De Queen, Arkansas
2012.12.20
Arthur E. Stilwell, a New York native and former insurance salesman in Kansas City, Missouri, founded the Kansas City Suburban Belt Railway in 1887. Building on that success, he envisioned a railway line connecting Kansas City with the Gulf of Mexico. Despite nearly running out of money in the Panic of 1893, the Kansas City, Pittsburg and Gulf Railroad Company line reached Port Arthur, Texas in 1897. Today known as the Kansas City Southern, it is one of the oldest railroad companies still in operation.
The railroad had reached Siloam Springs, Arkansas when the Panic of 1893 pushed most railroads into receivership. The enterprising Stilwell traveled to Amsterdam in an attempt to raise capital there. He soon remembered and located Jan de Goeijen (duh GHOO en or duh HOY en), a Dutch coffee trader he had met several years earlier on a steamliner. Stilwell convinced de Goeijen to abandon the coffee trade and instead become his agent to sell securities. Jan de Goeijen sold $3 million in stock, allowing the railroad construction to continue.
Arthur Stilwell founded over 40 towns as the railroad progressed, including eponymous Stilwell, Oklahoma and Port Arthur, Texas. Mena, Arkansas, founded in 1896, was named for de Goeijen’s wife, Folmina. In 1897, the railroad reached a tent settlement in southwest Arkansas called Hurrah City. The Arkansas Townsite Company subsidiary platted lots and attracted buyers. Stilwell had expressed his intention to name the town for his friend Jan de Goeijen; but the locals were befuddled by the strange name. So they incorporated with the Americanization ‘De Queen’.
Reportedly de Goeijen was offended. But the alteration cannot be considered a total loss; since 1987 the local paper has published under the cheeky banner De Queen Bee.
In 1900, Herman Dierks of Dierks Lumber and Coal Company, based in Kansas City, arrived in De Queen. The Dierks had purchased the Williams Brothers sawmill and timberlands. They rebuilt the mill after a fire, and a short line railroad to transport their lumber to the Kansas City Southern. De Queen became the county seat of Sevier County in 1905.
When my parents were anticipating a bouncing baby boy, the nearest hospital to Broken Bow, Oklahoma was in Idabel, about twelve miles away. They considered it subpar for such an important event, so instead chose the hospital in De Queen, about twenty-three miles east on US-70. This was my first opportunity to see where I was born.
The former nursery is now filled with filing cabinets, as best we could tell through the miniblinds.
On our way back, Mom wanted to stop so I could take photos of the “Welcome to Arkansas” and Sevier County signs along the road. Then I couldn’t resist wandering over to say hello to some cattle. Black Angus are the most common breed of beef cattle in the United States. The ones with white faces are Black Baldy or Black Whiteface, a crossbreed of Angus and Hereford.
Broken Bow