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Among those who went temporarily with their slaves was Dr. J. A. Rowland. With him went his father, that dean of pioneers "Billy" Rowland, now an old man with a son (W. A.) and a grandson (Eugene) following the flag of the Confederacy with the 9th Arkansas Regiment. Rowland never came back. He died in Texas before the war was over and was buried there.
When the four year struggle was finished in 1865 and the surviving warriors straggled home, a few at a time, they found that the women and the old men with the aid of the growing boys had not failed in their efforts to hold things together. But---they also found the slaves gone and political and economic conditions greatly disturbed. The carpetbagger was in command. It was no easy situation that confronted them but they grappled it with the same courage and determination their fathers had tackled the untouched wilderness and Lapile continued to be a strong outstanding community.
After the trying days of reconstruction were over and things began to adjust themselves, the post office of Lapile was established October 5, 1877, with Eugene Rowland as Postmaster, by order of the United States Government. This post office was established in the store connected with the offices of Drs. J. A. and Eugene F. Rowland and soon became the hub of the community. One or two stores came into being near by but there was not yet any definite village.
With the pasing of the reconstruction period cotton once more became king of on the farm lands. More or less luxurious steam boats plowed up and down the Quachita River stopping at Rowland's Raft for freight and passengers. The Drs. Rowland practiced medicine throughout the vicinity, as did Dr. Mark Jameson from his office in Hillsboro. Judge W. D. Jameson, an outstanding lawyer of the county, practiced his profession from his office in the old Jameson homestead. The community seemed to prosper and to reach its peak by the end of the century.
Still the fine old forests of pine and oak that were such an important part of the landscape had not yet been touched except for local needs. All finished lumber used for building had been shipped in from New Orleans or elsewhere.
