The New International Encyclopædia/Helena (Arkansas)

HELENA. A city and the county-seat of Phillips County, Ark., 82 miles south by west of Memphis, Tenn.; on the Mississippi River, and on the Arkansas Midland, the Saint Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern, and the Yazoo and Mississippi Valley railroads (Map: Arkansas, E 3). It is an important shipping point for lumber, cotton, and cottonseed oil; and has lumber-mills, cotton-compresses, cottonseed-oil mills, foundries, etc. Here on July 4, 1863, General Holmes, commanding a Confederate force of 9000, attacked General Prentiss with a Union army of about 4500, but was repulsed with a loss in killed, wounded, and prisoners of one-fifth his number. Population, in 1890, 5189; in 1900, 5550.