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.
