Home » Arkansas » Mount Ida

James W. Loewen (1942-2021)

We mourn the loss of our friend and colleague and remain committed to the work he began.

Mount Ida

Arkansas

Basic Information

Type of Place
Independent City or Town
Metro Area
Politics c. 1860?
Unions, Organized Labor?

Sundown Town Status

Sundown Town in the Past?
Surely
Was there an ordinance?
Don't Know
Sign?
Don’t Know
Year of Greatest Interest
Still Sundown?
Probably

Census Information

The available census data from 1860 to the present
Total White Black Asian Native Hispanic Other BHshld
1860
1870
1880
1890
1900
1910
1920
1930
1940
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000 981 947 1 3 19 5 1
2010
2020

Method of Exclusion

  • Unknown

Main Ethnic Group(s)

  • Unknown

Group(s) Excluded

  • Black

Comments

I went to high school in a town in Arkansas called
Mount Ida. There are absolutely NO blacks in the
town. No blacks in the elementary or high school. The
closest to a black kid is a boy of mixed blood, but he
had a white mom and white step dad.”
-college sophomore, former resident of Mount Ida

When a local man considered building a sawmill,
“leaders in Mount Ida… reacted as had the leaders of
Amity, years before: no sawmill, no blacks.”

White farmers also warned the railroad contractor
not to use a crew of blacks on the railroad grade, so
they left.

Blacks hired to straighten rails, etc., were forced to
leave before finishing their job, c. 1923-31. “‘They
would not allow black people in Montgomery County,’
one old resident recalls.”