Listing Through Life

I was talking to the woman behind the counter in the gift shop/visitor center about this and that. A second woman walked out of a back room, sat down nearby, and said, “Is he bothering you?”

I did a double-take and then noticed she was looking beneath the counter where her dog was curled up. Joking, I said, “I thought you were talking about me.”

She replied, “Have you been a pain?”

I said, “I didn’t think so. I didn’t intend to be.”

We all laughed, I got my passport stamped, and I headed out to explore the park, not yet realizing that that conversation would be the highlight of the visit.

It’s a classic BCP park — boat ramp, campground, picnic area on a lake — like so many Arkansas parks. Still, I feel like I have to do something to earn my stamp. I chose the Mockernut Trail, a one-mile loop through the mosquito and poison ivy infested woods along the lake.

It’s called Mockernut Trail because the woods have a lot of Mockernut Hickory trees, so named because the nuts are hard for animals to open and only contain a small, unrewarding nut.

There were some campers in the campground and some fishermen in boats on the lake, but otherwise the park was empty, in part because the swim beach was closed due to high levels of E. coli bacteria.

Here’s a view of the lake from the dam. The main part of the park is on the left.

And that was it. I was drenched with sweat (the winds were straight out of the south — a torrential downpour hit the area about an hour later), gnawed on by mosquitoes, and hungry, so I left.

The tag line for this park is “The most important town you never heard of.” That’s a reach. The town that existed here for about 15 years, beginning 1n 1815, was the first platted town in what is not Arkansas, as well as the first courthouse, post office, and land office. It was part of the Missouri Territory then. It took a while to get things going — a postmaster was appointed in 1817, the first courthouse session occurred in 1818, even though the courthouse wasn’t completed in 1822. There may have been as many as 20 houses at the peak. But by 1830, the town was abandoned due to the repeated flooding of the Black River, which ran alongside the town. A ferry operated here until 1930.

Nothing is left of the town — not even ruins or drawings. A long of everyday items have been recovered in archeological digs. Two of the buildings — the courthouse and the post office (they think) have been placed as “ghost” buildings, metal outlines to show where the buildings were and how big they are. Except that they don’t know. They’re just guessing what they looked like. The location of the courthouse is pretty clear — its in a square in the middle of town, but the building they’ve marked as the post office is just a guess.

Here’s the sign that explains what the courthouse looked like and also that they don’t know what the courthouse looked like.

Here’s the post office. Or was it? They don’t know. They just know it was a larger-than-average structure where they found a lot of household items.

I walked through the displays in the visitor center (mostly dug-up artifacts) and strolled through the town site to the river.

It was shaping up to be a muggy day, so I didn’t bother with any of the trails through the woods. Even though there’s some history here, it’s basically a BCP park. That’s my new term for Arkansas state parks that are basically just a Boat ramp, a Campground, and a Picnic area with maybe a few short trails stuck in the corners.

A replica of part of a keelboat in the visitor center — maybe the most interesting thing in the park.

This is one of the state parks on Crowley’s Ridge, a long, narrow ridge that cuts through the Arkansas Delta from the Missouri state line down to Helena. It’s a fairly large park, with two man-made lakes, a golf course, and the usual camping and picnic areas.

I asked the young woman who stamped my passport in the visitor center if stamping was part of her training. She said, “We spent an entire week just on this.” I told her I could tell she got an “A.” I also asked what short trails I could walk to earn my badge. She told me about two. I walked the Big Ben Trail first. It was a half-mile, mosquito infested loop near the visitor center. As I walked, I could hear a Louisiana Waterthrush, a Northern Parula, and Hooded, Kentucky, and Prothonotary Warblers. But when I finally spotted a bird that landed in a bush about 15 feet away from me, it was a Worm-eating Warbler!

Part of the trail runs down the  center of an old road that was worn into the earth in horse and wagon days.

I also walked the Arboretum Trail, which was only about quarter mile out and back. It got its name from the seven or eight signs that give information about native trees and then ask a stupid question.

I drove to the two lakes. They’re both down in fairly steep valleys so there really isn’t much walkable shoreline. This is Lake Austell. It was muddy from the recent rains.

And this is the very similar looking Lake Dunn. I’m glad I made the effort to get to this one because there were two Chimney Swifts flying back and forth just above the surface, dipping down to drink on the wing. I’ve heard they did this, but I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen it before. Of course, my camera was in my car 100 yards away up a steep boat ramp.

Near the entrance there was a flagpole setup with the U.S. flag, the Arkansas state flat, the Confederate flag, and, I think, flags of France and Spain which once claimed Arkansas. There was also an explanation of what the current Arkansas flag means.

An Indian village stood on this site for about 500 years. Near the end of that time, Hernando de Soto and him met probably visited. Several of his men kept journals and described a village much like this one, and several Spanish artifacts have been discovered. Makes Sense to me

There isn’t much to the park — a large field bordered on one side by the St. Francis River and on the other three sides by a ditch. There’s one mound where the chief’s cabin was located.

The Indians who lived here made pots with faces on them, perhaps to remember the enemies they killed. I thought they were pretty funky — so much so that I bought a small replica pot for my wall (along with a replica bell like the ones de Soto’s men traded here.

There’s also a one-room schoolhouse, part of the community that was built for the workers — mostly Black — employed at the Northern Ohio Cooperage and Lumber Company. It was built around 1910 and used until 1948.

I was the only visitor for most of my stay. I know I was the first of the day, because when I walked around the trail and then tried to get back in the visitor center by the trail-side door, it was locked. The ranger who unlocked it said they almost always forget to open it until the first visitor is locked out.