Greene

Formed November 5, 1833 (26^th county)

Greene County (45,740), Paragould (29,543)

The Modern style red brick courthouse of Greene County is in Paragould.  This facility was built in 1996 and there was one previous courthouse from 1888 in Paragould.  The building is on West Court Street at 4^th Street.  The location is three blocks north of United States Highway 412.  Brackett-Kennerich and Associates are the designers.  B Crowley Plantation (1833), Paris (1835), Gainesville (1838), and Paragould (1884) have been county seats.  Paragould is a combination of two railroad presidents’ names, J. W. Paramore and Jay Gould.  American Revolution hero, Nathaniel Greene, provided the source for the county name.  Greene County was the birthplace of 1 Arkansas Governor, J. Futrell.  Lawrence County is the source of Greene County on November 5, 1833 as the 26^th county. 

Greene County government consists of a sheriff, assessor, treasurer, and coroner (executive).  It has 11 Quorum Court members (legislative.)  Eleven Circuit Court Judges serve Greene, Clay, Craighead, Crittenden, Mississippi, and Poinsett counties and a District Court Judge, an Attorney, and a County Clerk serve Greene County (judicial.)  The county is in northeast Arkansas on the border with the Missouri boot.  Jonesboro, Arkansas is Southeast and Little Rock, Arkansas is South of the county.  The center of the county is 8.6 miles Northwest of Paragould nearer Oak Grove Heights.  The county is surrounded clockwise by Clay County and Missouri and Craighead, Lawrence, and Randolph counties.  The county is shaped like a leaning rectangle.  The St. Francis River is its eastern border with Missouri.  The Cache River forms the western border.  Paragould is slightly south of the center of the county.  Paragould is the county seat and the largest city.  It is 64.6% of the county population.  The county seat is pronounced PARE-A-GOOLD.  

The area of the county is 579.7 square miles.  It is 69 of 75 in size.  It ranks 15 out of 75 in population in the state.  It has a density of 78.9 persons per square mile making it 11 out of 75 in the state.  Greene County has 70.7% of its population in its incorporated areas.  United States Highway 49 comes from Clay County, north, and goes into Craighead County, south.  United States Highway 412 crosses east to west from Missouri to Lawrence County.  The county is in the Paragould Micropolitan Statistical Area.