Take a look around

Funny, how you can live in a place and not know the nearby towns.

My wife and I lived in Saline County Arkansas for five years, 2009-2014, yet only today did I discover Traskwod, a small town.

Saline County (pronounced “suh-LEAN) is one of the fastest growing counties in Arkansas. The 2000 population was 83,529. By the 2010 census, the county had grown by more than 24,000, and the 2016 population was estimated at 118,703.

Traskwood was incorporated in 1900, even though the community had existed far longer. The 1910 population was 228. By 2010, the population had grown to 518.

The Encyclopedia of Arkansas says:

“Although the Saline River has been a means of transportation since prehistoric times, the land of southern Saline County remained unclaimed until after the Civil War. Among the first white settlers were Henry Taylor Collatt (1875), Joseph Reed (1875), Henry James (1877), John Tobin (1882), and John Benton (1883). By this time, the St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern Railway had already completed a railroad through the region, establishing a depot named Traskwood, reportedly as a combination of the last names of two railroad employees (Trask and Wood). A post office of that name was established in 1874, and Collatt opened a store in front of his family home. The 1880 census recorded many railroad workers living in the area, and also many sawmill employees.

“Traskwood was incorporated as a town in late 1900. By then, it already had several stores—one with a dancehall on the second floor—a school, and a resident doctor. The school, a one-room structure built on the site of a former sawmill, burned down early in the century and was replaced by a two-room schoolhouse. A special school district was established for Traskwood by the Arkansas General Assembly in 1911. Around 1920, Traskwood had a railroad depot, four general stores, a hotel, a saloon, a lumberyard, a blacksmith shop, a cotton gin, a grist mill, a post office, a Methodist church, and a Baptist church.

“The Iron Mountain Railroad was acquired by the Missouri Pacific in 1917; the Union Pacific acquired the Missouri Pacific in 1982. As railroad traffic was increasingly replaced by highway traffic and by air travel, the significance of communities such as Traskwood diminished. At the same time, however, some residents of large urban areas such as Little Rock (Pulaski County) were seeking to relocate to smaller ‘bedroom’ communities that were still reasonably close to the city. As such a community, Traskwood gained population during the latter part of the twentieth century. The town reincorporated as a second-class city in 1968.

“The children of Traskwood attend the schools of the Glen Rose School District. Traskwood still has a Landmark Missionary Baptist church; however, the city in 2013 had no stores or restaurants. The population of Traskwood in the 2010 census was 518, almost entirely white residents.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traskwood,_Arkansas

From 2000 census numbers, demographers determined 97.26% of the population was white. Poverty numbers included 12.8% of families, 18.5% of the total population, 28.7% of those younger than 18 and 5.5% of those 65 and older.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traskwood,_Arkansas