Far West Seminary stood here after being founded by the Rev. Cephas Washburn and chartered by the State of Arkansas in 1840. Its successor school, the Rev. Robert W. Mecklin's Ozark Institute, was located a half mile east of this site. These early schools helped give the county an educational reputation that contributed to the establishment of the State University in 1871. Other early teachers here were Robert Graham, Peter and James Van Hoose, Prof. Lockhart, Charles M. Leverett, and Miss Annie James, principal of the girls' school. In 1850, Graham took 20 of his boys with him to Fayetteville to start Arkansas College, the first college in Arkansas to grant academic degrees.