Polish
Polish citizens arrived in Arkansas as early as 1877 and established the community of Marche in Pulaski County. The Polish people, governed at various times by the Russians, Prussians and Austrians, endured oppressive behavior, were deprived of their civil rights, and suffered several small-scale insurrections, forcing many families to leave Poland after 1863.
A Polish colony was established in the state after Count Timothy von Choinski, a member of the nobility in the province of Posen, Poland, inquired about the availability of land in Western Arkansas. Choinski and his family had fled to America after 1863 and in 1877, Choinski and 22 colonists toured land owned by the Little Rock and Fort Smith Railroad Company in Pope, Conway, Faulkner and Pulaski counties. They settled on approximately 11,000 acres purchased from the railroad company, located 10 miles northwest of Little Rock at an old town site originally named Warren Station. Twenty-six Polish families settled here and by the end of the first year, over 200 Polish families had established residences in Arkansas. Most of them had come from Posen, Falicia and Silesia provinces in Poland.
Choinski and the Missouri-Pacific Railroad Company were responsible for this immigration. Both encouraged members of the Polish community living in Northern states to settle in Arkansas. They paid for the transportation costs of immigrating families and gave them assistance in building their new homes. When colonists arrived, many were disappointed. Land had to be cleared before it could be farmed and the amenities were rudimentary. For example, a defunct sawmill and a two-story, 14-room shack were used as a picnic and dance hall.
Disillusioned and feeling misled, a number of the families went back North while others got jobs working for the railroad company in Little Rock. Choinski, the primary investor in Marche, felt obligated to assume the burden of feeding and housing these people during the early days of the settlement. Choinski's daughter, Helen Schnable of Pine Bluff, remembered that many "arrived with only personal baggage, slept on straw and hay spread on floor with a blanket for cover." Schnable explains that "such beds are no hardship for peasants of European descent, used to such living conditions…cooked our meals in iron wash kettles, ate fish, game, and other wild fowls, corn pones and mush made of corn meal…In the evening we all sat around camp fires and sang patriotic and church songs…We exchanged visions of the future, which kept our soul glowing, gave us a good night's rest and zest for the next day's work…There was plenty of work, but no hunger or hardship, for there was plenty to eat if a man was not lazy."
The families that stayed purchased a home site (usually 80 acres) and built a home from scratch. The members of the colony assisted each other with building the cabins and established an agricultural community. It was a bilingual community where English and Polish were taught in the schools. In 1896, Warren Station changed its name to Marche (pronounced Mar-Shay), a French word meaning, "market." The name was appropriate since the community served as a trading and agriculture center for the surrounding area. The dominant religion of the original settlers of Marche was Catholic.
Its founder, Count Choinski, died in 1890 and was buried on his farm. Descendants of the original founders still live around Marche, or within a radius of several miles. Present-day Marche lies off Highway 65 in Pulaski County.