Newsome

Newsome is on the Louisiana and Arkansas Railway and State Highway 11, ten miles southwest of Pittsburg in western Camp County. Settlement of the area began in the 1860s; Newsome grew up around a railroad switch station established in 1887 and was named in honor of John Newsome, an early settler. A post office was established there in 1902, with John M. Newsome as postmaster. By 1914 the town had a bank, a picture show, a hotel, a garage with two car salesmen, a newspaper, the Newsome Argus, a number of stores, and a population estimated at 450. The community, located in an agricultural and lumbering area, served as a shipping and supply point for area lumbermills and farmers. A cyclone in April 1919 killed at least eight people, and the town apparently never recovered. By 1925 its population had fallen to 165. It had 200 residents and ten rated businesses in 1931 and a population of 100 in 1968. The post office was closed in 1972, and from that year to 1990 the population of Newsome was reported as 100. In 1988 the town had no rated businesses. In 2000 the population was still 100.