There were towns and villages in this county which do not now exist or do not exist under their former names. The chief of these old towns was Norristown, once the county seat, which came within a vote or two of being chosen as the capital of Arkansas. It was nearly opposite the present site of Dardanelle.

At the time, F. Saugrain set up his store at Dardanelle, Samuel Norris opened another on the north bank of the river. It survived the Saugrain store and had a monopoly of trade on both sides of the river for a few years subsequently.

Norristown was founded in 1837, and was for a time the county seat of Pope. This influenced a number to locate there, among whom was a young man, from a store in Little Rock, by the name of George Williams, who purchased several lots in Norristown, opened a store, boarded for a few years, then married a woman of the Haney family. Subsequently, in the days of Norristown's decadence, he was a pioneer merchant at Dardanelle.

Nothing remains to mark the site of this once ambitious settlement. Other once promising places have also disappeared before that irresistible march of civilization, which destroys that it may build up, making the interests of the few contribute to the welfare of the many, and compelling the present to yield tribute to the future.