Curious Names Bird Towns
For KUAR, this is Dan Boice with Naming Arkansas.
Some Arkansas towns are named for native animals including not only mammals, but also birds, and especially cardinals. Three towns have been named Red Bird at one time or another, in Dallas County, Mississippi County, and Montgomery County, but none of them still exists. The Mississippi County town of Birdsong was a railroad station originally with the delightful name of Bubble but locally called Hubbard. The name was eventually changed to Cuble, and finally in 1931 to Birdsong. Astonishinglyno one seems to have a clear notion of the origins of any of the four names.
The town of Birdeye in Cross County was first called Walnut Camp. When the US Postal Service rejected the town’s request for that name in 1904, members of the Bird’s Eye View Church submitted the shortened form of Birdeye, which the Postal Service accepted, and not, as Ernie Deane suggests, because on a map the town is no bigger than a bird’s eye.
For the University of Arkansas at Monticello, this is Dan Boice.