Chris's Genealogy Journey: June 4th Davidsonville State Historic Park, Arkansas

Part of the interpretive material in the Davidsonville
Visitor Center, Arkansas

When I was ready to stop driving for the day I brought up my favorite camping app to looked for a place to stay. The app is called Park Advisor and it is fantastic. All you do is enter your location and it shows you where all the places to camp are in relation to your current location. The camp sites are numbered. If you select a number it brings up the name, location, distance in miles and time to drive there, the phone number, a description of what facilities are available, photos, ratings, and a navigation button that will take you there. What more could one ask for?

When I noticed that I was near Davidsonville Historic State Park the decision was easy and without hesitation I hit the navigation button. The campground had been refurbished last year so everything was new and perfect. My site backed up to dense, lush foliage and there were no other campers nearby. In fact there were only about four other campers in the park. I didn’t feel well that afternoon, so decided to wait till morning to explore.

It is not clear to me why they call this the Black River -
it is quite brown

When I stepped out of the motorhome in the morning it was very clear that it was going to be another very humid day. I walked over for a shower – the Arkansas park showers are very nice – but before I could walk back to my motorhome I was already starting to drip with sweat. I drove down to a shaded parking area along the Black River and from there walked the interpretive trail for the historic town of Davidsonville.

No artifacts remain from the town but the Arkansas Archaeological Survey and State Parks are working together to discover and tell the story of the town through signage and two impressive ghost buildings. The setting looks like a park. Davidsonville is the oldest town site in Arkansas. It had the first post office built in 1817, the first courthouse built in 1815, and the first US Land Office in 1820. It was laid out in a formal grid pattern with a public square at the center surrounded by 8 blocks with 6 lots in each block. The courthouse was located at the center of the public square.

One of two Ghost Buildings. This one of a typical house

The town was located where three rivers came together so it was a natural transportation hub. But those rivers flooded with some regularity, which is likely one of the reasons the town lasted only 15 years.

After walking the looped trail I veered off to see the Phillips/Reeves cemetery and from there a “shortcut” back to the car. This trail seemed to be well marked until I got to the point where I thought it should turn towards the parking area. At that point the path faded out. I started to walk off trail in the direction I thought I needed to go but the forest was so dense that I turned back. About a mile later I found myself about as far as I could be from the motorhome. I was drenched in sweat, flies had been pestering me the entire way, and I was physically exhausted …. So much for my shower.

This is likely what the ghost house looked like - a one room
log house. This one at Powhatan Historic Park. From the
park interpretive material.

I was too tired to continue to the parking lot, so I decided to go to see the exhibits in the brand new Visitor Center which is very nice, and had place to sit down while I panted and tried to recover. Their exhibits include several artifacts found during the archaeological excavation. When I finally got back to the motorhome I collapsed on the sofa only to find two ticks. I HATE ticks and quickly jumped up, brushed myself off, striped off all my clothes, and check my body in the mirror to make sure there weren’t more ticks – there weren’t.