Vilonia
As early as 1861, pioneers began to settle in this
area now shown on maps as being in Cypress Township and about fourteen
miles east of Conway on Highway 64. The name "Vilsonia" which means
"land of two valleys," was chosen by those settlers. The Masons were
active during those years, and by 1873 they made application for
national affiliation through the Washington, D.C. office. In the process
of gaining affiliation, the name went into the record except that the
"s" of the original "Vilsonia" was omitted. Rather than go to the
further trouble of getting the "s" back into the spelling they accepted
Vilonia as the official spelling.
Mr. and Mrs. Charles Milburn, who wrote "Vilonia - A Short Sketch" for a
1968 issue of Faulkner Facts and Fiddlings, identified the first family
to arrive as being that of Mary Downs. A Confederate soldier's widow,
she and her five daughters and son came from Mississippi. The boy was
the father of Vilonia's prominent pioneer physician, Dr. J .H. Downs. In
1866, following the war, the family of Joel J. Jones came to Vilonia. He
was the grandfather of Raymond Moore, who was the source for much of the
information gathered by the Milburns.
Arriving in 1869 were the families of J .R. Simpson and his son, Noah.
They came from Mississippi by way of Helena, and stopped for awhile near
Mountain Springs in Lonoke County. There Mollie Simpson, the wife of
Noah, gave birth to one of five sons of the family. William Simpson
later married Lee Hill, a lifelong resident of Vilonia, and Owen
Simpson, a nephew of Noah Simpson, later moved to Conway.
The community grew slowly but by 1870 several stores served the needs of
the people. A blacksmith shop and grist mill also came into existence.
Names of early blacksmiths are Barnes, Herring, Holt, and Faulkner. G.
W. Harris and Toll Ward built the first cotton gins. The Harris gin used
steam for its power and the Ward gin used horses to power the machinery.
W.R. Evans built the first general store which included a saloon, and
youngsters of the time made money by finding bottles and reselling them
to Evans. Some bottles were worth twenty-five cents.
The Milburns wrote that at about the same time, 1870, Dr. Carr arrived
to begin his practice. "He built a small dwelling which housed his
medical practice and also contained a general store."
The Masonic Lodge was organized in 1873 with meetings being held in
space above the old one-room schoolhouse built a year later. The lodge
was disbanded about seventy years later. The first schoolhouse was sited
on the southwest corner of the intersection of highways 5 and 64. This
school was operated as a private school by a Mr. Suttle before its
eventual consolidation into the public school district known originally
as the Oak Grove District. Early school had short terms, referred to as
"split terms," to permit the children to be used on the farms at the
planting and other seasons. The Vilonia Training School was controlled
by a private group as well as by the public school board. In 1896, a new
two-story frame building replaced the original schoolhouse. The new
building located near the site of the present gymnasium was also used by
the Masonic Lodge. The first school was ungraded, and this system was
continued until about World War I. In 1928, the first brick school
building was built. This was on the southeast corner of the
intersection, and at about the same time the name Vilonia School
District was adopted. The brick school building burned early in 1941 and
was replaced by a new school. A few years earlier, two buildings of
native stone were constructed on the campus for use in home management
and industrial education programs. In more recent years, the school
district has expanded greatly.
The Arkansas Holiness Academy, which continued until 1930 when it was
consolidated into the Nazarene College in Bethany, Oklahoma, was
commonly called a college, although its students ranged in age from six
to thirty years. The history of the Nazarene Church in Vilonia is traced
to the early years of this institution. The Free Methodists began the
work but transferred it to the Nazarenes. The first building was a
one-room schoolhouse, and Fannie Suddarth was the teacher. Construction
of a new building was begun in 1905, the same year that the board called
C.L. Hawkins, a graduate of Asbury College, to serve as the first
president. Within the next five years, three other buildings were
erected. Latin, geometry, trigonometry "and other common subjects" were
offered, the Milburns wrote, but there was emphasis placed upon the
Bible with chapel services held daily.