Goodspeeds, 1890
The several post offices in Johnson County are named as follows: Batson, Berlin, Clarksville, Cline, Coal Hill, Davis, Eubanks's Mills, Fort Douglas, Grace, Hagarville, Harmony, Hartman, Hunt, Knoxville, Lamar, Ludwig, Lutherville, Melson, Montana, Mount Levi, Ozark, Ozone, Powers, Smedley, Spadra, and Zadock.

Berlin Post office is located at Piney Station, Lamar Post office at Cabin Creek. Clarksville and Coal Hill, money order offices, are the two largest towns in the county. Of these post offices, Coal Hill, Hartman, Montana, Spadra, Clarksville, Lamar (Cabin Creek), Knoxville and Berlin (Piney Station), are on the line of the Little Rock and Fort Smith Railroad; the others are conveniently distributed throughout the county.

The less important points are some of them the centers of considerable trade, and all are supplied with churches and schools within accessible distance. Clarksville is the seat of justice; Coal Hill is the principal center of the county's coal industry; Montana is a point destined to become noted for its coal; Spadra is the seat of extensive coal operations. Cabin Creek and Knoxville are promising lumber manufacturing points and local trade centers.

Clarksville, the county seat of Johnson County, is situated on the Little Rock and Fort Smith Railroad, 101 miles from Little Rock, and on Spadra Creek, four miles from the Arkansas River. It is located on a level plat of land, with overhanging cliffs and ridges on the east and west, and the valley of Spadra Creek opening to the north and south. It has a population of 1,000, with business houses in proportion, and public improvements commensurate with its importance, including a handsome college building, erected by popular subscription. The town has been incorporated since early in its history, and its charter was extended February 5, 1859. In common the citizens are Southerners who keep fully abreast of the times. There are only a few of them who are wealthy, but as a whole they are in origin and equipment of a class whom it is not common to meet at interior western towns. And if at a venture an explanation were sought for their continuance at so remote a point, it would no doubt be found in the fact of the county affording the only natural gateway entrances to the Ozarks, it appearing to be only a question of time when Clarksville is to become a town of 10,000 to 15,000 inhabitants. On the social and moral side of the community the distinction is also to be made of a united sentiment in all matters pertaining to schools and churches. The Methodists, Cumberland Presbyterians, Catholics and people of other religious denominations have houses of worship or hold regular meetings. The school population, white and colored, is about 400. Local commerce is aided by the recently organized Bank of Clarksville.

Coal Hill is about centrally located in the best part of the railroad lands, and contains the principal office of the land department of the Little Rock and Fort Smith Railroad Company. It was incorporated January 8, 1880. The coal interests here are treated more at length elsewhere. Much cotton is handled here, and two gins do a large business. The Arkansas Valley Improvement Company is engaged in prospecting, handling real estate and placing investments. F. G. Srygley is general agent for the western division of the Little Rock and Fort Smith Railway land department, consisting of lands belonging to the company, situated in Sebastian, Crawford, Franklin, Logan and Johnson Counties. This town, with a rapidly growing population, has a bright future if the proper capital and ability are devoted to the development of its rich natural resources.

Hartman, twelve miles west of Clarksville, was founded in 1881, and has at present a population of nearly 400. It is 113 miles west of Little Rock on the line of the Valley route. Its business interests are represented by several general, grocery and drug stores, blacksmith and wagon shops, a hotel, a grist mill, and a cotton gin. It has three churches: Methodist, Presbyterian and Christian and two schools. It commands an approach to the Boston Range via Horsehead Valley, and this approach is known to afford one of the routes in this county over which a passage of the mountain is not deemed impracticable. At this point the foot hills converge on both the Arkansas and Horsehead Valleys, the immediate lowlands of which, 25,000 acres in extent, will alone give the place importance, once the whole area is placed in cultivation. Other advantages in prospect are a great body of coal, for which Horsehead Valley is celebrated, and large forests which flank the valley from its mouth to the head, all of which would be commanded in the event that a north and south railroad pursues the route indicated. This locality, the scene of the original coal discoveries in the state, is situated on the western outcrop of what is known as the Horsehead or Spadra coal basin of the upper Arkansas Valley. The distance from the Arkansas River is three miles. The principal shipments consist of cotton.