Home sales jumped …

… for two years in the Hampton, Ark., area (ZIP Code 71744) before settling to whatever is normal these days in real estate.

In Second Quarter 2012, home sales totaled 7.5, at an average cost of $75,000. Sales dropped off to five in the Fourth Quarter 2014 (average cost $50,000) but then springboarded to 11 in Second Quarter 2014, with average cost of $110,000. Third Quarter figures went back to Earth – four houses at $40,000 each.

http://www.city-data.com/zips/71744.html

I don’t know how much data is believable. For example:

80.4% of residents have high school or higher; 7.5% have a bachelor’s degree or higher; and, 2.6% hold a graduate or professional degree. Those figures are far below state average, so who bought all those $110,000 average houses?

Hampton is in the mid-southern part of Arkansas, close to Louisiana. It is the county seat of Calhoun County. Population in 2010 was 1,324. Demographically, the town is 66 percent white and 32 percent black. Those percentages, the same or reversed, generally mean high unemployment and a greater degree of poverty. Wikipedia says about 20 percent of families and 23 percent of the overall population is below the Federal poverty line, including 30 percent under age 18 and 21 percent of those age 65 and older.

Interestingly, for every 100 women, there are 75 men.

Famous people from Hampton include Harry Z. Thomason, TV producer and friend of the Clintons; and Tommy Tomlinson, Rockabilly Hall of Fame member and guitarist for Johnny Horton’s band. Tomlinson was wounded as a Marine in the Korean War and was seriously injured in the 1960 car wreck that killed Horton near Milano, Texas.

Hampton has a government, but not too many people are interested in it. A Dec. 15, 2015, story said only one alderman had filed for re-election, and no sitting aldermen had any kind of opposition. According to the state constitution, sitting aldermen who have no opposition “will serve until they are voted out of office, die or somehow become ineligible …”

http://www.topix.com/city/hampton-ar/2015/12/hampton-ballot-all-but-bare

All in all, it seems not too much goes on in Hampton.