ARKANSAS HISTORICAL QUARTERLY; Volume XLII, Winter 1983   Old Miller County, Arkansas   BY RUSSELL P. BAKER*   Arkansas History Commission One Capitol Mall, Little Rock, Arkansas 72201 ARKANSAS'S FIRST MILLER COUNTY was created by the territorial legislature on April 1, 1820, (1) and named for Governor James Miller (2). It was taken from a portion of Hempstead County and its boundaries were as follows: Beginning on the north bank of the great Red river at a point due south of the Cossetat bayou, a branch of Little river, thence due north of the mouth of the Cossetat bayou aforesaid, then up said bayou to the head of its main branch, then north to the boundary line of the county of Clark, then due west with said line to the Canadian river, or the Indian boundary line, then with said line to the Great Red river, aforesaid, then southeasterly with the Indian or Spanish boundary line to a point due south of the beginning, then due north to the beginning, be laid off and erected into a separate county, to be called and known by the name of the county of Miller (3). This area included much of what is now southeastern Oklahoma and northeastern Texas. The legislature also provided that the "circuit and other courts of record . . . shall be holden at the house of John Hall, in Gelleland's settlement, in said county (4). _____________________ * The author is senior staff archivist with the Arkansas History Commission, Little Rock. 1. Arkansas Acts, 1820, pp. 83-84. 2. Fay Hempstead, A Pictorial History of Arkansas from Earliest Times to the Year 1890 (St. Louis and New York, 1890), 875. 3. Arkansas Acts, 1820, p. 83 4. Ibid., 86.           Contents  Words  Study Questions  Related Sites Next Page