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We know exactly when the city of Alexander came into being, because on January 13, 1879, a subscriber wrote a letter to the editor of the Arkadelphia Southern Standard, which glowed with pride in the rapid growth of a thriving “little town” that started with two families just seven months earlier in 1878 and was already boasting about its 70 inhabitants.
In that short time, the little settlement, located 13 miles down the Iron Mountain Company track from Little Rock, had acquired a “drug store” and practicing physician”, two other stores and a sawmill. As was the norm at that time, the railroad company was selling lots for dwellings and businesses. Money was already being budgeted for building a church and school but, in the meantime, occasional services were held in the mill house.
In the same enthusiastic letter, mention is made of “a worthy colony of honest, industrious German immigrants” who came down from Ohio after purchasing land. Another source records that in the same year, a Pennsylvania German named E.A. Meninger took an 880-acre farmstead.
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