Logan County, Arkansas: History
The Arkansas General Assembly defined the state's 64th county on March 22, 1871, incorporating parts of Scott, Yell, and Pope counties (later adding part of Franklin County). They named it Sarber County for John Newton Sarber (1837–1905), an attorney and Republican state senator from Yell County. He had introduced the resolution to organize the county. Born and reared in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he had moved with his widowed father and family to Kansas in 1855. Sarber became influential in the Arkansas legislature, introducing bills to establish a public school system for the first time, and what developed as the University of Arkansas. In 1873, Sarber was appointed U.S. marshal of the U.S. Western District Court at Fort Smith.
Conservative white Democrats viewed Sarber as a carpetbagger because he was a Union Army veteran who had decided to settle in Arkansas. There he had married Susan Rebecca Rose in 1867. She was the daughter of Moreau Rose, an early pioneer and a Confederate supporter, and his wife. The Sarber couple had six children together; five survived to adulthood.
After white Democrats regained control of the state legislature in 1875, they renamed Sarber County for James Logan (1792–1859), a Kentucky-born early settler in the area who had served in the territorial legislature, from Crawford County, and the first state legislature, from Scott County (part of the latter was absorbed into Logan County).