**To keep up to date with any park changes, alerts and to plan your ARKANSAS STATE PARK GETAWAY go to the official Arkansas State Park website by clicking HERE.**
Here you’ll discover the role of Arkansas’s White River with emphasis on the Lower White, as one of the vital transportation routes for the first settlers who arrived in the Arkansas frontier. Museum exhibits interpret the river’s influence on settlements during the steamboat era, illustrating the expansion of commerce from its roots in hunting and fishing into shelling, timber, and agriculture.
As you enter the museum, you’ll be greeted by life-sized figures of Captain James C. McManus, Miss Sallie Davis, a schoolteacher from Memphis, surveyor John Garretson, and Henry, a slave. The characters introduce themselves via audio using dialog taken from oral history records and slave narratives.
EARLY COMMERCE
The rest of the museum’s exhibit space depicts eight areas of importance to the territory during its frontier days: agriculture, Civil War, pearling and button-making, timber, education, fishing and hunting, medicine and riverboats. Exhibits and text explain how each of these topics helped mold the community of Des Arc and the lower White River region.
An enclosed display case houses local historic items that will change on a regular basis.
An interactive display for young museum visitors features an 8-foot by 12 1/2-foot map of Arkansas with the Arkansas and White Rivers highlighted on it. Red dots show where towns are located along the Lower White.
Over 1,000-square-feet were recently added to the original building to now allow for barrier-free access by museum visitors.
A new research room features archival materials, such as cemetery records, tax exemption receipts for cotton, old newspapers, estate papers and other historical artifacts, which can be accessed for family history and genealogical research.
A small gift shop offers small items related to the museum, including postcards bearing pen and ink drawings by Richard DeSpain.
The park hosts several special events throughout the year including quilting workshops, acrylic and sand painting classes, crafts and quilt show, beginner’s gourd workshop, and instruction in Dutch oven cooking.
PARK HOURS & FEES
Contact Park
PARK PHONE
870-256-3711
PARK ADDRESS
2009 Main Street
Des Arc, AR 72040
GPS: 34.97716, -91.51566
For more information click HERE.
Have you visited this state park? If so, please leave a comment. Thanks.
BREATHE LIFE!
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