Biography of John S. R. Cowan, St Francis County, AR

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Submitted by: Paul V Isbell
        Date: 19 Nov 2008
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HUGHES=Judge John S. R. Cowan, who was county judge of St. Francis county when
the present court house was built in 1899, owned a plantation, one mile from
what is now Hughes. He established a post office in his commissary and named it
Lulu after his daughter. His land, on the other side of the section line with
property owned by Robert M. Hughes, which parallels the present county road
through the town, Judge Cowan owned most of the land. He donated land for a
hotel and years later gave some more land for the negroe school. Trains of
passenger cars and boxcars operated on the new railroad in 1913, hauling
thousands of car loads of logs. The official name for the road was "Marianna
Cut-off", but most local citizens called it the "Mud Line" or the "Limb Dodger".
In 1916 Judge Cowan built the first brick building in the town, one is now
occupied by R. B. Wise Drug Store No. 1 and the other by the Good Luck store.
JUDGE 1894-1898-ST. FRANCIS COUNTY


SOURCE:
HISTORY of ST. FRANCIS COUNTY, ARKANSAS, 1954 - Robert W. Chowning

Copyright, with Permission: Weston McCollum Lewey, Publisher
-Times Herald Publishing-Forrest City, Arkansas