Blood, Trauma, and Biohazard Cleanup in Powhatan, AR

Powhatan is a small incorporated town on the west bank of the Black River in Lawrence County, Arkansas, and the centerpiece of Powhatan Historic State Park.

Powhatan served as the seat of Lawrence County government for almost ninety-five years, from 1869 until voters finally moved the county seat to Walnut Ridge in 1963.

White settlers arrived around the time Lawrence County was created, and by 1820 John Ficklin was operating a ferry across the Black River at the site; the first steamboat, the Laurel, is reported to have docked there in 1829.

Powhatan was not formally platted until 1849, when John A. Lindsay laid out the town, about six years after a post office had been established there.

Powhatan incorporated on January 12, 1853 — the first town in Lawrence County to do so — and boasted a population of approximately 500 at the time.

By 1853 the Old Plank Road, said to be the first improved road in northeast Arkansas, was connected to Powhatan's main street by the Ficklin Ferry, reinforcing the town's role as the county's most important Black River port.

The Lawrence County courthouse at Powhatan was completed on June 17, 1873, at a cost of $16,723.38; after it burned in 1885, a new courthouse was built on the same site in 1888, and both it and the 1873 limestone jail still stand and are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

During its heyday Powhatan supported four general stores, a drugstore, a wagon wheel spoke factory, two hotels, wool, flour, and lumber mills, the Powhatan Male and Female Academy founded in 1854, and a telephone exchange established in 1887.

Powhatan began its long decline when railroads bypassed it in the early 1880s and the new railroad town of Black Rock grew at its expense, draining away its river-port trade.

In 1887 Lawrence County was divided into two judicial districts, with court held in both Powhatan and Walnut Ridge, a compromise driven in part by the Black River's regular spring floods that trapped residents on the far side of the river.