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    "source_title": "Encyclopaedia Britannica (1911)",
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    "chunk_id": "1911:fort smith:2553daf1674a",
    "title": "FORT SMITH",
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    "verified_text": "fort smith, a city and the county-seat of sebastian county, on the extreme w. border of arkansas, u.s.a., lying about 440 ft. above sea-level, on the s. bank of the arkansas river, at its junction with the poteau, and at the point where the arkansas breaks through the boston mountains. pop. (1890) 11,311; (1900) 11,587, of whom 2407 were of negro descent and 684 were foreign-born; (1910 census) 23,975. transportation is afforded by the river and by six railways, the st louis & san francisco, the st louis, iron mountain & southern, the arkansas central, the fort smith & western, the midland valley and the kansas city southern. a belt line round the business centre of the city facilitates freight transfers. some of the business streets are unusually broad, and the streets in the residential district are well shaded. fort smith is the business centre of a fine agricultural country and of the arkansas coal and natural gas region. it has extensive wholesale jobbing interests and a large miscellaneous trade, partly in its own manufactures, among which are cotton and timber products, chairs, mattresses and other furniture, wagons, brooms and bricks. in 1905 the total value of the factory product was $2,329,454, an increase of 66.2% since 1900. the public schools have a rich endowment: the proceeds of lands (about 200 acres) once belonging to the local military reservation, which--except the part occupied by a national cemetery--was given by congress to the city in 1884. near the centre of the city are a catholic academy, convent and infirmary; and there is a carnegie library. a united states army post was established here in 1817; the town was laid out in 1821; and the county was created in 1851. fort smith was incorporated as a town in 1842, and was chartered as a city in 1845. all transportation was by river and wagon until 1876, when the railway was completed from little rock. the military post, in earlier years the chief depot for the western forts, was abandoned in 1871. during the civil war fort smith was strongly in sympathy with the confederacy. the fort was seized by state troops in april 1861, and was reoccupied by the union forces in september 1863. there was considerable unrest due to border \"bushwhacking\" throughout the war, and several skirmishes took place here in 1864. the area of the city was more than doubled in 1905. fortuna (fortune), an italian goddess of great antiquity, but apparently not native at rome, where, according to universal roman tradition, she was introduced by the king servius tullius as fors fortuna, and established in a temple on the etruscan side of the tiber outside the city, and also under other titles in other shrines. in latium she had two famous places of worship, one at praeneste, where there was an oracle of _fortuna primigenia_ (the first-born), frequented especially by women who, as we may suppose, desired to know the fortunes of their children or their own fortune in child-birth; the other at antium, well known from horace's ode (i. 35). it is highly probable that fortuna was never a deity of the abstract idea of chance, but represented the hopes and fears of men and especially of women at different stages of their life and experience; thus we find her worshipped as time went on under numerous cult-titles, such as _muliebris_, _virilis_, _hujusce diei_, _equestris_, _redux_, &c., which connected her supposed powers with individuals, groups of individuals, or particular occasions. gradually she became more or less closely identified with the gr. [greek: tyche], and was represented on coins, &c., with a cornucopia as the giver of prosperity, a rudder as the controller of destinies, and with a wheel, or standing on a ball, to indicate the uncertainty of fortune. in this semi-greek form she came to be worshipped over the whole empire, and pliny (_n.h._ ii. 22) declares that in his day she was invoked in all places and every hour. she even became identified with isis, and as _panthea_ was supposed to combine the attributes of all other deities. the best account of this difficult subject is to be found in roscher's _mythological lexicon_ (s.v.); see also wissowa, _religion und kultus der romer_, p. 206 foll. (w. w. f.*)",
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