History of Goobertown
Because four Georgian soldiers marched through a northeastern Arkansas peanut patch and like what they found there, a new settlement was born and new village got its name. It was during the Civil War.
In 1865, a troop of weary Guinett County, Georgia soldiers were pushing their way through the fields of Northeastern Arkansas. Traveling across patch after patch of rich farm land where crops of peanuts were grown in abundance, the troop became known by the nickname "Goober Grabblers" because of their liking for peanuts and the tendency to grab as many of the goobers as they could from the fields as they passed through.
Four of the Goober Grabblers could not forget the fields they had seen. The next year peace came to the states. These four , remembering what they had found, returned to homestead the land. They were the pioneer citizens of the settlement-which became known as Goobertown. Their wives, three of them the Edwards sisters, came along.
The four men were George T. Hay, George Johnson, his brother Will Johnson, and Hosea Hopkins. Not long afterwards, the rest of the Edwards family, following the example of the three sisters, also came from Georgia, traveling by train as far as Forrest City and buying teams and wagons to strike out through the wilderness.
The land was studded with yellow poplar timber and the farming areas were rich and good. The citizens were progressive. Soon "Goobertown" had a post office, a schoolhouse (that stood until 1947) and a church that is still active and growing today.
