Emerson and Waldo, Arkansas

You may know about Ralph Waldo Emerson, the famed poet and philosopher who began inspiring people in the 1800s with his words and wisdom. There are two towns in Columbia County in southern Arkansas that, together, seem to pay tribute to Emerson. Combining the names of these towns with the town of Ralph in Marion County, Arkansas results in the full name of the talented man!

However, the town and depot of Emerson is actually named in dedication to Reuben Logan Emerson, an early Columbia County pioneer who encouraged the incorporation of the town on Friday, March 10th, 1905. Some locals colloquially called the town Reuben instead of Emerson. Reuben Emerson pursued a variety of employment opportunities in his lifetime; he was a politician at the state level, banker, merchant, Columbia Banner newspaper owner, and teacher. Nowadays, some of the 368 people living in Emerson are employed with jobs in various sectors including agriculture, bromine, local banking and business, natural gas, petroleum, timber, etc. Since 1990, the people of Emerson and surrounding areas organize the Purple Hull Pea Festival. The annual June celebration honors the local cultivation of the purple hull pea crop and includes a cook-off competition for cornbread and peas, pea-shelling competition, Purple Hull Pea Farmer of the Year award, Walk for World “Peas” (Peace), and World Championship Rotary Tiller Race.

Home to 1,372 people in the year 2010, Waldo is like Emerson because it, too, was not named after Ralph Waldo Emerson (nor the Where’s Waldo guy). According to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas (↗), Waldo was named “after a railway officer in 1884” and was soon incorporated on August 13th, 1888. The town thrived with a railroad, timber industry, and various businesses before a catastrophic tornado — and later the Great Depression — pummeled the community in the 1930s. Beginning in 1938, the extraction of natural gas and petroleum from the Magnolia Oil Field helped the town recover. Since the beginning of Waldo’s existence, the local banking and timber industries still employ residents. In fact, one of the town’s National Register of Historic Places is the Bank of Waldo, established in 1899 — the other is a circa-1935 water tower.

While the Arkansan towns of Emerson and Waldo are not named after the revered Ralph Waldo Emerson, American society is commemorating his legacy in other ways: museum exhibits, reading his books and poems, statues, artwork, and even personal poems that are inspired by Mr. Emerson.