Community of Rodney

Crittenden County at one time had many small communities with unusual names.  Some are identified by the names of people that owned the area, a creek nearby, or other things that had some significance to the area.  When the postal service started in the 1800's sometime a person's home would be the post office and the area would be named for that reason.  Some of our community names have been identified, but some remain a mystery as where the name originated.  One of these is the community of Rodney. 

Rodney was located on Hwy. 365 about half way between Hwy. 60 turn-off and Sturgis.  The location is shown on the map at the right.

In the late 1800's this area was also known at Flatwoods.  From an item in the Crittenden Press dated July 29, 1899:  News reaches us from Flatwoods that through the work of James T. Hicklin, there has been a post office procured for that community.  The office will be known as Rodney and will be located at the residence of Mr. Hicklin.  This would seem to be the first creation of the community known as Rodney.  This location is the now  where the home of Danny and Patsy (Travis) Guess is located at 4111 S. R. 365.  You can see the old road bed not to far from their house.

Also found in the archives of The Crittenden Press are community news items titled Rodney.  Areas covered in these news items are Baker, Dempsey, Bells Mines, Greens Chapel and Weston. 

In the Nov. 19, 1903 edition of the Press some of the items say that the Rodney grist mill grinds every Saturday, J. S. Newcomb has moved into the Baker neighborhood.  John Waggoner of Repton, visited near Bells Mines Sunday.  Protracted meeting in progress at Baker now.  E. M. Gahagan says that all he needs now to make his happiness complete is a pretty and industrious wife.  So the Rodney news items covered rather a large area.

The Rodney post office also had other postmasters:  1899-James T. Hicklin; 1900-Wm. L. Hicklin; 1901-Joseph L. Sullivan; 1902-Hamilton L. Sullivan; It was discontinued Oct. 15, 1907 and the mail was sent to Weston.  Whether the location of the post office was moved from James T. Hicklin's house to another location is not known.