Portmanteau Names

For Little Rock Public Radio, this is Dan Boice, with Naming Arkansas.
A portmanteau word combines two words into one, such as motel, which combines motor and hotel. Arkansas has a number of places which are named for two – or more – states or counties that they might straddle. On the border of Dallas County and Clark County is the town of Dalark, and the town of Calion is in both Calhoun and Union Counties. Up in Clay County, the town of Moark combines the postal abbreviations for Missouri and Arkansas, even though it is almost a mile from the Missouri border. The largest – and most famous – Arkansas portmanteau city is of course Texarkana, so named by a railroad surveyor who nailed up a sign with the three parts – Tex, Ark, and Ana. Since Texarkana is equally in two states, the Texas and Arkansas contributions to the name are obvious, but it’s less clear how the final section– the “ana” of Louisiana – got added, since Louisiana is thirty miles away.
For the University of Arkansas at Monticello, which is not a portmanteau, this is Dan Boice.