World War I manufacturing needs led to the creation of a short-lived shipping point on the Mississippi River. Bauxite was an important war material and in March 1917 the American Bauxite Company began shipping bauxite ore from Saline County via the Rock Island Railroad to a Crittenden County community called Bauxippi – a combination of bauxite and Mississippi.
Bauxippi received a post office, established on a quarter boat, in July 1917. In 1918 Bauxippi suffered damage when ice floes on the Mississippi River separated steel barges owned by the Aluminum Ore Company from their moorings. As the wartime need for bauxite ore lessened, Rock Island Railroad officials examined the facilities at Bauxippi to see if they could be used for unloading freight from river shipping onto railroad cars.
The Bauxippi post office closed briefly in 1921, then reopened before closing permanently on June 30, 1926. Bauxippi survives today as the Bauxippi-Wyanoke revetment in West Memphis.
To learn more, visit encyclopediaofarkansas.net.
Read the Encyclopedia entry at Bauxippi (Crittenden County) - Encyclopedia of Arkansas
