KUAR Arkansas’s Amazing Place Names # 2
State Name
When French missionaries came down the Mississippi in 1673, Indians in Illinois
warned them of a people we now call the Quapaw, but which the French heard
pronounced as Akansa or Akamsee.
With time, an ‘r’ worked its way into the first syllable, and either an ‘s’ or a ‘w’ got
added to the end. When Congress created the Territory of Arkansaw in 1819, it
was spelled with an ‘w’.
But William Woodruff, publisher of the Arkansas Gazette, spelled Arkansas with
an ‘s’, and that led to the official spelling with statehood in 1836.
Early citizens also disagreed about the pronunciation of the name, some holding
with arKANsas and some with ARkansaw.
The pronunciation was finally settled by the state legislature in 1881.
Disagreement about how to spell the possessive form continued for another
century, and whether we are Arkansans, Arkansawyers, or Arkies is still a matter
of contention.
Daniel Boice, University of Arkansas at Monticello
