Editing Rison, Arkansas (section)

==History==
The [[Texas]] and [[St. Louis]] Railroad gave rise to Rison. The county seat of Dorsey County (present day Cleveland County) was originally [[Toledo, Arkansas|Toledo]]. When the railroad was routed through the county in 1882, Rison did not exist. [[Samuel W. Fordyce|Samuel Fordyce]] of [[Huntsville, Alabama]], a former [[Union Army|Union army]] officer, was authorized to determine the route of the railroad from [[Texarkana metropolitan area|Texarkana]] to [[Bird's Point, Missouri|Birds Point, Missouri]]. According to unsubstantiated legend, when the leading citizens of [[Toledo, Arkansas|Toledo]] snubbed his plans to route the railroad through that community, Fordyce planned a route three miles north and built a [[Train station|station]] through land that would later become Rison.

Fordyce named the new station for William Rison, his former business partner in a banking venture in [[Alabama]], who had fought on the opposite side of the [[American Civil War|Civil War]]. The first home erected in the community the small settlement that grew up around the new station was built in 1880 by lawyer and farmer James McMurtrey. In 1883, the Southwest Improvement Association, a subsidiary of the railroad company, presented a parcel of land for use by the inhabitants of the area that became Rison. The settlement was [[Municipal corporation|incorporated]] on August 26, 1890, with J. T. Renfrow as mayor. The name of the county was changed from Dorsey to Cleveland in 1885; the popularity of U.S. Senator [[Stephen Wallace Dorsey|Stephen Dorsey]] had waned, and President [[Grover Cleveland]]'s name was substituted. The [[Arkansas Supreme Court]] relocated the county seat from [[Toledo, Arkansas|Toledo]] to Rison in 1891 after a spirited battle among the leading contenders, [[Toledo, Arkansas|Toledo]], [[Kingsland, Arkansas|Kingsland]], and Rison.

The railroad remained Rison's point of reference for decades. “Rison on the Cotton Belt” was the affectionate way residents referred to their community. The commercial value of the railroad was felt from the beginning. The economy depended on the production of cotton, lumber, and, ultimately, a wide variety of wood products, including pulpwood, piling, pallets, broom handle squares, ammunition boxes, and [[United States Army|Army]] pup tent poles.

The financial make-up of the community was divided for several decades into owners and [[Sharecropping|sharecroppers]]. The emergence of the timber-related wood products business ultimately skewed that economic picture, with the corresponding rise of the merchant entrepreneurs also affecting it somewhat. Nevertheless, family fortunes were built on the owner/sharecropper system, and they influenced the financial and social structure of the town. [[Sharecropping]] was the prevailing structure of the primary business enterprise in the county until the land became depleted by failure to rotate crops adequately.

The [[Cleveland County Courthouse (Arkansas)|Cleveland County Courthouse]] was built in 1911 after two contested elections. Two years later, the [[Phoenix Hotel (Rison, Arkansas)|Phoenix Hotel]] was built and served as a popular gathering spot for the local community.

Three [[cotton gin]]s operated in and around Rison. The largest and most efficient gin was owned by Ira E. Moore. That gin was built in 1933 to replace one owned by Moore that was built in 1926 and burned in 1933. The more modern and efficient all-electric gin built in 1933 was the first of its kind in the area.

Residents of Rison owned and operated a dozen or more [[sawmill]]s. The largest lumber mills were the J. I. Porter Lumber Company and the Clio Lumber Company. The Clio mill was built in 1887 five miles north of Rison. According to a 1909 issue of ''Lumberman's Magazine'', the Clio mill owned several thousand acres of timberland and had 432 employees in the sawmill, 130 on the woods crew, and eighty operating the tramlines that transported the logs to the mill. Other mills that added significantly to the economy were the J. L. Sadler Lumber Company, the C. L. Garner & Sons Lumber Company, and the Elrod Lumber Company. In the 1950s, Elrod employed about one-third of Rison's population, more than 300.

During [[World War II]], many Rison residents secured war-related jobs in nearby towns. These included the [[Pine Bluff Arsenal]] ([[Jefferson County, Arkansas|Jefferson County]]) and the Naval Ammunition Depot at [[Camden, Arkansas|Camden]] ([[Ouachita County, Arkansas|Ouachita County]]). Others went to [[California]] to work in the shipbuilding industry. The [[Rison High School|Rison high school's]] football program was suspended until the end of the war due to a lack of players and coaches, as well as financial constraints. One of Rison's citizens, Airman Roy Martin, was shot down over occupied [[France]] and classified as missing in action. The [[French Resistance|French underground]] secured his freedom by hiding him in attics, barns, and other places not known to the [[German occupation of France|German occupying forces]]. When the news of Martin's survival reached Rison, a wild celebration broke out in streets and homes.<ref name="Encyclopedia of Arkansas"/>