Listing Through Life

One of my birding goals, still unrealized, is to see a Swainson’s Warbler in Arkansas. A couple had been reported recently from this park near Helena, and I drove down early on Thursday to see them. The birds were my priority, so I drove past the visitor center to the spot where they were reported and spent about an hour there and at various other spots along the road looking and listening for them without luck. The road was a narrow blacktop through deep and tall woods. It was a cool morning, and the scenery was beautiful albeit Swainson-free.

The park is in, and shares a visitor center with, the St. Francis National Forest. I had to backtrack about six miles to get there.

The enthusiastic woman behind the counter who stamped my passport attempted to get me involved in a second state park program, this one for kids, which involved interviewing a park ranger, writing down safety guidelines, pledging not to litter, etc. I declined. But I did get my fifth passport stamp and earned a Club 52 sticker.

I walked a short trail by the visitor center, then drove south through the park. I had the choice of two roads. I stuck to the paved one that I’d been on earlier, hoping still to hear a Swainson’s. I passed the two man-made lakes in the park — This is Bear Creek Lake.

I think a bit of the park borders the Mississippi River, but I never saw it. I pulled over at an overlook, thinking I could glimpse the water from there, but it was just “the view from Crowley’s Ridge,” and not much of a view at that.

There were a few other short trails I could have taken, and the second, dirt road that runs parallel to the one I took but down in the valley, but that wasn’t the day’s objective.

Track my progress here.

Woolly Hollow is the closest state park to my house, and I go there often to bird and hike. It’s named for the Woolly family who moved to Arkansas from Tennessee in 1852. Martin Woolly, son of the original settlers, built a log cabin nearby. It was moved to the state park in 1974.

There’s a lake, with fishing piers and a swimming beach. There’s a campground. And there’s a hiking trail around the lake and some bike trails that cut through the woods. Sometimes I walk the lake trail, but when I’m concentrating on birds, I usually walk along the bike trail, thereby probably missing all the good birds.

There’s a scenic waterfall below the dam, but in the spring of 2026, when I took these photos, the water was very low and the falls was unimpressive. You can see how low the lake is.

The birding isn’t great, but I like the park because it’s not usually crowded. I’ve walked the trail at times when I didn’t meet another person.

When I got my passport stamped in the gift shop, the woman behind the counter really, really wanted to give me the Club 52 sticker, but that’s the prize for five stamps, and Woolly Hollow was only my fourth. I felt like I let her down.

Track my progress here.

If you picture in your head what a state park might look like, you will never picture this place. Located in Des Arc (“The Bend”), a small town with a dead town feel, the “park” consists of one metal building and a parking lot for 13 cars.

I drove over after birding nearby and found the place deserted except for the guy behind the counter. The displays line the walls around a single room. They tell about the exciting things people historically did along the White River — farm, log, go to school, fish. Pretty much the same stuff people historically have done everywhere.

Look online, and the “feature” of the park is this set of four life-size figures on a platform near the door. They aren’t explained, and they aren’t part of any particular exhibit. they just sit there to make the museum look much more impressive than it is.

The one section I found interesting explained the pearl and button industry once based there.

The entire museum took me perhaps 15 minutes to peruse — and I took my time and read almost everything. There was no gift shop, so I said to the guy, “You could at least sell buttons.” He told me there used to be a gift shop, but they “moved it to another park.” You can buy buttons at the Plantation Agriculture Museum, 50 miles west.

Then I asked the guy what percentage of visitors came just to get their passports stamped. He said 95%.

I’m just imagining the process that led to this being a state park. I figure some guy had a rustic museum containing his collection of local artifacts. When he died, his family donated it to the state, which, in a weak moment, accepted. Then they looked at the crap the guy had in his museum and realized there wasn’t much to it. They threw most of it away and tried to make something out of the rest. That’s my guess anyway.

Track my progress here.