Main was the first civilian physician to settle in Fort Smith. Main was born in Maryland on Nov. 13, 1813. At sixteen, he moved with his father to Ohio and graduated from Starling Medical College in Columbus, Ohio, in 1836. He came to Fort Smith to attend the men who were building the second Fort Smith. Main died on Sept. 3, 1891.
Although he lost considerable wealth during the Civil War, Main still amassed much property: his own home, about a dozen other houses, the Main Hotel on Garrison Avenue and 11 farms totalling almost 3,000 acres. Main was a city alderman from 1840 to 1854 and a member of the first city council after a new city charter was enacted in 1853.
Main was a Mason and several times president of the Fort Smith Medical Society. He married Isabella Armour in 1848. The couple had one daughter, Lilly, who married Dr. Joseph Bailey in 1868. Although he belonged to no church, he started the first Sunday school in Fort Smith at the Methodist Church.
At his death, he was building a new home on Dodson Avenue. That home later became a part of Holt-Krock Clinic.
Source: Martin, Amelia Whitaker, "Physicians and Medicine, Crawford and Sebastian Counties, Arkansas, 1817-1976," Sebastian County Medical Society, 1977.
Gallery