Map - Ashley County, Arkansas (Ashley County)

Ashley County is a rural South Arkansas county with a culture, economy, and history based on timber and agriculture. Created as Arkansas's 52nd county on November 30, 1848, Ashley County has seven incorporated municipalities, including Hamburg, the county seat and Crossett, the most populous city. The county is also the site of numerous unincorporated communities and ghost towns. The county is named for Chester Ashley, a prominent lawyer in the Arkansas Territory and U.S. senator from the state from 1844 to 1848.

The county is roughly divided into two halves by Bayou Bartholomew, with the rich, fertile, alluvial soils of the Arkansas Delta in the east, and the shortleaf pine forests of the Arkansas Timberlands in the west. The county contains six protected areas: Overflow National Wildlife Refuge, Felsenthal National Wildlife Refuge, three Wildlife Management Areas and the Crossett Experimental Forest. Other historical features such as log cabins, one-room school houses, community centers, and museums describe the history and culture of Ashley County.

Ashley County occupies 939.08 sqmi and contained a population of 19,062 as of the 2020 Census. The economy is largely based on agriculture and small manufacturing. Poverty and unemployment rates are above national averages, but steady. Household incomes are below state and national averages. Politically, Ashley County has transitioned from reliably Democratic to steadily Republican since the mid-20th century.

Ashley County is mostly served by two school districts, Hamburg School District and Crossett School District. Higher education is provided at University of Arkansas at Monticello College of Technology—Crossett, a public two-year community college in Crossett. Ashley County Medical Center in Crossett is a community hospital providing primary care in the county. Although no Interstate highways serve Ashley County, the county has access to three United States highways (U.S. Route 82 [US 82], US 165, and US 425) and eleven Arkansas state highways. Ashley County is also served by one public owned/public use general aviation airport, Z. M. Jack Stell Field, one electric cooperative (Ashley-Chicot Electric Cooperative), and ten community water systems provide potable water to customers in the county. It is an alcohol prohibition or dry county.

Ashley County, the fifth-largest county in Arkansas in terms of land area, was formed by the 7th Arkansas General Assembly on November 30, 1848, from portions of Drew, Chicot and Union Counties. It was named after Chester Ashley, a US Senator and land speculator. The final borders were laid in 1861.

The first settlement in Ashley County appears to have been made by the French at Longview. Now there is no trace of Longview that was a river town connecting the Arkansas Post and Monroe, Louisiana. The Fogle and Gulett families claimed to have located at Longview in 1768 or 1770. In 1846 Captain Phillip Derden came from Virginia and moved to Longview. He bought furs and skins from hunters and trappers and ran a general store for pioneer settlers. He built a log warehouse and a lived in a 2-story log cabin. The home of Isaac Denson in Fountain Hill served as the temporary county seat until a new centrally located town could be established in 1849. It was named "Hamburg" in honor of "fine deer hams" enjoyed by the county commissioners making the selection in the vicinity. The 1850 courthouse was replaced in 1905 but was lost in a fire in 1921. The current courthouse was built in the 1960s. The courtroom in the courthouse has a one-of-a-kind architecture: it is round, and the seats are arranged so that members of the audience can always see each other.

John R. Steelman, who wrote his 1928 PhD dissertation on "mob action in the South", wrote: Ashley County has had five lynchings since 1900, the last of which occurred in 1927. On February 19, 1904 at Crossett - a sawmill town - a Negro was lynched for Murder and on September 5, another for "assaulting whites". In 1908 the only lynching in the state was at Parkdale, Ashley County. Earnest Williams was thrust into eternity by a band of men who were "outraged" at him for "using offensive language"'. On May 30, 1909 a Negro was lynched at Portland for Murder. The last lynching in Ashley County occurred on August 26, 1927, Winston Pounds was "taken from a posse of deputy sheriffs" and hanged to a tree one and a half miles from Wilmot, charged with having "attacked a young married woman".