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Balboa

Ghost town · Sharp County, Arkansas

Evening Shade quadrangle, USGS topographic map (1961, 1:24,000)
Evening Shade quadrangle, USGS topographic map (1961, 1:24,000) · U.S. Geological Survey, Historical Topographic Map Collection · Public domain

Balboa is a ghost town in Sharp County, Arkansas. It is one of 11 former communities in Sharp County on the federal names register. That ranks the county 25th among the 74 Arkansas counties with a vanished settlement on record.

The U.S. Geological Survey lists Balboa as a historical populated place on the Evening Shade topographic quadrangle: the name is no longer in official use for a community, whether the settlement was abandoned, absorbed into a neighbouring town or renamed. The recorded location is 36.0326° N, 91.5004° W.

Key facts

USGS quadrangleEvening Shade
Elevation481 ft
Nearest living townCave City, AR
Distance to it6.4 miles
GNIS feature ID66150
Coordinates36.03257, -91.50041

Open the location on a map

Then and now

Drag the slider: the old USGS map on the left, the same ground from the air today on the right. Both cover the same 1.9-mile square centred on the recorded location.

Balboa today, aerial view
Evening Shade quadrangle, USGS topographic map (1961, 1:24,000)

Left: Evening Shade quadrangle, USGS topographic map (1961, 1:24,000), U.S. Geological Survey, Historical Topographic Map Collection. Right: The same ground today: NAIP aerial imagery, USDA Farm Service Agency, National Agriculture Imagery Program (via USGS). Both public domain.

What's there now

Balboa is no longer a community in its own right. The nearest living town is Cave City, AR (population 1,930), about 6.4 miles away in a straight line, and the site sits at roughly 481 feet above sea level. The aerial view above shows what covers the ground today. Much of the land around former townsites is private; check access before you visit.

Nearby places

Questions

Where is Balboa?

Balboa is in Sharp County, Arkansas, at 36.0326, -91.5004.

How many ghost towns are in Sharp County?

Sharp County, Arkansas has 11 ghost towns on record at Wayfarrow.

Sources and licences

Facts marked "approximately" carry an uncertain date in the source. Text on this page is generated from the sources above; no encyclopedia prose is copied. Last updated 2026-11-05.