[Little Rock] Old-Line Democrat, January 26, 1860
We made a most delightful visit to our thriving and enterprising sister town of Pine Bluff last week, and was much gratified to witness its prosperity and enjoy the hospitality of its kind and warm hearted citizens. There is no town in Arkansas that exhibits more cheering and substantial evidences of progress and advancement than Pine Bluff, and none whose present prosperity promises a more brilliant future. Occupying a high and eligible position in one of the richest cotton growing regions of the State, it is destined at no very distant day to command a commerce that must eventually build up a large and flourishing city. We were told that its trade at this time in the one article of cotton alone amounts to upwards of a hundred thousand bales per annum, and is rapidly increasing every year.
We were gratified to learn that the projected Railroad from Napoleon to that point is in a condition to justify its friends in looking for a speedy completion, and the marvelous results that are sure to follow thereafter. With all our heart we wish it the most abundant success.
During our temporary sojourn at the Bluff we had the pleasure of meeting with the accomplished and affable editor of the “Independent” Wm. F. Douglas, Esq., a gentleman whom we feel proud to call our friend, and whose qualities of both mind and heart show him to be no degenerate scion of the illustrious family whose name he bears.
Among the most emphatic attractions which we encountered while there, we will be pardoned for confessing that the “charms of lovely women” had for us a more enchanting spell. In this respect we have no hesitation in saying that Pine Bluff stands in our estimation A No. 1.
“Oh! long be my heart with such memories filled,” &c.
In conclusion we would pay a most glowing tribute to our boon compagnons du voyage, Messrs. Williams, Garland and King, but language fails to express the emotions that the association of their names awaken, and we must content ourself with lingering for a moment upon the plaintive dying echoes of poor, misused Robin Ruff!