Arkansas Post Museum

Date of Visit: 13 April 2024

Gillett, AR

82º bright sun & breezy

Visiting park #30, Arkansas Post Museum, turned out to be quite an interesting couple of hours. Prior to my visit, I learned that this park marks the time when the French first established trading posts near the Mississippi River in the late 17th century (marking the beginning of European colonization of Arkansas). It was my understanding that the state park would be at the location of the first trading post, and that turned out to be only somewhat accurate. Fascinating history unfolded before my eyes.

But, first, this park is a small complex of 5 buildings, only open Wednesday – Sunday. When I visited, I did not meet any park interpreters, although there was one woman doing what looked like office work in a small administrative building (not park of the exhibit). She pointed me to the first building (where I self-inked my park passport stamp), a replica of a house from the 18th/19th centuries, filled with artifacts and displays. From there, I read placards and followed a brick path through the property.

The museum displays provided quite a bit of information about living on the frontier with limited resources. I wound through the house and looked at furniture, clothing, and household goods; however, some of the items in the first building were also from the early 20th century, so I got a little confused. Outside the house, a separate kitchen stands. The displays teach about the necessity of a separate kitchen for 1) fire safety and 2) temperature control of the main house during the blazing hot summers. Looking at the wood-fired stove and the cast-iron cooking tools reaffirmed what I already knew about myself: I was born in the right time. There is no way I would have survived on the frontier. (My eyesight alone would have meant the end of me at an early age!)

Just past the kitchen building I got my next surprise at the park. I saw a tall structure with stairs leading up to a platform. The silhouette looked vaguely familiar, but it took reading the signage to realize the park features a replica gallows. I confess that I found this a bit incongruous with the rest of the displays.

I continued past the daunting example of “frontier justice” and spent more time looking through the Refeld-Hinman Log Cabin, a “two-pen dogtrot cabin built from square-hewn oak logs 4 to 9 inches thick.” (pens = rooms, both off the central breezeway). The park showcases one of the few remaining original dogtrot cabins in southeast Arkansas, although it had to be moved from its original location.

Following the path onward, I found a giant metal building that contained all kinds of displays from early European settlement periods to the 20th century. While I couldn’t find a clear reason some of the displays were housed in this particular park, they were all interesting. The whole time I meandered through the park buildings I kept puzzling over one thing: why wasn’t the park closer to the Mississippi River, or the Arkansas River for that matter? From my previous reading, I understood that the first trading post was established near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Arkansas Rivers.

Finally, I found my answer in a park sign. Here’s the reality. In 1686, Frenchman Henri de Tonti established the first European trading and military post at the confluence of the two rivers. Over the next 133 years, the post moved around due to flooding. By 1819 it had relocated a bit farther up the Arkansas River. When the state parks system got its start in the 1920s, the legislature established Arkansas Post (on its 1819 location on the banks of the Arkansas River) as the 3rd official state park. This made perfect sense to me, but the 1819 location is several miles east of the current state park. It turns out that in 1960 the US Congress authorized the National Park Service to take over the 1819 site, dissolving the site’s identity as a state park. The Arkansas Post National Memorial now commemorates the “original” post. The citizens of Arkansas County bought land 2 miles down the road from the national memorial and established a museum there. In 1997, the “new” site became Arkansas’ 50th state park. So tangled and fascinating!

And yes, I did go visit the national memorial, but since that’s not park of the poem project, I’ll end my tale here.

Next up: Conway Cemetery