Lakeport Plantation

View Lakeport Plantation in a larger map

Visit our Tour Destination: Arkansas page to see the entire tour of the state’s Save America’s Treasures sites.

Lakeport Plantation Home, now restored and open to the public
as an Arkansas State University Heritage Site.
Photo courtesy of Lakeport Plantation.

Lakeport Plantation

601 State Highway 142

Lake Village, AR

Website:  Lakeport Plantation

The Treasure:  The Lakeport Plantation house is Arkansas’ grandest remaining example of antebellum Greek Revival architecture.

Accessibility:  Arkansas State University operates Lakeport Plantation as a museum and educational center. Tours are available Monday through Friday at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.

Background:  Joel Johnson moved down from Kentucky in 1831, purchasing this undeveloped tract of land in Chicot County, Arkansas. The soil was rich, benefiting from the Mississippi floods, but it’s hard to fathom the amount of work that must have gone into turning this area’s primordial swamp and forest into a major cotton plantation. Johnson and his 23 slaves undertook the work of clearing the land. Over the next 15 years, Johnson significantly expanded his holdings, owning over 3,700 acres and 95 slaves at his death in 1846.

Charlotte Mitchell, "Mammy Charlotte,"
former slave on the Lakeport Plantation,
circa 1915.  Photo courtesy of
Lakeport Plantation

Johnson’s oldest son Lycurgus Leonidas Johnson inherited much of this land. Lycurgus continued to grow the family business. Some years later, he embarked in 1858 upon the building of a Greek Revival plantation house appropriate for a very successful gentleman farmer. The house was designed to showcase the Johnson family’s success and large enough to cordially welcome respectable gentlemen and ladies, albeit somewhat more modestly than some of the other grand Southern plantations.

But the years of prosperity were brief. The Civil War hit Chicot County hard, located as it was along the heavily-trafficked Mississippi River. The countryside was devastated and slavery came to an end, radically changing the economics of running a large cotton plantation. But Lycurgus emerged from the war in surprisingly good shape. He had a reputation for fairness and succeeded in negotiating terms to build a new work force for his plantation. He died at the age of 58 in 1876, with an intact reputation for modesty, kindness, and hospitality.

Today Arkansas State University operates Lakeport Plantation, using the historic building and grounds to research and interpret the people and cultures that shaped plantation life in the Mississippi River delta. Through exhibits and programming, they explore many themes, including the westward push for new agricultural lands and the pivotal role of African-Americans in shaping the culture of the region.

Original circa 1860 floorcloth uncovered in the entryway of
Lakeport Planation.
Photo courtesy of Lakeport Plantation.

Cleaning the floorcloth.
Photo courtesy of Lakeport Plantation.

Notes from the Editor:  I like this Google Satellite view of the area around the Lakeport Plantation:

Just look at that magnificent oxbow lake! Lake Chicot is the largest natural lake in Arkansas and the largest oxbow lake in all North America.

The Lakeport Plantation is located to the southeast of the oxbow, just west of the Mississippi River (with the plantation house facing east, looking across the river to the state of Mississippi). Joel Johnson took full advantage of the rich soil found in areas like this, but he also had to deal with a serious ongoing threat of flooding that prompted his son Lycurgus to wisely build his plantation house on a slight elevation and then further set the first floor an additional four feet above ground level.

Before the Johnson family and their large workforce of slaves tamed this land, it was a swampy area, overgrown with cypress and tupelo trees. Water moccasins and malaria-carrying mosquitoes were a constant threat. Travel on horseback through the dense wilderness, mud, and brackish water was treacherous. All this was transformed by the determination of the Johnson family and the slaves who worked for them. Approximately twenty years after Joel Johnson arrived to make a home in Arkansas, a northern visitor described the plantations of Chicot County as being “like a continuous garden all under cultivation, raising a bale of cotton to the acre.”

Other Recommended Sites:  For more on the Civil War in this part of Arkansas, there’s a wayside marker and a cell phone tour on Highway 82 to commemorate the Battle of Ditch Bayou. For relaxation, Lake Chicot State Park is located on the northeast bend of the oxbow—it’s one of Arkansas’ many scenic state parks.

During World War II, two Japanese internment camps were located nearby. To the north in Desha County, Rohwer Relocation Center is remembered through its camp cemetery, now a National Historic Landmark. At the age of five, George Takei (later Mr. Sulu on Star Trek) was brought to Rohwer with his family. The other internment camp was Jerome Relocation Center, located on the border of Drew and Chicot Counties and now commemorated with a monument marking the former camp. Over a period of three years, 1942 to 1945, approximately 16,000 Japanese Americans were incarcerated in these two Arkansas camps.

Cotton field and the Lakeport Plantation Home with the Highway 82
bridge across the Mississippi River in the background.
Photo courtesy of Lakeport Plantation.

Tour America's History Itinerary

Friday’s destination:  Old State House Museum
Monday’s destination:  Little Rock Central High School

© 2012 Lee Price