Kiomatia

Kiomatia, in a bend of the Red River in northwestern Red River County, was included in Arkansas Territory when Claiborne Wright settled at Pecan Point on the north side of the river in 1816. After Wright's death his sons crossed the river to settle at Jonesboro and Kiomatia. A post office granted to Travis George Wright in 1850 was named for the Kiomatia River, called "clear water" by the Indians. The office was discontinued in 1859 after another office called Flintham's Tanyard for Thomas B. Flintham was established in 1855. This second office, renamed Milton in 1866, became the Kiomatia office in 1868, when Wright again became postmaster. B. W. Hooks, postmaster in 1875, changed the name to Hooks Ferry. The population was 100 in 1880, when Samuel J. Wright was postmaster and operated a gristmill and cotton gin. The post office was discontinued in 1886 but was reestablished as Kiomache in 1898. It was reopened as Kiomatia in 1908, discontinued from 1918 to 1924, and finally closed in the 1950s. The population of Kiomatia reached its highest point in 1914, when it was reported as 250. During the 1930s it declined to a low of forty-six. From 1940 through 1966 the population was estimated at 120, and from 1968 through through 2000 at sixty-one.