March 29, 1986

The Conway Cemetery State Park, which has no on-site staff, was officially dedicated as part of the state’s sesquicentennial celebration. Conway Cemetery State Park, near Walnut Hill (Lafayette County) in southwest Arkansas, preserves a half-acre cemetery containing the grave of the state’s first governor, James Sevier Conway. Conway was governor of Arkansas from 1836 to 1840 and a member of “The Family,” a powerful dynasty that dominated early Arkansas politics. An advocate of education, he unsuccessfully requested that the Arkansas General Assembly use the budget surplus to create a public school system and state university. Conway Cemetery State Park is the second-smallest Arkansas state park.