Frontier Setting was early Marion

 

 In the 1840's and 50's Marion had no direct state connection with the older communities of east and central Kentucky and Tennessee.  The new town like the trans-Mississippi West cow-towns, had to  build itself independently like most Western frontier towns. 

The town of Marion during her first two decades must have closely resembled the typical movie set of an old frontier town with weatherboard log and frame two-storied buildings surrounding a public square.

As noted before Marion, like the towns of the Old West, was not intended to be a residential center but a business centralization point of the surrounding territory, so there were only a dozen or so substantial residences within the boundaries of Marion before the Civil War.

Marion had only two or three sawmills and a couple of grist mills, all water or horse-powered, situated near the bank of Crooked Creek just to the north and west of the present Northwest corner of Marion.  

One of the original by-laws provided that with the exception of citizens of Crittenden County that all "peddlers and transient persons" should pay a license before doing business in Marion.

Apparently this first attempt at an "occupation license tax" was successful, for the town's industrial and mercantile growth in the 19th century was truly phenomenal.

In 1850 R. E. Haynes was appointed the first Marion City Attorney, and the Trustees ordered that each proprietor build a substantial brick or stone pavement in front of his property on each side of Main Street.