Clover Bend National Historic Site

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

Aerial shot of the Clover Bend National Historic Site campus.
Photo courtesy Clover Bend Historical Preservation Association.

Clover Bend National Historic Site

State Highway 228

Lawrence County, AR

Website:  Clover Bend Historical Preservation Association

The Treasure:  The restored buildings at Clover Bend National Historic Site recall the idealism of the New Deal’s Farm Security Administration programs.

Background:  As the Depression worsened in the early 1930s, small-scale farmers—including sharecroppers, tenant farmers, and poor landowning farmers—were particularly hard hit. As banks foreclosed on properties, displaced farming families hit the road, facing very uncertain prospects. Established in 1935, the Farm Security Administration (FSA) was an effort of the New Deal to assist struggling farmers.

Logo of the
Farm Security Administration (FSA).

At various locations in the country, the FSA purchased farmland, divided the land into smaller farmsteads, then recruited tenant farmers to work the land with some government support. In many cases, the families signed leases and purchase contracts that would lead toward land ownership.

Through an FSA program, the federal government purchased approximately 5,000 acres of foreclosed plantation property at Clover Bend. The land on the east side of the Black River had been transformed into good crop-bearing plantation farmland in the mid-19th century. However, even before the Depression, much of the land had sunk bank into swamp water and overgrown thickets.

The FSA’s Clover Bend Resettlement Program was particularly successful because it leased its 86 farmsteads to local families who already understood how to farm the sandy yet moderately fertile soil. Most participating families received a house, a barn, an orchard, a poultry house, and assorted outbuildings. The price for the property averaged $8,000 with the families paying $200 per year toward the long-term purchase.

The Clover Bend farmers participated in a medical co-operative plan that assured doctor’s care and hospitalization. The central grist mill, a mowing machine, and other farm equipment were cooperatively owned and shared. The original community center building was converted into Clover Bend School in July 1939, with an initial enrollment of over 200 students. It remained the local school until its closure in 1983.

South side of the Clover Bend gym prior to restoration.

South side of the Clover Bend gym, following restoration.

Notes from the Editor:  John Steinbeck’s classic novel The Grapes of Wrath is dedicated to “Carol who willed it” and “Tom who lived it.” Carol was Steinbeck’s wife. Tom was Tom Collins, the first administrator of Weedpatch Camp, the most famous of the FSA camps, located south of Bakersfield, California. Collins worked as an advisor to Steinbeck during his writing of the book and as a technical advisor to John Ford when the book was filmed in 1940, as well as serving as the model for the character Jim Rawley in the book.

Henry Fonda as Tom Joad in
The Grapes of Wrath (1940).

In the movie of The Grapes of Wrath, our hero Tom Joad (Henry Fonda) meets with the Caretaker (the Collins-based character who manages the Farmworkers’ Wheat Patch Government Camp). Tom expresses amazement at the camp’s humane policies:

Tom:  You aimin’ to tell me the fellas that are runnin’ the camp are just fellas that are campin’ here?

Caretaker:  That’s the way it is.

...

Tom:  You got dances, too?

Caretaker:  They have the best dances in the county, every Saturday night.

Tom:  Who runs this place?

Caretaker:  Government.

Tom:  Why ain’t there more like it?

Caretaker:  You find out. I can’t.

In many ways, the lesser-known Clover Bend was a greater success than Weedpatch. Most of the families in the program quickly received deeds to their properties and they improved and beautified the local community. The school served as a proud center for the community for many years and remains fondly remembered by its graduates.

Congress greatly reduced the work of FSA as the United States entered World War II. Conservatives had always strongly objected to the level of government involvement in the FSA programs, most extremely comparing it to the collective agricultural policies of the Soviet Union. In 1946, the FSA was formally replaced by the new Farmers Home Administration, which had a much more limited focus of extending credit for agriculture and rural development.

Other Recommended Sites:  The Arkansas State University Museum in nearby Jonesboro explores the history of Northeast Arkansas and the Mississippi River Delta region. Among the exhibits is a reconstruction of “Old Town Arkansas,” a tour of 13 shops and offices representative of the type of places you might have found in this area back in the period of 1880 to 1920.

Restored farmstead at Clover Bend National Historic Site.
Photo courtesy Clover Bend Historical Preservation Association.

Tour America's History Itinerary

Monday’s destination:  Next stop: Colorado!

© 2012 Lee Price

Camp Ouachita

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

The Great Hall, also known as Ogden Hall, at Camp Ouachita.
Photo courtesy Ouachita National Forest.

Camp Ouachita

Off Route 324, northern side of Lake Sylvia

Ouachita National Forest in Perry County, AR

Website:  Ouachita National Forest

The Treasure:  Camp Ouachita is the only surviving Girl Scout camp built by the Works Progress Administration and the first Girl Scout camp constructed in Arkansas.

Background:  President Franklin Delano Roosevelt launched the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in 1935 to ease the unemployment crisis by funding a broad range of public works projects. From its beginning in 1935 until the official close of the program in 1943, the WPA provided almost 8 million jobs and spent approximately $13.4 billion. WPA projects included the construction of roads, bridges, and buildings, as well as arts, drama, media, and literacy projects.

One of the WPA projects was the construction of Arkansas’ first Girl Scout camp. Sue (Worthen) Ogden, the president of the Little Rock Girl Scout Council, spearheaded the effort to create the camp, using WPA grants, private donations, and U.S. Forest Service support. The camp was located deep in the forest on the northern shore of Lake Sylvia.

The centerpiece of the Girl Scout camp was the Great Hall, also known as Ogden Hall after Sue Ogden. Other buildings included the caretaker’s residence, the director’s cabin, the camp’s infirmary, staff cabins, sleeping cabins, a bathhouse, and tent platforms. Camp Ouachita served as a popular Girl Scout camp from its dedication in 1937 until its formal closing in 1979.

In the 1990s, efforts began to restore and reopen the camp as part of the full range of recreational activities around Lake Sylvia. Save America’s Treasures funding was instrumental in restoring the historic Great Hall.

Ouachita National Forest.
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Notes from the Editor:  Encompassing nearly 2 million acres, Ouachita National Forest spreads across 13 counties in Arkansas and two counties in Oklahoma. The Ouachita River runs through it, giving the forest its name. The river's name dates back to pre-European times, with the word “Ouachita” or “Washita” describing a sparkling silver river running through good hunting grounds. The Caddo people lived in this area long before the arrival of the Europeans. Although largely relocated to the west, the Caddo Nation remains active today, with its tribal council and a Caddo Heritage Museum located in Binger, Oklahoma.

There are still old growth forests in Ouachita National Forest, along with lakes, rivers, valleys, and mountains. Naturally, hiking, mountain biking, horseback riding, canoeing, fishing, and camping are popular activities. The Ouachita National Forest site has full information available for visitors interested in exploring the area, including detailed information on the many trails that run through the park.

Other Recommended Sites:  Hot Springs National Park is located just an hour’s drive southwest of Camp Ouachita. Within the park, Bathhouse Row is a uniquely preserved collection of turn-of-the-century bathhouses, splendidly outfitted to cater to a prosperous clientele. 

Sign to Camp Ouachita.

Tour America's History Itinerary

Monday’s destination:  Clover Bend Historic Site

© 2012 Lee Price

Eureka Springs City Auditorium

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

The interior of the Eureka Springs City Auditorium.
Photo by Jeremy Mason McGraw.
Photo courtesy of Eureka Springs City Auditorium.

Eureka Springs City Auditorium

32 South Main Street

Eureka Springs, AR

Website:  Eureka Springs City Auditorium

The Treasure:  The historic City Auditorium continues to offer a wide range of entertainment in the heart of the charming resort town of Eureka Springs.

Accessibility:  Check the City Auditorium calendar for upcoming events and make plans to catch a show while in town!

Background:  Water cures, also known as hydropathy, were all the rage in Victorian times. Sites throughout the United States and Europe lured visitors with promises of the natural curing properties of their spring water. Not only did Eureka Springs in Arkansas have the necessary springs, it even had the support of Native American legends that attested to the healing powers of the water.

In 1856, Dr. Alvah Jackson began proclaiming the benefits of the local spring as a cure for eye ailments. His “Dr. Jackson’s Eye Water” enjoyed some popularity, but the real transformation of the town into a major spa and tourist destination occurred through the vigorous promotion efforts of Jackson’s friend J. B. Saunders in the late 1870s. By 1881, Eureka Springs was Arkansas’ fourth largest city and it climbed to second largest by 1889, benefiting from both the health-giving springs and a railroad station to bring the tourists.

Dedication plaque on the City Auditorium.
Photo courtesy of Eureka Springs City Auditorium.

The public interest in these natural springs waned by the 1920s, leading Eureka Springs Mayor Claude A. Fuller to invest in new attractions for his city. Under his leadership, the City Auditorium was built in 1928 to offer music and theater in the center of town. The City Auditorium opened with a performance featuring John Phillip Sousa and his 67-piece band.

Notes from the Editor:  I was enchanted by my visit to Eureka Springs, a small city loaded with friendliness and charm. Well-preserved Victorian buildings line the steep and winding streets. Truthfully, it’s a bit of a maze, with no right-angle street intersections to be found—but it’s not large enough to get seriously lost either. I’d say it’s a prime place to park the car and go exploring on foot. However, if those steep sidewalks look too daunting, there is a trolley service available to convey you around town.

For years, Eureka Springs has nourished arts communities, with writers and painters forming colonies to find inspiration amid the beauty of the natural setting. Today, the city boasts more than twenty art galleries, as well as stores that specialize in traditional Ozark crafts. With Bentonville, home of the new Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, just forty miles away, Eureka Springs will doubtless continue to build its reputation as an important arts center for the Ozarks.

Thorncrown Chapel interior in 2006.
Photo by Bobak Ha'Eri.
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Other Recommended Sites:  The unexpected culmination of our visit to the Ozarks was our trip to Thorncrown Chapel. Located just a five-minute drive into the hills west of Eureka Springs, Thorncrown Chapel is a glass-enclosed chapel inspired by the Prairie Style architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright. Thorncrown Chapel’s architect was E. Fay Jones, who designed this sublime building to complement the beautiful surrounding Ozark landscape. The lattice-like wooden structure supports 425 windows comprising over 6,000 square feet of glass.

Thorncrown Chapel exterior.
Photo by Clinton Steeds.
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Here’s noted architect and educator Paul Heyer describing Thorncrown Chapel in his book American Architecture: Ideas and Ideologies in the Late Twentieth Century: “The rhythmic quality of the structure set against the calm magnitude of nature creates a sense of sacred space... Thorncrown Chapel succeeds on yet another level, that of the symbolic: Using massing reminiscent of rural covered bridges, the image of shelter on the road of life is in keeping with the ecclesiastical understanding of nature. This is where regionalism through site and climate can play a vital role in making architecture not personally idiosyncratic in an ego or alternatively abstract-rule-applied sense, but special in a locally sensitive and relative sense.”

The exterior of the Eureka Springs City Auditorium.
Photo courtesy of the Eureka Springs City Auditorium.

Tour America's History Itinerary

Friday’s destination:  Camp Ouachita
Monday’s destination:  Clover Bend Historic Site

© 2012 Lee Price

Little Rock Central High School

View Little Rock Central High School Visitor Center in a larger map

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

Little Rock Central High School.
Photo courtesy Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site.

Little Rock Central High School Visitor Center

2120 Daisy Bates Drive

Little Rock, AR

Website:  Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site

The Treasure:  Little Rock Central High School possesses enormous symbolic significance in the struggle for African-American civil rights as the location where long-standing policies of school segregation were publicly challenged.

Accessibility:  The Little Rock Central High School Visitor Center is open daily from 9 to 4:30.

Background:  On September 23, 1957, nine teenagers went to school… and the United States changed forever. The “Little Rock Nine” entered American history that day as symbols of youthful courage in the face of anger and racism. The U.S. Supreme Court had supported the right of African-American youth to attend public schools designated as “white only” three years earlier, but it took a federal/state showdown in Little Rock to transform the legal right into a reality.

Students escorted into Central High School by 101st
Airborne Division on September 25, 1957.
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Police protected the Little Rock Nine as they entered Central High School on September 23 but escalating violence outside the school led to the students’ swift removal, escorted out soon after being escorted in. Two days later, on September 25, over a thousand members of the 101st Airborne Division escorted the Little Rock Nine safely into the school where they enjoyed their first full day of classes.

On a national level, the events of this period demonstrated the federal commitment to enforcing equal civil rights for all U.S. citizens, regardless of race. The U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision promised an end to practices of school segregation and a new era of integration in which black and white students would be entitled to the same quality of public education. President Dwight D. Eisenhower called out the federal troops to Little Rock to enforce the Supreme Court decision. Angry mobs opposing the integration of Central High School received vocal support from Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus.

The showdown between Eisenhower and Faubus continued to simmer over the next two years, creating enormous stress at the school under the glare of international media attention. Three of the Little Rock Nine students completed their high school studies at Central High School, with Ernest Green becoming the first African-American student to graduate from Central High School on May 25, 1958.

The Little Rock Nine were:  Ernest Green, Elizabeth Eckford, Jefferson Thomas, Terrence Roberts, Carlotta Walls, Minnijean Brown, Gloria Ray, Thelma Mothershed, and Melba Pattillo.

Notes from the Editor:  Central High School continues to educate a fully-integrated student body today. In fact it’s the only still-operating high school in the country to be awarded the distinction of being a National Historic Site. President Bill Clinton signed the legislation in 1998, recognizing the important role this school from his own native state had played on the national stage.

Preserved Mobil Station where reporters would gather
during the events of the late 1950s.  Photo courtesy of
Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site.

For visitors, everything can be found at the intersection of Daisy Bates Drive and South Park Street. The school is on the southwest corner, a commemorative garden is on the northwest corner, the Visitor Center is on the northeast corner, and a preserved Mobil gas station is on the southeast corner.

At the Central High School Visitor Center, you can experience multimedia exhibits and see a film on the historic events at Central High School in the late 1950s. A Mobil gas station that served as a gathering area for reporters in the 1950s has been preserved on the other side of Daisy Bates Drive.

There is a Central High Commemorative Garden across Park Street from the Visitor Center. Embedded within arches at the park are photographs depicting both the time of crisis and the successful integration of the school in the years that followed. In honor of the Little Rock Nine, there are nine trees and benches.

Other Recommended Sites:  Arkansas is justly proud of its many National Parks and State Parks. Central High School is one of seven National Park sites in the state. The others are: Arkansas Post National Memorial, Buffalo National River, Clinton Birthplace National Historic Site, Fort Smith National Historic Site, Hot Springs National Park, and Pea Ridge National Military Park.

There are 52 Arkansas State Parks where visitors can explore the natural beauty of Arkansas’ mountains, valleys, forests, and rivers, as well as important historic sites such as prehistoric Native American mound sites and Civil War battlefields.

New York City Mayor Robert Wagner greets the Little Rock Nine in 1958.
Pictured, front row, left to right:  Minnijean Brown, Elizabeth Eckford,
Carlotta Walls, Mayor Wagner, Thelma Mothershed, Gloria Ray;
back row, left to right:  Terrence Roberts, Ernest Green, Melba Pattilo,
and Jefferson Thomas.  World Telegram photo by Walter Albertin.
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Tour America's History Itinerary

Wednesday’s destination:  Eureka Springs City Auditorium
Friday’s destination:  Camp Ouachita

© 2012 Lee Price

Old State House Museum: Civil War Battle Flag Collection

View Old State House Museum in a larger map

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

Before treatment:  Confederate Second National pattern battle flag.
Photo courtesy Old State House Museum.

After treatment:  Confederate Second National pattern battle flag.
Photo courtesy Old State House Museum.

Old State House Museum

300 West Markham

Little Rock, AR

Website:  Old State House Museum

The Treasure:  The Old State House Museum in Little Rock preserves twenty historic Civil War battle flags including representatives of Confederate “National” flags, St. Andrew’s Cross, and the Hardee Pattern, as well as other battle flags.

The Old State House Museum
in Little Rock. Photo courtesy
Old State House Museum.

Accessibility:  The Old State House Museum is open Monday through Saturday from 9 to 5, and Sunday from 1 to 5. The oldest standing state capitol building west of the Mississippi, the Old State House Museum has a fascinating history of its own. Permanent exhibitions tell the story of the historic building, with complementary exhibitions that explore subjects such as Arkansas political history and the legacy of Arkansas women.

The Civil War battle flags are very fragile and can only be safely displayed under controlled conditions for brief periods of time. There will be some limited display of the flags during the five exhibitions planned for the Civil War Sesquicentennial (2011-2015).

For immediate armchair accessibility, the twenty battle flags in the collection have been digitized and may be viewed online.

Background:  Flags are no longer the essential tools of war they once were. In the chaos of a Civil War battle, a flag lifted high above the fray provided visual orientation and a needed rallying point. When the flag dropped out of sight, confusion could quickly take hold.

Soldiers knew their flags and invested them with strong emotion. The flag symbolized their companions, their cause, and their regional identity. As long as the flag was held high, it symbolized hope, too.

The Old State House Museum in Little Rock preserves a remarkable collection of twenty Civil War battle flags. Each of them speaks to Arkansas’ role in the unfolding war. The collection is unique in possessing examples of all three major patterns of flags distributed to units of the Confederate Army of Tennessee.

The captured Confederate flags were retained by the United States War Department in the decades following the Civil War. The South’s vigorous participation in the Spanish-American War led to a formal gesture of reconciliation in 1905 as the federal government returned the captured battle flags to their states. In the 1950s, the State of Arkansas entrusted its Civil War battle flags to the care of the Old State House Museum.

Notes from the Editor:  Three flags from this collection were designated for special conservation treatment through Save America’s Treasures funding. As with all textiles, flags deteriorate as they age. Prolonged light exposure can distort their colors and the fabric itself can become brittle. Old attempts to create supports for the flags actually served to accelerate their deterioration. Fastened to an acidic surface, the pigments and fibers of the flags suffered further degradation. (In the before and after treatment images on this page, the acidic supports have been removed in the "after" image.)

The good news is that this flag collection can be conserved. Fundraising for the Civil War Flag Preservation Project continues at the Old State House Museum. This brief video offers a glimpse inside the museum and an introduction to the flag preservation cause:

Here’s more information on the fundraising campaign and a direct link to the online donation page where you can make a contribution toward saving Arkansas’ Civil War battle flags.

Other Recommended Sites:  A century and a half ago, the Civil War was raging. Today, the sesquicentennial is offering nearly countless opportunities to commemorate and honor our shared past. The Arkansas Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission has mounted an easy-to-navigate website that links to information on events and exhibitions planned throughout the state, as well as detailed information on Arkansas’ role in the war.

Before treatment:  Confederate First National pattern flag attributed to
"Hart's Battery."  Photo courtesy Old State House Museum.

After treatment:  Confederate First National pattern flag attributed to
"Hart's Battery."  Photo courtesy Old State House Museum.

Tour America's History Itinerary

Monday’s destination:  Little Rock Central High School
Wednesday’s destination:  Eureka Springs City Auditorium

© 2012 Lee Price

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

Tour Destination: Arkansas

View Arkansas in a larger map

To date, Tour America’s History has hugged America’s coasts with our coverage of Philadelphia, Richmond, and Southern California. As we approach Arkansas, I feel like we’re plunging into the heartland at last!

Two things influenced my choice to cover the Arkansas Save America’s Treasures sites next. First, my family had a wonderful time exploring northern Arkansas when we organized a Laura Ingalls Wilder tour of the Midwest several years ago. Since the Ingalls/Wilder family (of Little House on the Prairie fame) had close ties with the Ozarks, it felt appropriate for us to venture further south from Wilder’s home in Mansfield, Missouri into the rugged landscapes of the Arkansas Ozark Mountains. My son and I were so impressed by the beauty of the area that we later co-wrote a young adult fantasy novel centered there.

Second, I thought it would be appropriate to acknowledge the major splash that Arkansas has made on the international art stage this year with the opening of the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. The museum’s amazing collection significantly adds to the density of American treasures in the state, making Arkansas even more attractive as a major American tourist destination.

Little Rock is the largest city in Arkansas, located near the center of the state. From Little Rock, the Ozarks are to the north, the Delta region to the east, the Timberlands to the south, and the River Valley and Ouachita regions to the west. For planning your trip, helpful tourist sites include the Arkansas Tourism Official Site and Arkansas Tourism.

Our Tour America’s History exploration of Arkansas’ six Save America’s Treasures sites begins on Wednesday.

Tour America's History Itinerary

Wednesday’s destination:  Lakeport Plantation
Friday’s destination:  Old State House Museum

© 2012 Lee Price