Listing Through Life

This is my third visit to this park. The first was in the early ’80’s, and all I remember about that visit is the clog dancing in the auditorium. I wandered through all the workshops when I visited in April, 2023, but I needed to go back again to get my passport stamped.

I skipped many of the workshops this time, and just stuck my head into a couple others. This is the herb garden. The last time I was here, the woman inside latched on to me and talked my ear off for half an hour, so I didn’t go inside this time.

I bought an iron snake in the blacksmith shop. And for just a couple minutes, I watched four guys playing bluegrass music on the stage.

But I spent most of my visit here.

This workshop wasn’t here when I last visited. The guy makes old-fashioned magic trick supplies for the last remaining magician supply company. The walls of the workshop have displays of the old-time showmen and patent medicine sellers who wandered the Ozarks between the late 1800’s and WWII.

He told me all this stuff was authentic from actual old shows, but he also said during his show that “There isn’t anything I wouldn’t lie to you about.”

The show was short, about 17 minutes, and not over complicated, but the guy gave an example of the banter and did four or five tricks for the four of us in the audience. I enjoyed it.

After finishing with the village, I ate at The Skillet Restaurant in the park. The food was mediocre at best. This part of the experience, I wouldn’t recommend.

I found out about this museum the day before I visited when I was plotting my route to three state parks in northeastern Arkansas. And since it was right smack on my way home, I decided to stop.

It was tucked into a large building right on campus. I had to walk down 60 yards of hallway before I happened upon any displays. Those displays were the skeleton of a mastodon and a wall of info on the New Madrid Fault. There was a table and a stack of wooden blocks. You could use the blocks to build a structure on the table, then push a button to see the table shake and the structure fall down. I’m not sure how educational that is, but it was kinda fun.

The main section of the museum was upstairs, and that’s where it all began to feel very familiar. There was an exhibit on rockabilly music, which got its start in northeastern Arkansas. I’d just learned a lot about this at Guitar Park in Walnut Ridge and at Johnny Cash’s Boyhood Home.

Then there was a reproduction of an old town, with displays in the windows of general stores, doctor’s office, barber, etc., like I’ve seen in so many, many museums (nowhere better than the McKinley Presidential Museum in Canton, Ohio), much like I’d recently seen at the Faulkner County Museum.

They had exhibits on all the major industries of the Arkansas Delta — button-making, cotton-growing, lumbering, etc., like I just saw at the the Lower White River Museum, at Powhatan, at the Plantation Agriculture Museum …

Here’s something I can’t remember seeing before — a fireless field slow-cooker that heated food with preheated soapstone so that everybody could work in the field and nobody had to cook.

There were a lot of cabinets of Indian pottery, like I’ve recently seen at Plum Bayou, Parkin, and Hampson.

And there were a series of displays of artifacts from various wars, like I just saw at the Wings of Honor Museum.

Finally, they had several exhibit of very bedraggled and woebegone mounted birds and animals.

And they had this, which I haven’t seen before.

It took me about 30 minutes to see everything. If I had read everything, I would still be there. The walls were covered with text, much of which had very little to do with what was on display. I especially appreciated the woke take on barbershops.

I’m not sorry I visited. It was arranged pleasantly and, at times, interesting. It just all felt very familiar.

When I first decided to visit all the Arkansas state parks and complete my passport, I found out about this park and wondered what made it worth a visit. Now that I’ve been here, I know what makes it worth a visit — nothing.

The one acre park consists of a monument, two state park signs (one for doing a passport rub), a sign that tells about Herman Davis, and some benches. Ninety-eight percent of the park is visible in the next two photos. The part you can’t see is lawn.

Herman Davis was a hunter from northeast Arkansas who was drafted into the Army during WWI. Near Verdun, France, his company was pinned down by a German machine gun nest. Davis crept forward on his belly and killed the Germans. On three other occasions, he killed a lot of Germans, due largely to his skill with a rifle.  He received a lot of  medals and was considered by General John J. Pershing to be the fourth-greatest American hero of the war.

He was gassed several times, and four years after getting home, he died of tuberculosis. He is buried at the base of the monument, which was erected in 1925.

As General George Patton said, “The object of war is not to die for your country, but to make the other guy die for his.” Herman Davis achieved that goal. A monument? Sure. But a state park? Why? I’m sure Arkansas has produced a lot of other heroes who don’t have their own state parks.

Davis was only 5’3″. The statue is life-sized.

I’m not really complaining. It’s parks like this one, Conway Cemetery, and the Lower White River Museum that make the passport quest quixotic and weird.