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History · Pleasant Plains

Pleasant Plains’ post office opened in 1842

Most of Pleasant Plains was built recently: 2% of its homes predate 1940 and the median home dates from 1979. Below: maps from 1890 on and the census since 1910.

1842first post office
0on the National Register
2%homes built before 1940
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Quick answers

How Pleasant Plains began

When was Pleasant Plains founded?

1842

The Pleasant Plains post office opened in 1842, the earliest record of the town by name.

First census: 151 in 19102020 census: 352184 years
Founding year: the first Pleasant Plains post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓

What stands out about Pleasant Plains’ past

Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.

A history waiting to be writtenNo old photos of Pleasant Plains are in the public archives yet. The rest are in attics and albums.Deep rootsA post office since 1842: 184 years of Pleasant Plains.
★ What stands out · Help out

Start Pleasant Plains’s collection

The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Pleasant Plains’s history is told.

Decades since 1900 with photos
00s10s20s30s40s50s60s70s80s90s
0 of 10 decades. The empty ones are waiting for someone’s album.
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The story

How Pleasant Plains came to be

From Wikipedia’s history of Pleasant Plains.

Read it all →

The historic Southwest Trail, a path used by most travelers entering Arkansas early in the 1800s, entered Pleasant Plains on today's U.S. Highway 167 from Southside. From Pleasant Plains the Southwest Trail headed to Sunnydale via Arkansas Highway 157, en route to Center Hill and Floyd. By the 1830s more than 80 percent of the Arkansas territory's population had entered through the Southwest Trail. The route, at the time the main route to Texas, is also known as the Old Military Road.

Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

By decade

No old photos in the archives yet

Weddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.

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On the map

Pleasant Plains on the map, 1890 to 1986

Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Pleasant Plains. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.

Pleasant Plains on the 1890 USGS mapPleasant Plains on the 1986 USGS map1890Batesville sheet · 1:125,000

U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Pleasant Plains.

People over time

Pleasant Plains, census by census

0100200300192019401960198020002020352

Grew from 151 people in 1910 to 352 in 2020.

12 censuses, 1910–2020.

U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Pleasant Plains’ Wikipedia page.

Famous people

Famous people close to Pleasant Plains

Nobody well known was born in Pleasant Plains itself, so here are the best known from just nearby.

See all →
Mary SteenburgenAmerican actress, singer and songwriter · b. 1953
Alice WaltonAmerican heiress to the fortune of Wal-Mart Sto… · b. 1949
B
Beth DittoAmerican singer · b. 1981
Jim WaltonAmerican businessman · b. 1948
Austin ReavesAmerican basketball player · b. 1998
L
Laurell K. HamiltonAmerican novelist · b. 1963

Questions about Pleasant Plains’ history

What year was Pleasant Plains founded?

The Pleasant Plains post office opened in 1842, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).

Memory lane

What the archives can’t tell you, neighbors can.

Town Square →
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Sources

Where this page comes from

Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021). How TownRatings grades history →

From Wikipedia, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock) and the USGS Geographic Names Information System. Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.