Arkansas Post National Memorial

Driving from Fort Pillow, TN to Pendleton, AR | St. Francis National Forest | Arkansas Post National Memorial | Arkansas Post Museum State Park | January 2024

After our aborted attempt to hike around at Fort Pillow, we continued South along the Tennessee side of the Mississippi River and into Memphis. We passed by the great Bass Pro pyramid (10th largest pyramid in the world by some accounts) and crossed the Mississippi River for the 4th time this year and into our 6th state for 2024: Arkansas.

Today was mostly a driving and county grabbing day. Fortunately, we have done rather little in this part of the country so almost every county is new to us. We worked our way down towards the town of Marianna where we soon took some sketchy forest roads into St. Francis National Forest looking for some out of the way place to rest. When we finally found a spot, we felt a bit disappointed, not the least because there was no cell reception, it was a gray and gloomy day, and it was early afternoon.

Confident that we would have no issue finding a spot to camp later, we decided to drive to the nearby Storm Creek Lake. Within 500 feet of driving, to our pleasant surprise, we found ourselves on the nice paved and somewhat scenic Crowley Ridge Scenic Byway. Crowley’s Ridge is a low loess hill ridge going from the ‘bootheel’ of Missouri almost due South through Arkansas to the Mississippi River. It had enough prominence that I had noticed it when I finished making Arkansas on my topographic map of the US, so it was cool to visit it in person.

We made a couple stops along the way, one to see an overlook to the East, and another for a monument to the first survey of Arkansas – a survey that would ultimately become the baseline for most of the states in the Louisiana Purchase. At the lake we had our lunch and then spent the remainder of the afternoon walking in circles with Charlotte and playing PokemonGo. When we finally got too cold and dizzy from walking like Charlie, we returned to our first spot and had a peaceful night.

The next day we finished our drive along the Parkway heading South, and then continued on to Arkansas Post National Memorial. This area was likely visited by Father Marquette and Joliet and would have been as far South as they made it. After learning that there were Spaniards further to the South, they confirmed that the great River they had been travelling was in fact the Mississippi River and then returned to the Great Lakes via the Illinois River and Chicago Portage. Later, as a reward for helping with the La Salle expedition (which I am eager to read more on – if anyone knows any books), Henri de Tonti was granted permission to establish a trading post with the Quapaw people near the confluence of the Arkansas and Mississippi Rivers.

The original name for the Post/Area was ‘Aux Arcs’ – or Place belonging to the Arkansas, the Algonquin name for the Quapaw people. Even if you don’t speak French, you can immediately see how Ozarks is just the English phonetic spelling of the original French. We don’t just learn history on our road trips, we also do etymology!

The French attempted to colonize the area around the Post for most of the next century until they lost all of their North American holdings in the French and Indian War. As part of that war’s resolution, France secretly rewarded Spain for her aid in the war with all of French Louisiana through the treaty of Fontainebleau. This in turn allowed Spain to settle and relinquish control of Florida to Britain at the Treaty of Paris.

While initially unpopular (because of the secrecy), Spain ruled the area much the same as the French did. In 1802, Spain returned Louisiana to Imperial France as a result of alliances and compensation from the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars. And, before French administrators could even come to Arkansas Post, Napoleon sold it to Thomas Jefferson.

The post, which at this point was more a town than a military frontier post, would eventually serve as the first territorial capitol of Arkansas. During the Civil War, the Confederacy built yet another fort near the site to protect the Arkansas interior. But during the Vicksburg campaign gunboats bombarded the fort and town, destroying them almost entirely.

Today, because of the meandering of the river and the flood control efforts of the Army Corps of Engineers, much of the original French and Quapaw settlements are likely underwater and the interpretative trail through the National Park area is mostly of the American town destroyed during the Civil War. We walked a long loop around the park, admiring the river views and the pecan trees, and spotted several armadillos running around.

There weren’t any options for free campsites anywhere on our route, so instead of going out of our way we decided to pay to stay at Pendleton Recreation Area on the South side of the Arkansas river from where we were. On our way there, we made one more quick stop at Arkansas Post Museum State Park to walk around, learn a bit more about the history of the frontier days of Arkansas, and admire the old buildings.

At the campsite, we enjoyed the remaining hours of sunshine and warmth before turning in for the night.