Indian Bay, Arkansas

Indian Bay is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in southern Monroe County, Arkansas, United States, in the Arkansas Delta. Indian Bay is on the eastern bank of the White River, 4 mi east of St. Charles. For purposes of the U.S. Census, Indian Bay is within Montgomery-Smalley Township. The Baytown Site, a Pre-Columbian Native American archaeological site, is located near Indian Bay. The community was first listed as a CDP in the 2020 census with a population of 15.

History
The area of Indian Bay has long been inhabited, as is shown by nine Native American mounds nearby, the largest of which covers more than an acre. Artifacts found in the area are thought to be 1,300 to 1,700 years old, but the site is not open to the public.

Around 1825 white settlers came to the area. Cypress trees were harvested and cotton fields planted. By the mid 19th-century Indian Bay had several stores, a cotton gin and a sawmill, and had developed into a prominent stop for steamboats traveling on the White River. A post office opened at Indian Bay in 1860. Two area cotton plantations thrived. "Lamberton", a few miles north of Indian Bay in the no-longer existing community of Valley Grove, was started by Joel and Judith Lambert from Kentucky, who settled there in 1839. William Mayo arrived in the area around 1853, bringing a large number of slaves and developing a plantation of several thousand acres. The area gained notoriety when Congressman James M. Hinds was murdered there in 1868.