The expulsion of Black railroad workers from Polk County, Arkansas, in August 1896 was a significant episode in the history of racial violence, labor conflict, and railroad expansion in the post-Reconstruction South. The incident began on August 5, when white residents forced approximately thirty African American laborers from the county. Violence escalated the next day near Horatio in neighboring Sevier County, where a mob attacked a camp of Black railroad workers, killing three men and wounding eight. Contemporary newspapers called the confrontation the “Polk County Race War,” although the victims were workers attempting to secure employment rather than participants in an organized racial conflict.
The violence occurred during construction of the Kansas City, Pittsburg and Gulf Railway, a major transportation project intended to connect Kansas City with a Gulf Coast port. Railroad development brought rapid economic and demographic change to western Arkansas. Construction crews graded roadbeds, laid track, built bridges, and created depots across communities that previously had limited access to national markets. Polk County’s population rose from 9,283 in 1890 to 18,352 in 1900, reflecting the region’s railroad-driven expansion. The railway also established Mena, which became the county seat and an important division point.
Railroad contractors required a large supply of manual labor. D. J. McDonald, a contractor associated with the project, employed Black workers because sufficient labor was otherwise difficult to obtain. This employment policy challenged white residents who opposed the presence of African Americans in Polk County. According to the Arkansas Gazette, local citizens declared that they had no Black residents and would not permit Black laborers to work on the railroad. Contractors remained determined to use African American labor, producing a direct confrontation between corporate labor needs and local racial exclusion.
On August 5, white residents drove approximately thirty Black workers from Polk County. Another group arrived by rail at Horatio on August 6 while traveling to the construction area. The Sevier County sheriff attempted to protect them, and McDonald reportedly hired twenty guards. These precautions did not prevent an attack. A mob that included local white residents and immigrant railroad workers identified in contemporary reports as Italian, Swedish, and Hungarian raided the Black workers’ camp. Three unidentified African American men were killed, and eight others were wounded. Newspaper reports stated that several suspected leaders were arrested, but available accounts do not document successful prosecutions.
The participation of immigrant laborers demonstrates that the attack combined racial exclusion with competition for railroad employment. Black workers occupied a vulnerable position within the late nineteenth-century labor force. Employers recruited them when labor was scarce or when contractors sought a dependable and comparatively inexpensive workforce. White and immigrant workers sometimes treated their employment as an economic threat. Racial prejudice transformed labor competition into collective violence, while the absence of effective legal protection allowed mobs to determine who could work and reside in particular communities.
The incident also forms part of a wider pattern of racial violence in Arkansas during 1896. Similar attacks occurred at industrial and railroad work sites in Union, Lafayette, Ouachita, and Columbia counties. Black laborers were threatened, assaulted, or expelled from communities where white residents sought control over employment. These events developed during the broader collapse of African American civil and political rights after Reconstruction. Segregation, disfranchisement, lynching, and forced removal worked together to limit Black mobility and economic independence.
The Polk County attack had consequences beyond the immediate casualties. African Americans reportedly passed through Texarkana after being forced from the region. Although Black families continued to live in Polk County, their numbers declined sharply during the following decades. The 1900 census recorded 177 African American residents in the county. That number fell to forty-six in 1910, nine in 1920, and three in 1930. Economic changes also contributed to this decline, especially the later removal of railroad facilities from Mena, but racial hostility remained documented. In 1920, the Mena Star advertised the city as “100% white,” and organized Ku Klux Klan activity appeared in the county during the 1920s.
The events of August 5–6, 1896, therefore reveal how railroad expansion could produce prosperity while reinforcing racial inequality. The railway connected western Arkansas to national commerce, created towns, and stimulated population growth. At the same time, violence denied Black workers equal access to the employment created by that expansion. The Polk County Race War was historically significant because it helped establish racial exclusion through intimidation and murder. Its history demonstrates that local economic development and racial cleansing could occur simultaneously, with lasting effects on the demographic and social character of an Arkansas county.
References / More Knowledge:
Encyclopedia of Arkansas. “Polk County Race War of 1896.” Central Arkansas Library System. https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/polk-county-race-war-of-1896-7390/
Encyclopedia of Arkansas. “Little Africa (Polk County).” Central Arkansas Library System. https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/little-africa-polk-county-9250/
Encyclopedia of Arkansas. “Polk County.” Central Arkansas Library System. https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/polk-county-800/
Encyclopedia of Arkansas. “Sundown Towns.” Central Arkansas Library System. https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/sundown-towns-3658/
Kansas City Southern Historical Society. “A Brief History of the Kansas City Southern Railway Company.” https://kcshs.org/history/kcs_briefhistory.html
Lancaster, Guy. “‘There Are Not Many Colored People Here’: African Americans in Polk County, Arkansas, 1896–1937.” Arkansas Historical Quarterly 70, no. 4 (Winter 2011): 429–449. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23188017
New York Times. “Race War in Arkansas.” August 10, 1896. Reproduced by the Encyclopedia of Arkansas. https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/media/%C2%93race-war-in-arkansas%C2%94-8447/