In a 1987 issue of the Arkansas Historical Quarterly, Ellen Compton wrote about the Bradley County seat of Warren.

"At the beginning of the 20th century, Bradley County's economy and culture were singularly agricultural," she wrote. "The largest town in the county was, and is, Warren. According to John Page, the young editor of the Warren News in the 1880s and 1890s, Warren had the ambience of a country village. There were no surveyed and platted lots outside the courthouse square. Homes were situated randomly, surrounded by enough land to include barns, horse lots and gardens.

"Farm and domestic animals shared the muddy or dusty streets with their owners. Warren was also a successful commercial community. There were mercantile stores, a bank, a hotel. While the dirt roads were often terrible, a few rail lines went to Warren. There was a branch of the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Railroad, and part of the bed of the old Mississippi, Ouachita & Red River Railroad (the first to be chartered in Arkansas in 1852) was being worked on.

"Best of all, Warren was the county seat with a substantial, even elegant, brick courthouse. If life was good in Warren in those days, her citizens still itched to participate in the economic expansion begun in the Gilded Age and celebrated at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1892."

Residents of Bradley County and other counties in the heart of the south Arkansas pine belt experienced some of that economic expansion as large timber companies--most of which were owned by out-of-state interests--came to the area to harvest virgin timber. One such company was Arkansas Lumber Co., which had its offices on Sturgis Street (the Sturgis name remained prominent in south Arkansas for decades) in Warren. Southern Lumber Co. and Bradley Lumber Co., two other major enterprises, also called Warren home.

Arkansas Lumber once owned 85,000 acres in the area. Arkansas Lumber had its own powerhouse adjacent to its log pond and supplied Warren's first electricity. Its commissary, known as Arkansas Trading Co., was one of the biggest stores in south Arkansas. The company even had a clubhouse so single employees would have a place to socialize.

Arkansas Lumber, Bradley........

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