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Rosboro is an unincorporated community in Pike County, Arkansas, United States. It lies about 5 miles west of Amity and 6 miles east of Glenwood. Once a thriving and populated mill town, with several stores, a large mill and kiln, and over one hundred shotgun houses, it now has only one store, and a few homes, with a population of less than 100. It is not incorporated, but is the location of the Centerpoint High School and the Centerpoint School District made up of the two former schools of Amity and Glenwood.
Contents
Map of Rosboro, AR 71921, USA
History
Rosboro was started by Thomas Whitaker Rosborough. Rosborough had formed the Caddo River Timber Company in 1906, in Rosboro, a town named in a shortened version of his own name. His company also formed Mauldin, Arkansas, in Montgomery County a few years later, in 1918. He shipped logs from Mauldin to Rosboro, his main mill, by way of train for processing. He also built a railway line from Norman to Mauldin to make this happen. Due to it being Rosborough's main mill operations base, it outlasted Mauldin by almost a decade, as well as outlasting another milltown of similar origins, Graysonia, Arkansas.
In 1939, Rosborough decided to move his operations to the far northwest. He relocated to Springfield, Oregon, taking with him any loyal employees who wished to make the trip. The move effectively ended the small town of Rosboro, with almost the entire population moving within one years time, either following Thomas Rosborough west, or moving to other locations in search of work. For a time, however, the town did have another mill, which was opened there that same year by the Ozan Lumber Company. That mill operated, though on a much smaller scale than Rosborough's, until 1956. Thomas Rosborough's company, called "Rosboro", flourished. Today, still based in Springfield, Oregon, it is one of the few fully integrated forest products operators in the United States, and now has one of the largest private timberland holdings in the Pacific Northwest.