Recreation

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Entry Category: Recreation

Pinnacle Mountain State Park

Pinnacle Mountain State Park is located in central Arkansas near the northeast corner of the Ouachita Mountains. The park’s namesake is the first prominent cone-shaped mountain encountered by early westward travelers as they emerged from the alluvial plains of east Arkansas. Its cone-like appearance has long beckoned travelers and residents alike to ascend its peak for breathtaking views of the surrounding hills and valleys. Rising 756 feet from the adjacent flood plains, Pinnacle’s rocky peak reaches an elevation of 1,011 feet above sea level. The cone-shaped peak was first mentioned in the book A Journal of Travels into the Arkansas Territory During the Year 1819, written by naturalist Thomas Nuttall. During the colonial and early American periods, the mountain was …

Plantation Agriculture Museum

The Plantation Agriculture Museum in Scott (Pulaski and Lonoke counties) is situated in the Arkansas River lowlands beside Horseshoe Lake, about twenty miles southeast of Little Rock (Pulaski County). The museum is dedicated to Arkansas’s rich cotton agriculture heritage. William Scott emigrated from Kentucky at an unknown date to the area that would become the town of Scott. His son Conoway Scott Sr. was born in 1815. By 1862, the Scott family owned 2,000 acres, ten slaves, and other property, valued at $37,895. Conoway Scott Sr. died in 1866 just before the birth of his son, Conoway Jr. Conoway Scott Jr. eventually operated several successful ventures, including the family plantation and a general store. Scott’s landholdings were eventually crossed by …

Plum Bayou Mounds Archeological State Park

Plum Bayou Mounds Archeological State Park (previously the Toltec Mounds Archeological State Park) near Scott (Pulaski and Lonoke counties) is one of Arkansas’s most significant pre-European archaeological sites. The Toltec Mounds Site, with the state’s tallest Indian mounds, is also a National Historic Landmark. In 1812, Louis Bringier, a French explorer from New Orleans, Louisiana, traveled to present-day Arkansas and became the first European to discover the mounds. His description of the site’s “tolerably regular” alignment of mounds and the height of the two tallest mounds in contrast to the surrounding alluvial flatlands, the first such description, was reported in newspapers in 1821. William Peay Officer and his wife, Mary Eliza, purchased the area in 1849. There they maintained a …

Poison Spring Battleground State Park

Location: Ouachita County Size: 85 acres Poison Spring Battleground State Park, west of Camden (Ouachita County), commemorates a Civil War engagement that was part of the Camden Expedition of General Frederick Steele. The Engagement at Poison Spring is remembered as a Confederate ambush of Union troops, which resulted in the massacre of many African Americans from the First Kansas Colored Infantry. The park contains interpretive exhibits, as well as picnic sites and a short trail. The name Poison Spring was known to Camden area residents at the time of the engagement and was used in battle reports, but its origins are uncertain. Later legends suggested that Union soldiers became ill after drinking the cold spring water, but no contemporary accounts …

Political Animals Club

The Political Animals Club of Little Rock (Pulaski County), an organization consisting of people interested in Arkansas politics, was formed by James L. “Skip” Rutherford in 1983. Rutherford, who has been dean of the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service since 2006, had left the staff of U.S. Senator David Pryor shortly before the formation of the club and moved to the private sector to work for Mack McLarty, chief executive officer at Arkansas Louisiana Gas Co. (Arkla). Rutherford wanted there to be a place for those with a strong interest in politics to gather on an occasional basis and talk about what was going on in Arkansas. He wanted the group to hear from politicians, political consultants, and …

Polk County Possum Club

The Polk County Possum Club (PCPC) began with a challenge issued to local hunters of opossums (commonly called “possums”) in 1913 and henceforth hosted yearly banquets of opossum meat and side dishes until 1947, though it was active again for five years in the 1990s. The PCPC began when attorney J. I. Alley wrote a letter, dated December 11, 1913, to Mena (Polk County) mayor John H. Hamilton that read, in part: “The undersigned has recently seen and heard of much of your boastful conduct and self praise with reference to possum hunting. In fact I learned from reliable sources that you claim great credit to yourself as chief of all such sportsmen in these parts. Therefore believing that others …

Postage Stamps with Arkansas Connections

Special stamps are created to recognize people, events, and themes of national interest. They reflect popular culture and provide a unique lens for understanding history. Although stamp designs were initially chosen by the postmaster general, the Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee (CSAC) assumed selection responsibilities in 1957. Following official guidelines, the CSAC Committee recommends stamps to the postmaster general, who makes the final decision on stamps selected to be used by the U.S. Postal Service. Some postage stamps related to Arkansas reflect a direct connection with the state, while others have more indirect relationships through agriculture, business, and education. Stamps related to Arkansas include the following, in alphabetical order: Angelou, Maya (2015) This stamp honors Maya Angelou, the author of I …

Potlatch Cook’s Lake Nature Center

Potlatch Cook’s Lake Nature Center (originally the Potlatch Conservation Education Center at Cook’s Lake) is located near the small community of Casscoe (Arkansas County) approximately twenty miles southeast of Stuttgart (Arkansas County). The general purpose of the facility is conservation education, focusing on the bottomland hardwood forests and upland community of forests that surround the center. This is accomplished by introducing various audiences to hands-on outdoor learning activities. The property is recognized as an important wildlife sanctuary, especially for migrating waterfowl. In 1990, the forty-nine nations of the Ramsar Convention (an international treaty for conserving and sustainably utilizing wetlands) recognized the 200-acre Cook’s Lake and its surrounding property as a “wetland of international importance,” representing the diverse natural features of …

Powhatan Historic State Park

Powhatan Historic State Park preserves a small nineteenth-century river port town in Lawrence County, once a hub of northeast Arkansas commerce, industry, and government. Located on the Black River at the juncture of the Ozark Plateau and the Arkansas Delta, Powhatan pioneers had the advantages of easy river access, plentiful resources in the foothills, and fertile land. The first steamboat, the Laurel, arrived around 1829, beginning a series of landings that spanned over 100 years and stimulated civic and regional growth. Footpaths transformed into roads, a river ford into a ferry, and swampy delta into rich farmland, attracting merchants, farmers, and families. In 1837, the settlement name “Powhatan” was selected to honor the Virginia Native American chief, father of Pocahontas. …

Prairie Grove Battlefield State Park

Prairie Grove Battlefield State Park preserves the site of the Civil War Battle of Prairie Grove in northwest Arkansas. Established in 1908 as a park where old veterans held reunions, it became a state park to help visitors understand the battle and its place in Civil War history as well as how the war changed the lives of the civilians in the Arkansas Ozarks. The Battle of Prairie Grove on December 7, 1862, was the last time two major armies of almost equal strength faced each other for supremacy in northwest Arkansas. The Confederate army withdrew from Prairie Grove on the night of December 7, leaving Missouri and northwest Arkansas in Federal hands. The battle was actually named after the …

Quapaw Area Council of the Boy Scouts

The Quapaw Area Council of the Boy Scouts began in 1913 and is the largest (in terms of area) in the state. It also serves the largest number of Arkansas boys. The Boy Scouts of America began in the United States in 1910, and three years later, the Little Rock Council was chartered by the National Boy Scout Council as a second-class council—that is, one directed by a volunteer commissioner. In 1920, the Little Rock Council was reclassified as a first-class council, and in 1921, W. G. Moseley became the first council executive. Two years later, the Little Rock Council was renamed the Pulaski County Council to include membership in a wider area. By 1927, the council was renamed the …

Queen Wilhelmina State Park

Queen Wilhelmina State Park renewed and continues a tradition that began near the end of the nineteenth century by providing mountaintop lodging and recreation on Rich Mountain, Arkansas’s second highest peak at 2,681 feet above sea level. With the construction of the Kansas City, Pittsburg and Gulf Railroad (now the Kansas City Southern) through the Ouachita Mountains of west-central Arkansas, railroad officials sought to increase passenger traffic by opening, on June 22, 1898, a thirty-five-room hostelry on Rich Mountain. Its 300-seat dining room was sometimes used as a ballroom where an orchestra entertained guests. Because Dutch investors had provided financing for the railroad, the lodge was named Wilhelmina Inn after Holland’s Queen Wilhelmina. The venture proved unsuccessful, and after 1900, …

Quigley’s Castle

The eighty-acre Quigley Farm is located four miles south of Eureka Springs (Carroll County). Quigley’s Castle, which is located on the farm, conveys the unique design and creative workmanship of Elise Quigley. Quigley’s Castle was accepted into the National Register of Historic Places on May 30, 2003. The Quigley family had been cutting timber in the area since 1900. In 1921, W. D. Quigley, Elise Quigley’s father-in-law, chose the land to be the base of a new lumber operation. In 1930, W. D. Quigley deeded the property to his son, Albert, and Albert’s wife, Elise Fioravanti Quigley. Albert promised his bride a new house that she could design herself. Construction on the house began in 1943. Elise Quigley created a …

Recreational and Retirement Communities

Land developers have long capitalized on the American dream of owning real estate or a home in the sun by mass-marketing vacation and retirement home sites to a distant clientele. Land was subdivided into relatively small lots within amenity-based subdivisions and sold as future retirement home sites or as an investment. During the 1950s, property in suburban subdivisions became popular. Lots were mass-marketed by a few large land development corporations, principally in Florida, Texas, Arizona, and California. The companies created a nationwide market for property sold on the installment plan by mail, often sight unseen. This type of land development soon became a national phenomenon; raw or partially developed acreage was “improved,” subdivided into small parcels, and offered for sale …

Red Apple Inn

The Red Apple Inn is one of Arkansas’s best-known resorts. Part of a development along the shores of Greers Ferry Lake near Heber Springs (Cleburne County) known as Eden Isle, the inn was the creation of Little Rock (Pulaski County) insurance executive Herbert L. Thomas Sr. and his wife Ruby Thomas. The Red Apple Inn opened in 1963, burned in 1964 from a kitchen fire, and reopened in 1965. Herbert Thomas hired architects for the inn, while Ruby Thomas supplied recipes used in the dining room. She later wrote a book titled Feasts of Eden: Gracious Country Cooking from the Red Apple Inn. The inn still uses many of her recipes. Herbert Thomas was born on February 14, 1899, in …