Editing Russellville, Arkansas (section)

====Antebellum period====
According to tradition, in the 1840s, the choice of a name for the community of five homes and a store was between Russellville—for Thomas Russell, who had the first home in the area and was a doctor—and Shinnville—for [[Jacob L. Shinn]] who established the community's first store.<ref>{{cite web |title=Russellville Downtown Historic District |url=https://npgallery.nps.gov/GetAsset/795d2530-138b-450a-8ac7-7a00eaa303a5/ |website=National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places |publisher=National Park Service |access-date=February 16, 2023 |quote=It is said that at a town picnic on July 4, 1847, it was decided that the new settlement which consisted of a general store and five houses should be given a name. They determined the name should be either Russellville, after Dr. Thomas Russell, largely because he had the first home with brick chimneys and was a doctor, or Shinnville, after Jacob L. Shinn, who established the first general store in the settlement. The results of the election to name the town were seven votes for Russellville and only five for Shinnville.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=West |first1=D. Porter |title=D. Porter West's Early history of Pope county; a story |date=1906 |location=Pope County, Arkansas |page=9 |url=https://www.loc.gov/item/41036286/ |access-date=December 30, 2022 |quote=At the close of the war Mr. Jake Shinn returned home in 1847. He had saved his wages and opened up a small store; pointing west opposite to Mr. Hugh Wells. Shortly afterwards a number of neighbors from the settlement of the prairie casually met, and the question of a name for the town arose and the subject was discussed pro and con. Mr. Shinn’s friends claimed the name upon the ground of his having the first store, Mr. Russell’s for occupying the first house. The vote was taken and the result was the town was named Russellville.}}</ref> However, Russellville was actually named about 1842 when Jacob was a teen.<ref>{{cite news |title=Thomas Russell, M. D. |url=https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84023017/1885-06-18/ed-1/seq-3/ |access-date=March 2, 2023 |work=The Russellville Democrat |issue=22, 12th year |publisher=The Democrat Printing Company |date=June 18, 1885 |location=Russellville, Arkansas |page=3 |quote=About the year 1842, when but a small hamlet, this place was named, by a majority vote of its citizens, Russellville, in honor of Doctor Thomas Russell, who was at the time one of the principal landowners, and a prominent citizen. }}</ref> Russellville is listed on mail routes in requests for proposals for carrying the mail in 1842,<ref name="U. S. Mail Proposals">{{cite news |title=U. S. Mail Proposals |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/131010528 |access-date=February 25, 2023 |work=Arkansas State Gazette |issue=15 Vol. XXIII |publisher=William E. Woodruff |date=March 23, 1842 |location=Little Rock, Arkansas |page=1 |quote=Leave Washington every Saturday at 6 a. m., arrive at Russellville every Monday by 6 p.m.... Leave Russellville every Tuesday at 6 a.m., arrive at Washington every Thursday by 6 p.m.}}</ref> when Shinn was 15, and in 1846, when he was 19,<ref>{{cite news |title=Proposals for carrying the mails of the United States |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/287730127 |access-date=February 25, 2023 |work=Arkansas True Democrat |issue=22, Vol III |publisher=A. H. Rutherford |date=February 11, 1846 |location=Little Rock, Arkansas |page=3 |quote=Leave Camden every other Friday at 6 a. m., arrive at Russellville next Sunday by 6 p.m.... Leave Russellville every other Monday at 6 a.m., arrive at Washington next Wednesday by 6 p.m.}}</ref> so naming the community after Jacob would have been quite unlikely. However, in the 1840s, his uncle, James Madison Shinn, and father, B. D. R. Shinn, operated a store in the small frontier community, so any truth in the naming tradition may apply to them.<ref name="New West">{{cite book |editor1-last=Speer |editor1-first=William S. |editor2-last=Brown |editor2-first=Hon. John Henry |title=The Encyclopedia of the New West |date=1881 |publisher=The United States Biographical Publishing Company |location=Marshall, Texas |pages=155–156 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JjlEy4Bq3dMC |access-date=March 16, 2023}} Note: The Shinn's youngest son, Charles W., was born in Youngstown, Ohio, in June 1864.</ref>

A post office was established as early as the early 1840s based on request for mail route proposals and certainly by 1854.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Baldwin |first1=Thomas |last2=Thomas |first2=J (MD) |title=A New and Complete Gazeter of the United States |date=1854 |publisher=Lippincott, Grambo & Co. |location=Philadelphia |page=1013 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_5s6AAAAcAAJ&dq=russellville+arkansas+%22post+office%22&pg=PA1013 |access-date=February 18, 2023}}</ref>