Marion County, AR
History
The first inhabitants of the area were Native Americans once broadly categorized as the “Ozark Bluff Dwellers,” but by the time the first European explorers arrived, the Osage maintained a number of seasonal hunting camps throughout the Ozarks. Prior to white settlement, the Ozark Plateau was inhabited by the Osage Indians for centuries. Present-day Arkansas was under French rule from 1682 until the Spanish took over in 1762. The territory was returned to France in 1800 and sold to the United States as the Louisiana Purchase in 1803.Marion County was created in 1835 from a portion of the western part of Izard County. The new county was named in honor of General Francis Marion, a Revolutionary War general, referred to by the British as the “Old Swamp Fox.” The county seat, Yellville, was created when white Americans appropriated the cleared land and settlement of Shawneetown, which was abandoned by Shawnee Indians in 1832. A group of Shawnee had founded Shawneetown on the White River after being invited to relocate to the Ozarks by the Western Cherokee in 1817.
Sources: Wikipedia and The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture