Walnut Ridge and Hoxie

When word came to Old Walnut Ridge that the railroad was coming, Col. Willis Miles Ponder moved the entire settlement a few miles, cleared a site for a depot, and platted the new town in 1874. Not long after, Hoxie was formed when Henry and Mary Boas offered a right-of-way for another railroad through their land just south of Walnut Ridge. Born by the railroads, the towns have been joined at the hip ever since. By 1889, there was a mule-drawn streetcar connecting the two towns, replaced by ...