaniards took possession of Louisiana in the late 1760s. The third wave of European settlers were actually descendants of the second wave, mostly true Louisiana Creoles born near the Point Coupee and Opelousas Posts. Additionally, a few Canadians came down the river from the Arkansas Post, and a few native French traders also operated along the river in the 1770s.

Prior to 1782, with the exception of occasional failed colonization schemes, the Europeans ignored the vast Ouachita Valley, which extended from the area around Hot Springs, Arkansas southward towards the Mississippi River in Louisiana. This changed with the 1779–1782 war between England and Spain. After their defeat at the Battle of Baton Rouge in 1779, the English yielded control of Natchez to the Spaniards, and this led to several years of fighting as the English settlers resisted Spanish rule over them. After the ultimate English defeat, many settlers fled to the Ouachita Valley region, creating the threat of English/American rebel activity in the Ouachita Valley region. This prompted the Spanish governor, Don Bernardo, the Comte de Galvez, to establish a strong buffer zone between the independent American states and the Spanish province of Louisiana. In 1781 Galvez created the “Poste d'Ouachita” and named Jean-Baptist Filhiol (also known as Don Juan Filhiol) as the commandant. Filhiol served in this capacity between 1782 and 1804, and through his service helped to keep a firm Spanish grip on activities in the region.

Filhiol, his new wife, and a few others arrived in the Ouachita country in April 1782. He traveled up the river, past present-day Union Parish, to the old trading post called “Ecore a Fabri” (now Camden). For various reasons, after a few years Filhiol decided not to build his headquarters there and took his group back down river to the "Prairie des Canots".

Many Louisiana Creole people arrived in Louisiana following the Slave Uprising led by Toussaint Breda (later called L'Overture) in 1791 in Ste. Dominique, later called Haiti.

In 1801, Spanish Governor Don Juan Manuel de Salcedo took over for Governor Calvo, and the right to deposit goods from the United States was fully restored. Napoleon Bonaparte returned Louisiana to French control from Spain in 1800, under the Treaty of San Ildefonso (Louisiana had been a Spanish colony since 1762.) However, the treaty was kept secret, and Louisiana remained under Spanish control until a transfer of power to France on November 30, 1803, just three weeks before the cession to the United States.

James Monroe and Robert R. Livingston traveled to Paris to negotiate the purchase in 1802. Their interest was only in the port and its environs; they did not anticipate the much larger transfer of territory that would follow.

The Louisiana Purchase was the acquisition by the United States of America of 828800 sqmi of France's claim to the territory of Louisiana in 1803.

Name origins

 * L'Aigles Creek, Aigle "Eagle Creek", Eagle Lake.
 * Bogalusa. A place on the Saline River near the Ouachita River (a different place with the same name is Bogalusa, Louisiana).
 * Charivari Creek, south of Hilo (a French folk custom in which the community gave a noisy, discordant mock serenade, also pounding on pots and pans, at the home of a person marrying for the second time.)
 * Felsenthal a Germanic word meaning "hills and valley" or "rocky valley."
 * Moreau Bayou de Moreau (or Moro Creek, Moro Bay) Moreau is a French surname.
 * Pereogeethe Lake. Pereo (Latin: Disappearance, death, loss.) Geethe (Estonian: female name)

Early American period
During the period 1837–1861, settlers arrived from Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, and Georgia. Prior to 1860, to reach the available farmland of northwestern Louisiana and southwestern Arkansas, settlers from the Gulf Coast states most often crossed the Mississippi River at Natchez, then came up the Ouachita River.

1824-1940
During the war of 1812, Captain Hugh Bradley had frequent conversations with Spaniards who had explored the Red River country. The Spaniards told of the richness and wildness of that area.

About 1817, Captain Hugh Bradley, Ike Pennington, James Turner, Charles H. Ceay, and James Beard with their families moved using keelboats on the Cumberland River. They went west of Prairie D'Ane along the Red River near Shreveport, Louisiana. But the floods of the Red River caused diseases and fevers to the point of discouraging the inhabitants.

Around the year 1824, Ike Pennington started a settlement two miles north of where Warren now stands.

Captain Hugh Bradley moved to what was then Clark County in 1825. By 1826 they had all settled permanently near Pennington and had begun their permanent residences.

In early years, there was settlement known as the Saline Settlement and as the Pennington Settlement. Later it was named Cabeens. Postal service in the area was first established in 1832 at Cabeens, which may have been named after J.T. Cabeen, an early surveyor.

Dr. John Thomas Cabeen served as postmaster from 1832 until 1843. John Harvie Marks donated thirty acres, and John Splawn donated ten acres of land for the town site. The first circuit court met on April 26, 1841, at Hugh Bradley's house. The name of Cabeens was changed to Warren in 1843. In 1850, the town of Warren was incorporated.

In 1840, a new county was created out of Union County, and named for Hugh Bradley.

Some settlers from Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee arrived in the 1840s and 1850s.

Around 1849, Wiley and Louisa Powell moved to Bradley County, taking the title to the land that is now Hermitage. The following year. Louisa's parents, James and Susan Thompson, joined the Powells that year, as did Robert Pulley (who was pastor of Holly Springs Baptist Church) and the Jarrett family. Jefferson Singer, who had lived in Bradley County since 1840, acquired the Powell Farm at a later date. A post office for Hermitage was established in 1854. The name of the town was to honor President Andrew Jackson, whose home in Nashville, Tennessee was called The Hermitage.

The Bradley Lumber Company began logging the virgin hardwoods before 1901. In 1901, the Warren, Johnsville, and Saline River (WJ & SR) railroads began operations. It was owned by the Bradley Lumber Company. The railroad operated 15 miles of rails. It connected Warren with Hermitage and there was a connection with the Rock Island. There was a connection with the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Railway.

The Warren, Johnsville, and Saline River (WJ & SR) railroads brought the logs to the Warren plant. Finished products were shipped to Rock Island and the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Railway. In 1920, it was renamed the Warren & Saline River Railroad (W&SRR). The Warren & Ouachita Valley Railway was jointly owned by the Arkansas Lumber Company and the Southern Lumber Company. It began operations around 1901 connecting Banks with Warren.

Parts of former railroads of the lumber companies were changed to company roads for trucking logging to mills in Warren. Those company roads were straight, level, and with long radius curves because the railroads were built straight, level, and with long radius curves. Many company roads because county roads. Temporary spur rail lines were built to remove some of the virgin timber. The rails and crossties were repeatedly reused. There was earthwork cut (earthworks) for the spur rail lines remain.

The Bradley Lumber Company at Wheeler and Martin street employed 1,100 workers in year 1941. That company was only of the largest purchasers of hardwood in the south. A leading product was unassembled furniture which was crated and shipped to eastern assembly plants. There was a flooring plant and a hickory products department. The company had a village of 4 and 5 rooms houses for its employees.

A Southern Lumber Company mill was at the west end of Pine Street. That plant employed about 400 people to make oak and pine flooring. The company also owned a village for its employees.

Geography
Bradley County is located in southeastern Arkansas, and is bordered by Union County to the southwest, Calhoun County to the west, Drew County to the east, Ashley County to the southeast, and Cleveland County to the north.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 653 sqmi, of which 649 sqmi is land and 3.7 sqmi (0.6%) is water.

The Mississippi Embayment extends to the Saline River valley along the east and southeast edge of Bradley County. The Ouachita River runs along the southwest edge of the county. The Saline River (Ouachita River) flows along most of the east edge of the county. The L'Aigle Creek (Saline River of the Ouachita River) drains most of the area in the county.

Topographic map
A Topographic map of Bradley County is at https://en-us.topographic-map.com/maps/ettn/Bradley-County/

The lowest point in Arkansas is 55 feet above sea level, at the Ouachita River on the border with Louisiana.

Major highways

 * [[Image:I-69 (Future).svg|20px]] Future Interstate 69
 * [[Image:US 63.svg|20px]] U.S. Highway 63
 * [[Image:US 278.svg|25px]] U.S. Highway 278
 * [[Image:Arkansas 8.svg|20px]] Highway 8
 * [[Image:Arkansas 160.svg|25px]] Highway 160

Adjacent counties

 * Cleveland County (north)
 * Drew County (east)
 * Ashley County (southeast)
 * Union County (southwest)
 * Calhoun County (west)

National protected area

 * Felsenthal National Wildlife Refuge (part)

2020 census
As of the 2020 United States census, there were 10,545 people, 4,419 households, and 2,827 families residing in the county.

2010 census
As of the 2010 census, there were 11,508 people living in the county. 60.3% were White, 27.6% Black or African American, 0.5% Native American, 0.2% Asian, 10.1% of some other race and 1.3% of two or more races. 13.2% were Hispanic or Latino (of any race).

2000 census
As of the 2000 census, there were 12,600 people, 13,103 households and 9,346 families living in the county. The population density was 19 /mi2. There were 7,002 housing units at an average density of 9 /mi2. The racial makeup of the county was 53.36% White, 39.63% Black or African American, 0.24% Native American, 0.06% Asian, 0.01% Pacific Islander, 4.91% from other races, and 0.75% from two or more races. 4.25% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.

There were 6,421 households, of which 29.50% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 52.20% were married couples living together, 14.50% had a female householder with no husband present, and 29.90% were non-families. 27.60% of all households were made up of individuals, and 13.90% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.45 and the average family size was 2.96.

23.60% of the population were under the age of 18, 9.70% from 18 to 24, 26.50% from 25 to 44, 22.80% from 45 to 64, and 17.50% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 38 years. For every 100 females there were 97.70 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 95.80 males.

The median household income was $38,936, and the median family income was $47,094. Males had a median income of $32,779 versus $27,167 for females. The per capita income for the county was $42,346. About 20.60% of families and 26.30% of the population were below the poverty line, including 33.10% of those under age 18 and 20.80% of those age 65 or over.

Cities

 * Hermitage
 * Warren (county seat)

Town

 * Banks

Unincorporated communities

 * Corinth
 * Ingalls
 * Jersey
 * Johnsville
 * Moro Bay
 * Mount Olive
 * Sumpter
 * Vick

Townships

 * Clay (Banks)
 * Eagle
 * Marion
 * Moro
 * Ouachita
 * Palestine
 * Pennington (Warren)
 * River
 * Sumpter
 * Washington (Hermitage)

Piney Woods
Bradley County is within the Arkansas Timberlands which is within the Piney Woods.

title: Bradley County, Arkansas


text:
Boone County, Arkansas

Boone County is a county located in the U.S. state of Arkansas, along the Missouri border. As of the 2020 census, the population was 37,373. The county seat is Harrison. It is Arkansas's 62nd county, formed on April 9, 1869.

Boone County is part of the Harrison, AR Micropolitan Statistical Area.

History
Boone County was formed from the eastern portion of Carroll County. Contrary to popular belief, it was not named for frontiersman Daniel Boone. It was originally called Boon, since the residents believed it would be a "boon" to all who settled there. The county's first newspaper, begun in 1870, was the Boon County Advocate. However, when Governor Powell Clayton signed the act, creating the county 1869 it was titled An Act to Organize and Establish the County of Boone and for Other Purposes. So for whatever reason an "'e'" was added. In 1905 and 1909, race riots were conducted to drive African-Americans out of the area. It was marketed as an all-white sundown town into the 1920s. Today, it is known as a center of white supremacist activity, including the national headquarters of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in Zinc. In 2017, Boone County Judge Robert Hathaway signed proclamations recognizing June as Confederate Heritage and History Month, and issued a similar proclamation for April 2019.

Geography
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 602 sqmi, of which 590 sqmi is land and 12 sqmi (1.9%) is water. The county is located in the northwest portion of the state, and borders Missouri to the north.

The county lies entirely within the Ozark Mountains. Rolling hills of the Springfield and Salem Plateaus characterize the majority of the topography, with the more rugged Boston Mountains lying just to the south. Isolated peaks of the Boston Mountain range are found in the south, including Boat Mountain, Pilot's Knob, and Gaither Mountain. Portions of Bull Shoals Lake and Table Rock Lake lie in the northeast and northwest corners, respectively. The Corps of Engineers operates and maintains popular campsites on the lakes at Lead Hill and Cricket Creek. Crooked Creek, popular with bass fishermen, winds through the county from south to east.

Major highways

 * [[Image:US 62 (1961).svg|20px]] US 62
 * [[Image:US 412.svg|25px]] US 412
 * [[Image:US 65 (1961).svg|20px]] U.S. Route 65
 * US 65B.svg U.S. Route 65B
 * Arkansas 7.svg Highway 7
 * Arkansas 14.svg Highway 14
 * Arkansas 43.svg Highway 43
 * Arkansas 123.svg Highway 123
 * Arkansas 206.svg Highway 206
 * Arkansas 281.svg Highway 281
 * Arkansas 392.svg Highway 392
 * Arkansas 396.svg Highway 396
 * Arkansas 397.svg Highway 397
 * Arkansas 980(Airport).svg Highway 980

Adjacent counties

 * Taney County, Missouri (north)
 * Marion County (east)
 * Searcy County (southeast)
 * Newton County (south)
 * Carroll County (west)

2020 census
As of the 2020 census , there were 37,373 people, 15,034 households, and 10,455 families residing in the county. The population density was 62 PD/sqmi. There were 17,368 housing units at an average density of 29 /mi2. The racial makeup of the county was 91.32% White, 0.29% Black or African American, 0.74% Native American, 0.66% Asian, 0.07% Pacific Islander, 0.69% from other races, and 6.23% from two or more races. 2.60% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.

There were 15,455 households, out of which 27.9% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 50.5% were married couples living together, 26.3% had a female householder with no spouse or partner present, 17.7% had a male household with no spouse or partner present, and 5.4% were cohabitating couples. 28.9% of all households were made up of individuals, and 14.1% were 65 years of age or older living alone. The average household size was 2.42.

Of all individuals living in the county, 22.2% under the age of 18 and 21.7% were age 65 or older. The median age was 43 years. For every 100 females, there were 96.02 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 93.02 males.

2000 census

As of the 2000 census, there were 33,948 people, 13,851 households, and 9,861 families residing in the county. The population density was 57 PD/sqmi. There were 15,426 housing units at an average density of 26 /mi2. The racial makeup of the county was 97.60% White, 0.11% Black or African American, 0.71% Native American, 0.32% Asian, 0.02% Pacific Islander, 0.34% from other races, and 0.90% from two or more races. 1.06% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.

There were 13,851 households, out of which 30.70% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 59.50% were married couples living together, 8.80% had a female householder with no husband present, and 28.80% were non-families. 25.60% of all households were made up of individuals, and 11.20% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.41 and the average family size was 2.88.

In the county, the population was spread out, with 23.90% under the age of 18, 8.20% from 18 to 24, 26.50% from 25 to 44, 24.70% from 45 to 64, and 16.70% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 39 years. For every 100 females, there were 93.10 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 89.70 males.

The median income for a household in the county was $29,988, and the median income for a family was $34,974. Males had a median income of $27,114 versus $19,229 for females. The per capita income for the county was $16,175. About 10.70% of families and 14.80% of the population were below the poverty line, including 19.00% of those under age 18 and 12.90% of those age 65 or over.

Public school districts

 * Alpena
 * Bergman
 * Harrison
 * Lead Hill
 * Omaha
 * Valley Springs

Higher education

 * North Arkansas College

Government
As with all county-level governments in Arkansas, Boone County's eleven-member quorum court forms the legislative branch and controls all spending and revenue collection. Representatives, called justices of the peace, are elected from single-member districts in every even-numbered year. District boundaries are drawn by the county election commission. Presiding over quorum court meetings is the county judge, who serves as the chief operating officer of the county. The county judge is elected at-large and does not vote in quorum court business, although capable of vetoing quorum court decisions. Other elected officers of the county government executive branch include the Treasurer, Collector, County Clerk, Circuit Clerk, Assessor, Sheriff, and Coroner.

In state government, Boone County is represented by three members in the Arkansas House of Representatives and two in the Arkansas Senate. Arkansas House Districts 83, 98, and 99 cover parts of Boone County, as well as Arkansas Senate Districts 16 and 17.

At the federal level, Boone County is part of Arkansas's third US congressional district, currently represented by Steve Womack.

Over the past few election cycles, Boone County has trended heavily towards the GOP. The last Democrat (as of 2020) to carry this county was Bill Clinton in 1992, by only a 34-vote plurality.

Cities

 * Diamond City
 * Harrison (county seat)

Towns

 * Alpena (portions are also in Carroll County)
 * Bellefonte
 * Bergman
 * Everton
 * Lead Hill
 * Omaha
 * South Lead Hill
 * Valley Springs
 * Zinc

Unincorporated communities

 * Batavia
 * Bear Creek Springs
 * Capps
 * Hopewell
 * Little Arkansaw
 * Self

Historic communities

 * Elixir was a town in the vicinity of many springs. It was nearby present day Bergman. Heavy rains flooded the town in 1883, which was a major factor in its decline by 1892. In the 1880s, both Lead Hill and Elixir were expecting a railroad but none materialized. This also helped the town's decline. Although the town is gone, the township of Elixir remains and currently contains Bergman.
 * Keener was a town around one mile south of present-day Bergman. Keener was strong in the 1880s and had a population of about 1,000 people. But, Keener began to decline fast by 1892.

Townships

Former townships include Bear Creek, Crooked Creek, Elmwood, Harrison, Washington, and Young.

Chronic Wasting Disease
Chronic Wasting Disease has been found in Boone county, as well as Benton, Carroll, Johnson, Madison, Marion, Newton, Pope, Searcy, Sebastian, Scott, and Washington counties.

title: Boone County, Arkansas


text:
Benton County, Arkansas

Benton County is a county in the Northwest region of the U.S. state of Arkansas. Created as Arkansas' 35th county on September 30, 1836, Benton County contains thirteen incorporated municipalities, including Bentonville, the county seat, and Rogers, the most populous city. The county was named after Thomas Hart Benton, a U.S. Senator from Missouri influential in Arkansas statehood.

The county is located within the Springfield Plateau of the Ozarks. Much of eastern Benton County is located along Beaver Lake, a reservoir of the White River. The county contains three protected areas: Logan Cave National Wildlife Refuge, Pea Ridge National Military Park, and Devil's Eyebrow Natural Area, as well as parts of the Ozark National Forest, Hobbs State Park – Conservation Area, and two state wildlife management areas.

Benton County occupies 884.86 sqmi and contained a population of 284,333 people in 100,749 households as of the 2020 Census, ranking it tenth in size and second in population among the state's 75 counties. The county's economy is heavily influenced by the presence of Walmart, headquartered in Bentonville, and hundreds of associated businesses, with agriculture, tourism, and construction also important sectors. Benton County's median household income is the highest in Arkansas and slightly above the national median.

History
Prior to white settlement of the county, the region was used by roving bands of Osage and Delaware who used the area for seasonal hunting grounds. Initial white settlement on Benton County took place around Maysville around 1830, followed by areas around Garfield, Cross Hollow, and Centerton. Settlers were predominantly from Tennessee, followed by Southern Piedmont states. Benton County was created from neighboring Washington County by the Arkansas General Assembly on September 30, 1836. Created shortly after statehood, it was named for Thomas Hart Benton, a U.S. Senator from Missouri influential in Arkansas's statehood.

Following establishment, a citizen committee was established to select the county seat. It decided to create Bentonville, with a town square and 136 lots around it, in 1837. The first building serving as courthouse was the home of George P. Wallace, the first county judge, for the 1837 court term. By the following year, a log structure on the north side of the Bentonville square was complete and served as the first permanent courthouse. In 1841, a contractor was building a brick courthouse in the middle of the Bentonville square. It was burned by Union troops during the Civil War in 1862. Court resumed after the war in a rented office for a few months until a new two-story frame building was constructed east of the county jail. In 1870, the search for a more permanent home for county government began, and a new structure was finished after significant struggle and controversy, in 1874. This building was replaced by the present-day Benton County Courthouse in 1928.

On May 26, 2024, Benton County experienced the largest tornado in Arkansas history, an EF3 with a width of 1.8 miles. This also initiated the first ever Arkansas appearance of FEMA for emergency disaster relief.

Geography
Benton County is located within the Springfield Plateau subset of the Ozark Mountains. The plateau is gently rolling compared to the steeper Boston Mountains to the south and east, and contains karst features such as springs, losing streams, sinkholes and caves. Groundcover historically consisted of oak hickory forest or savannas and tall grass prairies. Today, most of the forest and almost all of the prairie have been replaced by agriculture or expanding residential areas. Poultry, cattle, and hog farming are primary land uses; pastureland and hayland are common. Application of poultry litter to agricultural fields is a non-point source that can impair water quality. Total suspended solids and turbidity values in streams are usually low, but total dissolved solids and water hardness values are high.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 884 sqmi, of which 847 sqmi is land and 37 sqmi (4.1%) is water. Most of the water is in Beaver Lake.

The county is located approximately 112 mi east of Tulsa, Oklahoma, 212 mi south of Kansas City, Missouri, and 215 mi northwest of Little Rock, Arkansas. Benton County is surrounded by Barry County, Missouri and McDonald County, Missouri to the north, Delaware County, Oklahoma and Adair County, Oklahoma to the west, Carroll County to the east, and the other two counties of the NWA metropolitan area: Madison County to the east, and Washington County to the south. The highest point in Benton County is near the Lost Bridge Village Community Center on Whitney Mountain (formerly known as Poor Mountain).

Hydrology
Benton County is divided into five watersheds. The eastern part of the county is drained by the White River, which includes Beaver Lake. Major tributaries include War Eagle Creek, Little Clifty Creek, Spider Creek, Indian Creek, Prairie Creek and Esculapia Creek. Northern Benton County is within the Elk River watershed; the northeast corner is drained by tributaries to Big Sugar Creek; north central Benton County drains to Little Sugar Creek. The southwest part of Benton County is within the Illinois River watershed; southwest and south-central parts of the county drain to Osage Creek and western Benton County drains to Flint Creek or Spavinaw Creek. Northeastern Benton County drains to tributaries of the Neosho River. A very small part of northwestern Benton County drains to the Grand Lake.

The county has natural springs, which were very important to early settlers. Benton County communities named for their nearby springs include Cave Springs, Eldorado Springs, Elm Springs, Osage Mills, Siloam Springs, Springdale, Springtown, and Sulphur Springs.

Protected areas

 * Logan Cave National Wildlife Refuge
 * Ozark National Forest (part)
 * Pea Ridge National Military Park
 * Beaver Lake Wildlife Management Area
 * Hobbs State Park - Conservation Area
 * Wedington Wildlife Management Area
 * Cave Springs Cave Natural Area
 * Chesney Prairie Natural Area
 * Devil's Eyebrow Natural Area (part)
 * Healing Springs Natural Area
 * Searles Prairie Natural Area

2000 census
As of the 2000 United States Census, there were 153,406 people, 58,212 households, and 43,484 families residing in the county. The population density was 181 PD/sqmi. There were 64,281 housing units at an average density of 76 /mi2. The racial makeup of the county was 90.87% White, 0.41% Black or African American, 1.65% Native American, 1.09% Asian, 0.08% Pacific Islander, 4.08% from other races, and 1.82% from two or more races. 8.78% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.

As of 2005 estimates, Benton County's population was 81.7% non-Hispanic white, while the percentage of Latinos grew by 60 percent in the time period. 1.1% of the population was African-American; 1.6% was Native American (the historical presence of the Cherokee Indians live in close proximity to Oklahoma); 1.7% was Asian (there was a large influx of Filipinos, Vietnamese and South Asian immigrants in recent decades) and 0.2% of the population was Pacific Islander. 1.6% reported two or more races, usually not black-white due to a minuscule African-American population. 12.8% was Latino, but the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce believed the official estimate is underreported and Latinos could well be 20 percent of the population.

There were 58,212 households, out of which 34.40% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 63.00% were married couples living together, 8.20% had a female householder with no husband present, and 25.30% were non-families. 21.10% of all households were made up of individuals, and 8.50% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.60 and the average family size was 3.01.

In the county, the population was spread out, with 26.60% under the age of 18, 8.60% from 18 to 24, 29.40% from 25 to 44, 21.10% from 45 to 64, and 14.30% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 35 years. For every 100 females, there were 97.40 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 94.90 males.

The median income for a household in the county was $40,281, and the median income for a family was $45,235. Males had a median income of $30,327 versus $22,469 for females. The per capita income for the county was $19,377. About 7.30% of families and 10.10% of the population were below the poverty line, including 13.80% of those under age 18 and 7.30% of those age 65 or over.

2010 census
As of the 2010 census, the county population was 221,339. The racial makeup of the county was 76.18% Non-Hispanic white, 1.27% Black or African American, 1.69% Native American, 2.85% Asian, 0.30% Pacific Islander. 15.49% of the population was Hispanic or Latino.

2020 census
As of the 2020 United States census, there were 284,333 people, 100,749 households, and 72,399 families residing in the county.

Culture
After the end of Prohibition in 1933, Benton County voters voted that year to stay dry and voted twice in 1944 to stay dry. In 2012, Benton County voters elected to make the county wet, allowing countywide retail alcohol sales.

Economy

 * Walmart was founded in Rogers, and its corporate headquarters is located in Bentonville.
 * Daisy Outdoor Products, known for its air rifles, is headquartered in Rogers.
 * JB Hunt Transport Services corporate headquarters is located in Lowell.
 * Tyson Foods, based in Springdale, has a distribution center located in Rogers.
 * Simmons Foods, a major supplier of poultry, pet, and animal nutrition products, is based in Siloam Springs.
 * America's Car-Mart, one of the largest American publicly held automotive retailers, is based in Rogers.

Major highways

 * [[Image:I-49 (AR).svg|20px]] Interstate 49
 * [[Image:US 62.svg|20px]] U.S. Highway 62
 * [[Image:US 71.svg|20px]] U.S. Highway 71
 * [[Image:US 412.svg|25px]] U.S. Highway 412
 * [[Image:Arkansas 12.svg|20px]] Highway 12
 * [[Image:Arkansas 16.svg|20px]] Highway 16
 * [[Image:Arkansas 43.svg|20px]] Highway 43
 * [[Image:Arkansas 59.svg|20px]] Highway 59
 * [[Image:Arkansas 72.svg|20px]] Highway 72
 * [[Image:Arkansas 94.svg|20px]] Highway 94
 * [[Image:Arkansas 102.svg|25px]] Highway 102
 * [[Image:Arkansas 112.svg|25px]] Highway 112
 * [[Image:Arkansas 127.svg|25px]] Highway 127
 * [[Image:Arkansas 244.svg|25px]] Highway 244
 * [[Image:Arkansas 264.svg|25px]] Highway 264
 * [[Image:Arkansas 265.svg|25px]] Highway 265
 * [[Image:Arkansas 279.svg|25px]] Highway 279
 * [[Image:Arkansas 303.svg|25px]] Highway 303
 * [[Image:Arkansas 340.svg|25px]] Highway 340
 * [[Image:Arkansas 549.svg|25px]] Highway 549
 * [[Image:Arkansas 612.svg|25px]] Highway 612

The historic Trail of Tears is on US highways 62 and 71 and connects with U.S. Route 412 in nearby Washington County.

Airports

 * Northwest Arkansas National Airport (XNA) is located near Highfill.
 * Rogers Municipal Airport (ROG) serves the county and surrounding communities.

Rail
The Arkansas and Missouri Railroad parallels US Highways 62 and 71 in the county.

Politics
As is typical of the Ozarks and the Bible Belt, Benton County is strongly Republican. It was one of the first counties in Arkansas to break from the Democratic Solid South, supporting Republicans Herbert Hoover in 1928 and Thomas E. Dewey in 1944. It has not been carried by a Democratic presidential nominee since Harry S. Truman in 1948. Along with nearby Sebastian County, it was one of the few counties in Arkansas to resist the appeal of Southern Democratic “favorite sons” Lyndon B. Johnson, Jimmy Carter, and Arkansas governor Bill Clinton, while also voting for Republican Richard Nixon in 1968 as George Wallace won Arkansas on the pro-segregation American Independent Party ticket. Carter in 1976 remains the last Democrat to win even forty percent of the county's vote.

In Benton County, voters have supported the GOP in the last eighteen presidential elections.

Cities

 * Bella Vista
 * Bentonville (county seat)
 * Cave Springs
 * Centerton
 * Decatur
 * Elm Springs (mostly in Washington County)
 * Gentry
 * Gravette
 * Little Flock
 * Lowell
 * Pea Ridge
 * Rogers
 * Siloam Springs
 * Springdale (mostly in Washington County)
 * Sulphur Springs

Towns

 * Avoca
 * Garfield
 * Gateway
 * Highfill
 * Springtown

Census-designated places

 * Cherokee City
 * Hiwasse (former CDP)
 * Lost Bridge Village
 * Maysville
 * Prairie Creek

Townships

Note: Most Arkansas counties have names for their townships. Benton County, however, has numbers instead of names.

Education
School districts include:

 * Bentonville Public Schools
 * Decatur School District
 * Gentry Public Schools
 * Gravette School District
 * Pea Ridge School District
 * Rogers Public Schools
 * Siloam Springs Schools
 * Springdale School District

title: Benton County, Arkansas


text:
Gerald Bull

Gerald Vincent Bull (March 9, 1928 – March 22, 1990 ) was a Canadian engineer who developed long-range artillery. He moved from project to project in his quest to economically launch a satellite using a huge artillery piece, to which end he designed the Project Babylon "supergun" for Saddam Hussein's government in Iraq.

Bull was assassinated outside his apartment in Brussels, Belgium, in March 1990. His assassination is believed to be the work of the Mossad over his work for the Iraqi government. No person has ever been charged with the murder of Bull.

Early life
Gerald Vincent Bull was born in North Bay, Ontario, Canada, to George L. Toussaint Bull, a solicitor, and Gertrude Isabelle (née LaBrosse) Bull. George Bull was from a family from the Trenton area and had moved to North Bay in 1903 to start a law firm. As a Roman Catholic, LaBrosse would have been forbidden from marrying Bull, an Anglican. George converted to Roman Catholicism on February 20, 1909, and the two married three days later. The couple had 10 children.

George Bull was offered the position of King's Counsel in 1928. The family was well off, but the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and ensuing Great Depression dramatically changed their circumstances. Within a year the loans Bull had taken to buy stocks on margin were called in, and the family was forced to move to Toronto to look for work.

The next year Gertrude Bull suffered complications while giving birth to her 10th child, Gordon. She died April 1, 1931. George Bull suffered a nervous breakdown and fell into heavy drinking; he left his children in the care of his sister Laura, who fell victim to cancer and died in mid-1934. The next year, banks foreclosed on the family home. The same year, George, at the age of 58, met and married Rose Bleeker. He gave up the children to various relatives: Gerald ending up living with his older sister Bernice.

In 1938, Gerald was sent to spend the summer holidays with his uncle and aunt, Philip and Edith LaBrosse (Philip was the younger brother of Gerald's mother, Gertrude). During the Depression, Phil and Edith had won about $175,000 in the Irish Sweepstakes, and were relatively well off. Gerald was sent to an all-boys Jesuit school, Regiopolis College, Kingston, Ontario. Although too young to attend, the school allowed him to start in 1938 and he returned to spend the summers with the LaBrosses. During this time he took up the hobby of building balsa wood airplanes of his own design, and was a member of the school's modelling club. He graduated in 1944.

University
After graduating, Bull entered Queen's University, with hopes of eventually entering military officers' training school. Philip LaBrosse visited the University of Toronto with the intention of having Bull placed there. He wrote to Bull, who was in Kingston, having found room in the medical school. Bull declined the offer and instead asked LaBrosse if a position in the new aeronautical engineering course was available. The department, being brand new, had limited qualifying criteria for entrance and agreed to interview Bull even though he was only sixteen years old – and he was accepted into the undergraduate program. Records and recollections of both classmates and his professors show little evidence of Bull's brilliance; one professor noted that "He certainly didn't stand out". After graduating in 1948, with marks that were described as "strictly average", Bull took a drafting job at A.V. Roe Canada.

Later that year, the University of Toronto opened a new Institute of Aerodynamics (now the Institute for Aerospace Studies) under the direction of Dr. Gordon Patterson. The Institute could afford to employ twelve students, accepting three per year for a four-year period, and was funded by the Defence Research Board (DRB). Bull applied and was accepted at Patterson's personal recommendation, as Patterson felt that any lack in academics was made up for by Bull's tremendous energy. Bull was soon assigned to work with fellow student Doug Henshaw, and the two were given the task of building a supersonic wind tunnel, which was at that time a relatively rare device.

When the Royal Canadian Air Force donated land adjacent to RCAF Station Downsview to the institute, the operations were quickly moved. During construction, Bull used the wind tunnel as the basis for his September 15, 1949 Master's thesis, on the design and construction of advanced wind tunnels. The tunnel was to be featured prominently during the opening of the new Institute grounds, leading to an all-night rush to get it fully operational in time for the presentation. The work was completed at 3:30 am, but the team was too exhausted to test it. The next day Air Marshal Wilfred Curtis pushed the start button and nothing happened, but Dr. Patterson quickly reached around, pushed harder, and the wind tunnel worked perfectly.

Bull had largely finished his PhD thesis on the same topic in 1950, when a request from the DRB asking that the Institute provide an aerodynamicist to help on their Velvet Glove Missile project arrived. It was to be an unpaid position on which the volunteer would remain on a normal PhD stipend from the university. Patterson selected Bull for the position, which led to a period of successful work at the Canadian Armament and Research Development Establishment, or CARDE.

Canada
The Canadian Armament and Research Development Establishment (CARDE) was formed as a joint Canadian-British operation to study artillery and ballistics, in an effort to harness the intellectual resources of Canada, as well as to place developing British technology outside of German reach during World War II. Formed up on a military training area and artillery range outside Valcartier, northwest of Quebec City, CARDE was one of a number of research divisions of the DRB that were well funded in the immediate post-war era. CARDE was researching supersonic flight and a variety of rocket and missile projects when Bull was asked to join. Bull asked to build a wind tunnel for this research, but his suggestions were dismissed as too expensive.

Gunners at CARDE suggested that firing models out of existing gun barrels would permit gathering data at much lower cost, and guided Bull in this direction. As a proof of concept, they tried an Ordnance QF 17-pounder barrel bored to 3.9 in. The aerodynamicists' demands to accommodate larger models resulted in boring out a BL 5.5 inch Medium Gun barrel to produce a 5.9 in smooth-bore. Borrowing an idea developed in England in 1916, cards were placed on holders along the range and scaled models of the missile fired through them. The models were carried in a segmented aluminum sabot, which peeled away as the round left the muzzle.

As originally built the range was 1000 yd long, with "jump cards" located at 100 yd intervals. A metallic coating on the cards permitted timing of flight progress to measure velocity. One station was equipped for Schlieren photography to record the shock waves and wake around the projectile. In some ways this technique was superior to wind tunnel study, as it allowed for the direct measurement of real-world influences on the trajectory, as a test of theoretical calculations. On the downside, reducing the collected data to a mathematical trajectory for checking against the theoretical calculations is difficult.

Bull was at CARDE briefly before returning to the university to defend his thesis in March 1951, at 23 years old becoming the youngest PhD graduate in the institute's history—a record that remains to this day. He returned to CARDE, now on the DRB's payroll, and continued working on the instrumented guns. On one of these trips, in 1953, he and a friend stopped in Charny after a fishing trip to drop off some of their catch at a local doctor's house. Bull met Noemi "Mimi" Gilbert, the doctor's daughter, and the two soon started dating. Given Bull's work schedule they were rarely able to see each other, but they became engaged in February 1954, and married on July 15. Gilbert gave the couple a small house as a wedding gift. Mimi gave birth to their first son, Phillippe, on July 3, 1955, and a second, Michel, in November 1956.

In 1954 Bull decided that a wind tunnel was too important to ignore, even if he could not arrange for funding through the DRB. Instead, he gained the ear of professors at Laval University in Quebec City, and Bull and a number of graduate students started work on a tunnel similar to the one he had earlier built at the UofT. It opened in the summer of 1955 and was capable of speeds up to Mach 4, but cost only $6,000, the result of using scrap for most of its parts.

Bull's work was brought to the public's attention in a May 20, 1955 Toronto Telegram headline article, Unveil Canadian Gun that Fires 4,550 M.P.H. Missiles. Around this time Bull further improved the data-collection capabilities of the system by developing a telemetry system that could fit in the models. DRB staff thought the idea was unworkable and worked against having it funded, but Bull shuffled his own department's funding and went ahead and developed it anyway. All the parts of Bull's future efforts, smooth-bore high-velocity guns, sabots for increasing performance, and hardened electronics, were now complete.

Work on the Velvet Glove ended in 1956, and the DRB turned its attention to anti-ballistic missiles (ABMs). Bull's gun system was not fast enough to be useful in this role, so it was adapted to use a "sabot" to improve its performance. Bull then moved on to hypersonics research and the study of infrared and radar cross sections for detection. As the UK's research efforts wound down in the post-war political environment, CARDE's joint UK-Canadian funding was dramatically cut back, with the project eventually being handed over to the Canadians entirely and followed by further cuts. Bull was vocal about this turn of events, calling the Liberal government of the day "second-rate lawyers and jumped-up real-estate salesmen".

During this period CARDE was visited by a US team, including Lieutenant General Arthur Trudeau, who was impressed with Bull's work. Trudeau was director of US Army Research and Development, and he quickly set up a similar effort at the Aberdeen Proving Ground under the direction of Dr. Charles Murphy. They built an analog of Bull's gun using a 5 in gun and started test firing it over the Atlantic in 1961. The team used a fire-control radar from a Nike Hercules missile battery to track the shells, which released a cloud of chaff at altitudes up to 130000 ft.

Around the same time, Bull and Murphy started discussing the idea of firing scale aircraft models from their guns. Both started working on the idea, but Bull beat Murphy when he successfully fired a model of the Gloster Javelin from his gun and managed to take shadowgraph photos of it showing supersonic shock cones. Bull then used the same method to work on the Avro Arrow, discovering an instability that led to the use of a stability augmentation system. Work on the Avro Arrow was soon cancelled, which angered Bull.

With attention turning to space after the launch of Sputnik in 1957, Bull leaked a story that Canada would soon match this feat by placing a high-velocity gun in the nose of a US Army Redstone missile. The story was a complete fabrication, but caused a major stir when it hit the papers on April 22, 1958. After the story broke Prime Minister John Diefenbaker was besieged in the House of Commons press scrum, later dismissing it stating that "There is no foundation whatsoever to the story, not a scintilla of truth to it".

A major flap broke out as a result, leading to the dressing down of several of Bull's superiors. When the press was invited to visit CARDE, the Canadian Broadcasting Company broadcast a piece covering much of the work at CARDE on May 11, including lengthy sections on Bull's gun and their work on infrared detection and anti-ballistic missile systems.

On April 1, 1961, Bull got into an argument with his direct superior over paperwork. Bull wrote out his resignation. A report prepared after his departure stated "... his tempestuous nature and strong dislike for administration and red tape constantly led him into trouble with senior management."

High Altitude Research Project
Bull had long prepared for this event, and soon re-appeared as a professor at McGill University, which was in the process of building up a large engineering department under the direction of Donald Mordell. Mordell had long maintained links with CARDE and became one of Bull's ardent supporters, in spite of what other professors saw as "second-rate attempts at manipulation" and that "[Mordell] always supported Bull's work ... I think sometimes he got pretty tired of supporting Bull." Bull, for his part, appeared to enjoy the new position, and later described it as "a marriage made in heaven". Bull remained in contact with his counterparts in the US and the University of Toronto, and set about equipping the university with the instrumentation it would need to be a leader in the field of aerodynamics.

Several years earlier, while still working at CARDE, Gerald and Mimi had purchased a 2000 acre plot of land on the Québec–Vermont border. Bull donated the land to be used by McGill and turned into a new ballistics lab, a private analog of the CARDE site. Renamed to become "Highwater Station" due to the local village of Highwater, Quebec, the site was quickly developed under the direction of former British Army colonel Robert Stacy, who bulldozed large sections, built various test facilities and ran power to the site. There they began working with 5 in and 7 in artillery pieces.

In late 1961 Bull visited Murphy and Trudeau at Aberdeen and was able to interest them in the idea of using guns to loft missile components for re-entry research, a task that was otherwise very expensive and time-consuming aboard rockets. They arranged funding for the work under Project HARP (for High Altitude Research Project, not to be confused with HAARP). The US Navy supplied a surplus 16 in battleship gun, and a contract from the Office of Naval Research paid for the gun to be re-bored into a 16.4 in smooth bore. The entire contract, excluding shipping, was only $2,000.

The performance of the gun was so great that the Highwater site was too small to support it. McGill had long been running a meteorological station on Barbados and had close connections with the new Democratic Labour Party (DLP), and suggested that it would make an ideal location for the gun to be set up. Bull met with then Premier Errol Barrow who became Barbados' first Prime Minister after Barbados received its Independence from the UK in 1966. Barrow, an enthusiastic supporter of HARP, arranged for a firing site at Paragon, on the southeast coast of the island near the Seawell Airport. The guns arrived in early 1962 but could not be put ashore at the site, and had to be offloaded 7 mi up the coast at Foul Bay, and then transported overland via a purpose-built railway that employed hundreds of locals. As the project continued, this figure grew to over 300 permanently employed with the project, and it became a major reason for Barrow's continued support. Bull encouraged the locals to use the project as a stepping-stone to a science or engineering degree of their own, and his efforts were widely lauded in the press.

In January 1962 the first test shot was carried out, firing an empty sabot. The test was completely successful, so a further two similar firings were abandoned and the second firing was made with a dart-like finned projectile named Martlet (after the mythical bird without feet on the McGill University crest). These tests demonstrated several problems, including poor shot-to-shot performance of the decades-old gunpowder, and the fact that the projectile left the barrel so quickly that the powder did not have time to burn completely. New charges using modern powder were soon supplied, and by November 1962 the 150-kilogram Martlets were being fired at over 10000 ft/s and reaching altitudes of 215000 ft.

The Martlets evolved through this period, growing in size and sophistication. As Bull later put it:

"Martlett 2A was the first high-altitude projectile. It weighed 225 pounds. The forebody carried electronics, the aftbody carried chemical payloads. It was five inches (127 mm) in diameter, and had a very heavy pusher plate. The actual all-up weight was around 400 to 450 pounds. Then what happened was the Martlet 2C. [It] was the big workhorse, still a five inch (127 mm). Then, towards the end, we came up with the 350 pound vehicle, the same thing, only seven inches in diameter.

The idea was to find out what happens in the atmosphere from sunset to sunrise. Remember, nobody gave us grants. We had to produce tropical atmospheric meteorological [data] for the army research office, that's how we got our money. We were trying to measure everything to the top of the atmosphere, which we labeled as a nominal two hundred kilometers.

The cost of a launch was about $5,000. We did up to eight a night. We used to do three nights in a row to try to get the data."

The Martlet's electronics triggered the release of the chemical markers at a set altitude. This left a sort of "smoke trail" through the atmosphere that could be used to measure winds aloft by visual means. The chemical was typically triethylaluminium, which burns on contact with air. Loading the shells was a dangerous job that required special handling. The Martlets were also used to release chaff instead of chemicals, allowing tracking via radar. Some shots used additional electronics to measure the magnetic field. Similar firings in support of the upper atmosphere research were made using 5" and 7" guns at Highwater, Alaska, and Wallops Island, Virginia.

By the time the program ran down, about 1,000 firings had taken place, and the data collected during HARP represents half of all the upper-atmospheric data to this day.

The Martlet-2 was only a stepping-stone on the way to Bull's real interest, a gun-launched rocket that could reach outer space. The gun had been thoroughly tested and was well past intercontinental ranges, but needed modifying. In early 1963 HARP started experimenting with the Martlet-3, a 7-inch-diameter (177.8 mm) "full bore" projectile designed to test the basic problems of launching a solid-fuel artillery shell from guns. Solid shell fuel has the consistency of soft rubber and is cut into a pattern that is open in the middle, so on firing the "grain" would tend to collapse into the cavity. This problem was solved by filling the cavity with zinc bromide, which prevented the collapse and was drained after firing to allow the rocket to light. Test firings began at the US Ballistic Research Laboratory (now part of the U.S. Army Research Laboratory) in Aberdeen using a bored-out 175 mm gun from the M107. This program proved the basic concept and shots of the Martlet-3 reached altitudes of 155 mi.

The ultimate goal of the program was the Martlet-4, a three-stage 16.4" rocket that would be fired from a lengthened gun at Barbados and would reach orbit. In 1964 Donald Mordell was able to convince the Canadian government of the value of the HARP project as a low-cost method for Canada to enter the space-launch business, and arranged a joint Canadian-US funding program of $3 million a year for three years, with the Canadians supplying $2.5 million of that. Another 16.4" gun, mounted horizontally, was being tested at the Highwater range, and was extended by cutting the breech off the end of one gun and welding it to the end of another to produce a new gun over 110 feet long. The extension allowed the powder to be contained for a longer period of time, slowing down the acceleration and loads on the airframe, while also offering higher overall performance. Once the system had been tested at Highwater, a second barrel was shipped to Foul Bay, attached and strengthened with external bracing to allow it to be raised from the horizontal. This gun was extensively tested in 1965 and 1966.

The orbital project faced a constant race with its own budget. Originally guaranteed three years of funding, the money was handled by the DRB, who was less than impressed with its former "star" going on to greater things while their own funding was being dramatically cut. Although the money was allocated for 1964, the DRB managed to delay delivery for ten months, forcing McGill to cover salaries in the interim. These problems did not go unnoticed in the US Army, and in order to ensure that firings would not be interrupted by problems on the Canadian side, a third double-length gun was built at the Yuma Proving Grounds to continue the high-altitude measurements. On November 18, 1966, this gun launched a Martlet-2 to 180 km, a world record that still stands today.

By 1967 it was becoming clear that the Martlet-4 would not be ready by the time the funding ran out in 1968. An effort started to build a simplified version, the GLO-1A (Gun-launched Orbiter, Version 1A), based on the Martlet-2G. Continued budget pressures, changing public attitudes towards military affairs, negative reviews from the press and other researchers in Canada and a change of government all conspired to ensure that Canadian funding was not renewed in 1967. Bull had been working on a last-ditch effort to launch a Canadian flag into orbit in time for the Canadian Centennial, but nothing came of this plan.

Space Research Corporation
Bull returned to his Highwater range, and transferred HARP's assets to a new company. He invoked a clause in the original contract with McGill that required them to return the range to its original natural condition. Faced with hundreds of thousands of dollars in construction costs to wind down a project that could not garner funding, McGill was left with little choice but to trade Bull for title to the Highwater equipment. Setting up a new company, Space Research Corporation (SRC), Bull became an international artillery consultant. Incorporated in both Quebec and Vermont, a number of contracts from both the Canadian and US military research arms helped the company get started.. In the late 1960s, Bull established a space program at Norwich University, in Northfield, Vermont.

At SRC Bull continued the development of his high-velocity artillery, adapting the HARP smoothbore into a new "reverse rifled" design where the lands of a conventional rifling were replaced by grooves cut into the barrel to make a slightly larger gun also capable of firing existing ammunition. Normally artillery shells are sealed into the rifling by a driving band of soft metal like copper, which demands that the shell be shaped so that it balances at its widest point, where the band is located. This is not ideal for ballistics, especially supersonically where a higher fineness ratio is desirable. Bull solved this problem by using an additional set of nub "fins" near the front of the shell to keep it centered in the barrel, allowing the driving band to be greatly reduced in size, and located wherever was convenient. Re-shaping the shell for better supersonic performance provided dramatically improved range and accuracy, up to double in both cases, when compared to a similar gun using older-style ammunition. He called the new shell design "Extended Range, Full Bore" (ERFB).

Starting in 1975, Bull designed a new gun based on the common US 155/39 M109 howitzer, extending it slightly to 45 calibre through modifications that could be applied to existing weapons, calling the resulting weapon the GC-45 howitzer. Bull also purchased the base bleed technology being developed in Sweden, which allowed for further improvements in range. With ERFB round the GC-45 could routinely place rounds into 10 m circles at ranges up to 30 km, extending this to 38 km with some loss in accuracy. The gun offered ranges far in excess of even the longest-ranged heavy artillery in a gun only slightly larger than common medium-weight guns.

SRC's first major sales success was the sale of 50,000 ERFB shells to Israel in 1973 for use in American-supplied artillery pieces. The Israelis had successfully used a number of 175 mm M107 guns in the counter-battery role against its Soviet counterpart, the 130 mm towed field gun M1954 (M-46), but the introduction of long range rockets fired from Lebanon outranged them. The ERFB shells extended the range of the already formidable M107 to as much as 50 km, allowing the guns to counter-battery even the longest range rockets.

Bull was rewarded for success of this program by a Congressional bill, sponsored by Senator Barry Goldwater (R-AZ) making him retroactively eligible for a decade of American citizenship and high-level American nuclear security clearance. He was granted citizenship by an Act of Congress.

Sanctions contravention
In 1977 and 1978, Bull orchestrated the illegal sale of 30,000 155 mm artillery shells, gun barrels and plans for the GC-45 howitzer as well as radar equipment to Armscor, the South African state arms corporation; with two shipments made through Antigua in 1978 and another through Spain in 1979. The South African Defence Force's arsenal of vintage howitzers, antiquated by the arms embargo, had been outperformed by BM-21 Grads during Operation Savannah in 1975. In order to counter the modern Soviet artillery deployed in neighbouring Angola, South African officials began seeking longer-ranged weapons systems and were referred to SRC. Armscor trialled the GC-45 with a new mounting to allow for increased powder loads and installed an auxiliary power unit for improving mobility in the field. The resulting G5 howitzer was vital to South African campaigns against Cuban expeditionary forces in Angola, allowing them to target infrastructure and personnel with phenomenal accuracy. In addition, the urgent shipments were also meant to address the acute shortage of artillery shells due to their incursion into Angola.

Once these shipments had been uncovered, Bull was arrested for illegal arms dealing in contravention of UN Security Council Resolution 418 for arms export to South Africa. Expecting a token punishment, Bull found himself spending six months in the Federal Correctional Complex, Allenwood, Pennsylvania in 1980. After his release, he was again charged (this time in Canadian courts) for transferring technology on 155mm extended range shell development to China without the necessary export permits and fined $55,000 for international arms dealing.

Support to Iraq
Bull left Canada and moved to Brussels, where a subsidiary of SRC called European Poudreries Réunies de Belgique was based. Bull continued working with the ERFB ammunition design, developing a range of munitions that could be fired from existing weapons. A number of companies designed upgrades to work with older weapons, like the M114 155 mm howitzer, combining a new barrel from the M109 with Bull's ERFB ammunition to produce an improved weapon for relatively low cost.

Bull also continued working with the GC-45 design, and soon secured work with the People's Republic of China, and then Iraq. He designed two artillery pieces for the Iraqis: the 155 mm Al-Majnoonan, an updated version of the G5, and a similar set of adaptations applied to the 203 mm US M110 howitzer to produce the 210 mm Al-Fao with a maximum range of 56 km without base bleed. Although it appears the Al-Fao was not put into production, the Al-Majnoonan started replacing Soviet designs as quickly as they could be delivered. When deliveries could not be made quickly enough, additional barrels were ordered from South Africa. The guns were built and sold through an Austrian intermediary.

Based on his HARP results, Bull secured additional Iraqi funding and support for the construction of a smoothbore gun barrel assembly. He received a $25m down-payment for the project on condition that he continued the development work on the Al-Majnoonan and Al-Fao guns. Initially, a smaller 45-meter, 350 mm caliber gun (known as Baby-Babylon) was completed for testing purposes and then Bull started work on the "real" PC-2 machine, a gun that was 150 meters long, weighed 1,510 tonnes, with a bore of one meter (39 inches) that would allow the firing of multi-stage rocket-assisted shells with a range of over 5000 mi or to launch 1200 lb satellites into orbit. The project objective was to eventually provide Iraq with three 350 mm Baby Babylon guns and two 1000 mm PC-2 Big Babylon guns.

The Iraqis then told Bull they would go ahead with the project only if he would also help with development of their longer-range Scud-based missile project. Bull agreed. Construction of the individual sections of the new gun started in England at Sheffield Forgemasters and Matrix Churchill as well as in Spain, the Netherlands, and Switzerland while he concurrently worked on the Scud project, making calculations for the new nose cone needed for the greater re-entry speeds and temperatures the missile would face.

Death
Over a few months, his apartment suffered several non-robbery break-ins, apparently as a threat or a warning, but he continued to work on the project. He was assassinated on 22 March 1990, shot five times in the head and back at point-blank range while approaching the door of his apartment in Brussels. The New York Times reported that when police arrived at the scene they found the key still in his door and his unopened briefcase containing nearly $20,000 in cash. Another account states he was shot by a three-man team when he answered the doorbell.

The cooperation between Bull and Saddam Hussein was an immediate threat to Israel which had had previous military engagements with Iraq during the Arab–Israeli war. Watching the development of the gun, Israel feared it could be used to launch nuclear weapons, but the re-designed Scud missiles were of greater concern at that moment.

According to investigative journalist Gordon Thomas, the assassination of Bull had been sanctioned by Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir. Nahum Admoni sent a three-man team to Brussels, where the Mossad agents shot Bull at his door-step. Within hours of the killing, according to Thomas, Mossad was engaged in distributing false stories to the European media, alleging that Bull had been shot by agents from Iraq.

Although it was in the immediate interest of both Israel and Iran that Bull discontinue his cooperation with Saddam Hussein, he had worked for many different parties in many critical defence projects, and had become both an asset and a liability for several powerful groups simultaneously. Given Bull's past ventures, it has been speculated that besides Iran or Israel, the CIA; MI6; or the Chilean, Syrian, Iraqi, or South African government could have been behind his assassination.

Remaining equipment
Project Babylon was stopped when supergun parts were seized by Customs in the United Kingdom in March 1990 leading to most of Bull's staff returning to Canada. Some of the confiscated parts have survived after they were not needed as evidence and because customs were interested in the story, some of the barrel pipes were given to museums and to the Ministry of Defence. In Iraq, all remaining gun barrels and propellants were destroyed by UN inspectors after the Persian Gulf War in October 1991.

title: Gerald Bull