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Hempstead County Sheriff's Office Badge State of Arkansas showing the location of Hempstead County Arkansas
Hempstead County
SHERIFF'S OFFICE
Arkansas
Hempstead County Sheriff Singleton

Hempstead County SHERIFF'S OFFICE

"Evil is powerless if the good are unafraid." - President Ronald Reagan

History of Hempstead County
Hempstead County was created on December 15, 1818 and was formed from Arkansas County (Hempstead is one of the original five counties created by the Missouri legislature). Parts of Hempstead County were used to form the following counties: Columbia (1852), Howard (1873), Lafayette (1827), Little River (1867), Nevada (1871), Old Miller (1820), Pike (1833), Saline (1835), Sevier (1828), and Union (1829). Other county boundary changes occurred when Line with Pike defined 14 December 1838, and with Pike and Sevier 17 April 1873. The county was named in honor of Edward Hempstead (1780–1817), Delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives from the Missouri Territory.

Famous Residents
President Clinton was born William Jefferson Blythe IV in Hope. When he was seven, his widowed mother married Roger Clinton, and the family moved to Hot Springs (Garland County). Later he took his stepfather’s name. His renovated first home is now a national park and visited by tourists from all over the world. Two more men from Hope joined Clinton in the White House: Thomas F. “Mack” McLarty, his first chief of staff, and Vincent Foster Jr., deputy White House counsel. Mike Huckabee, Arkansas’s forty-fourth governor, was born and raised in Hope and had a career as a Southern Baptist minister before entering politics. His wife, Janet McCain Huckabee, is also from Hope. One of the Southwestern Proving Ground army ordnance officers, Major Paul W. Klipsch, an Indiana native, chose to stay in Hope after World War II. In 1948, he and one employee began the production of his now internationally famous Klipsch horns, speakers used in theaters and home stereo systems.