Editing Cabot, Arkansas (section)

== History ==
{{unreferenced section|date=April 2022}}

=== Prior to settlement ===
Before the city of Cabot existed, an 1862 [[typhoid]] epidemic took the lives of about 1,500 [[Confederate States of America|Confederate]] soldiers previously under [[Allison Nelson]] who were camped at Camp Nelson in the hills surrounding Cabot and [[Austin, Arkansas|Austin]].{{Citation needed|date=August 2023}} In 1905, 428 poorly marked graves were exhumed by a group of Confederate veterans and moved to a new site at [[Camp Nelson Confederate Cemetery]]. [[Marble]] gravestones were placed over each grave and a large marble [[obelisk]] was erected to honor the dead. In 1982, a group of volunteers from Cabot began maintaining the cemetery, which had fallen into disrepair.{{Citation needed|date=August 2023}}

=== Early history ===
The city of Cabot sprang up as a small settlement around a refueling station on the Cairo & Fulton Railroad after it bypassed Austin. The settlement first appeared in 1873 and is thought to have been named after railroad executive George Cabot Ward.{{Citation needed|date=August 2023}} The First Baptist Church was established in 1876, and the Cabot United Methodist Church in 1881. G. W. Grandberry began publication of the first newspaper in 1885, named "The Guard". Grandberry, along with James Milton Park served as the towns medical doctors.{{Citation needed|date=August 2023}} By 1889 businesses began growing alongside the railroad tracks. Businesses included six general stores, two drugstores, a hotel owned by James Charles Boyd, James Adam's livery stable, and the Neely brothers [[cotton gin]].<ref>Polston, Mike, and Debra Carrington Polston. Cabot. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2012.</ref> The Bank of Cabot (later merged into Centennial Bank) was founded in 1903. The city of Cabot was officially incorporated November 9, 1891, as the 139th city in Arkansas.

Cabot was often overshadowed in northern [[Lonoke County, Arkansas|Lonoke County]] by what at the time was the much larger city of Austin (originally named Oakland). However, Cabot experienced growth during the 1950s and 1960s, due to its proximity to the [[Little Rock Air Force Base]] in nearby [[Jacksonville, Arkansas|Jacksonville]] which opened in 1955, as well as due to the "[[white flight]]" occurring in response to the racial discord in [[Little Rock, Arkansas]] caused by school desegregation and its following [[Little Rock Nine|crisis]].<ref>Polston, Mike, ed. Bits and Pieces of Cabot History. Vol. 1. Cabot: Magee Publishing, 1988.</ref>

=== Bedroom community ===
{{Unreferenced section|date=August 2019}}
In 1972, the [[Little Rock School District]], slow to comply with the 1954 [[US Supreme Court]] case ''[[Brown v. Topeka Board of Education]]'', was forcibly ordered by federal courts to immediately [[school integration in the United States|desegregate]] the school district. As a result, tensions rose and during the 1980s and 1990s Little Rock school district teachers repeatedly went on strike.{{Citation needed|date=August 2023}} A "white exodus" occurred with many residents choosing to relocate to smaller communities around Little Rock, including Cabot, [[Benton, Arkansas|Benton]], [[Bryant, Arkansas|Bryant]], [[Conway, Arkansas|Conway]], and [[Maumelle, Arkansas|Maumelle]] instead of choosing to continue supporting full integration.{{Citation needed|date=August 2023}} Over time, new arrivals to the state chose to live in these towns (now veritable [[suburb]]s) because, by some educational indicators, the school districts were more successful.

Cabot received many of the families that were relocating during that time period. As a result, a [[bedroom community|"commuter culture"]] developed because many residents that had children in Cabot schools made the commute to Little Rock to work daily. 40% of military personnel working at the Little Rock Air Force Base in Jacksonville live in Cabot because of the higher cost of living in Little Rock and Jacksonville.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Nix |first=Ryan |date=December 4, 2019 |title=Cabot: 'Commuter Town' Bursting With Potential |url=https://armoneyandpolitics.com/cabot-commuter-town-bursting-with-potential/ |access-date=August 13, 2023 |website=AMP |language=en-US}}</ref> This, coupled with the perceived higher quality of life and easily accessed work opportunity, has resulted in a "[[boomtown]]."<ref>Tucker, Tyler. “Cabot Regarded as State’s Only Boomtown.” Cabot-Star Herald. February 11, 2009, pp. 1A, 7A.</ref> As more people moved to Cabot to join the commuter culture, the tax base grew and, as a result, the Cabot School District steadily developed into one of the top-performing districts in the state.

Currently, the Cabot School District encompasses the north end of Lonoke County. The bulk of the county's population today can be found in approximately the same area, containing the county's most populous and second most populous cities — Cabot and Ward, respectively — in addition to Austin, which are among Arkansas' fastest growing communities.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Arkansas Population Growth Rate City Rank |url=http://www.usa.com/rank/arkansas-state--population-growth-rate--city-rank.htm |access-date=July 22, 2023 |website=www.usa.com}}</ref>

=== Recent history ===
[[Image:Cabot Arkansas.jpg|thumb|Southward view of the Cabot Mini-Mall along First Street in downtown Cabot in December 2006]]

A devastating [[tornado]] hit downtown Cabot during the afternoon of March 29, 1976, killing five people and destroying multiple buildings.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Looking back: 40 years after devastating Cabot tornado |url=https://www.arkansasonline.com/cabottornado/ |access-date=July 22, 2023 |website=www.arkansasonline.com}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=March 30, 1976 |title=Tornadoes Strike In South |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1976/03/30/archives/tornadoes-strike-in-south-10-killed-and-250-are-hurt.html |access-date=July 22, 2023 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref> During the rebuilding of the city, it was decided to build a new city hall, municipal courtroom, library (since relocated), and police station on the site of the debris-filled dividing point between the east and west sections of Main Street, creating City Plaza. [[Arkansas Highway 89]], which follows the same path as West Main Street in Cabot, was redirected around City Plaza along one block of Second Street, to continue its path along Pine Street just south of the [[Cabot High School]] campus.

Cabot's population has more than quintupled from the 1980s to today, from under 5,000 residents to over 26,000. New housing starts, as seen by new subdivided developments, now cover the town.{{Citation needed|date=August 2023}}

On August 10, 2006, Cabot Junior High School North experienced a devastating fire which was believed to have started as a small electrical fire in the library caused by a faulty light bulb. Although there were 100 people in the building at the time, there were no injuries.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Sabin |first=Warwick |date=August 11, 2006 |title=Fire at Cabot junior high school |url=https://arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/2006/08/10/fire-at-cabot-junior-high-school |access-date=July 22, 2023 |website=Arkansas Times |language=en-US}}</ref> The building burned from 2:30&nbsp;p.m. to about 9:00&nbsp;p.m., and the structure was a total loss. Cabot Fire and Police Departments say that this is one of the worst [[structure fire]]s to have ever occurred in Cabot. The school was only about eight years old. It was rebuilt and reopened about three years later.<ref>{{Cite web |date=September 3, 2009 |title=CABOT JUNIOR HIGH NORTH REBUILT: Up from the ashes |url=https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2009/sep/03/cabot-junior-high-north-rebuilt-ashes-20090903/ |access-date=July 22, 2023 |website=Arkansas Online |language=en}}</ref>