Names from Nature Lonoke
While the spelling may not immediately show that its name comes from trees, the pronunciation of Lonoke gives the game away. The city, from which the county takes its name, was established as a railroad depot in 1868. One story says that two railroad contractors named it for some groups of large red oaks. One of the contractors wonderfully suggested a spelling that would give it an Indian-sounding pronunciation, Lo-No-Kah, but that pronunciation never caught on. A more likely – and also interesting – tale is that the contractors named the depot for a large red oak tree that stood alone on the prairie, where the county courthouse now stands, and was used as a landmark. They spelled it “Lone Oak,” pronounced low-NOKE, but a newspaper misprint changed it to “Lonoak,” and eventually the spelling and pronunciation were further mangled into their current form.
Daniel Boice, University of Arkansas at Monticello
