Curious Names Non-Bird Towns
For KUAR, this is Dan Boice with Naming Arkansas.
While the flight and song of birds has inspired a number of Arkansas place names, there are some place names that look avian but are not, despite their appearance, named for our friends on the wing.
Bird Hill in Ashley County, which existed in the late nineteenth century, was named for the Bird Family which owned land at the top of a hill. The Randolph County town of Birdell, according to Ernie Deane, was named by postmaster Joseph Hufstedler for his two daughters, Birdie and Ella. Bird’s Springs in Jefferson County was named for a family whose name was spelled with either an ‘i’ or a ‘y,’ and disappeared 150 years ago. Finally, in Conway County, the town of Mayflower grew up in the 1830s around the Mayflower Methodist Church, so named for the month in which it was founded. Around 1900, the town’s name was changed to Birdtown to honor William Bird, a prominent merchant whose father had been killed while fighting in the Union army.
For the University of Arkansas at Monticello, this is Dan Boice.