Date of Visit: 25 February 2024
Barton Visitor Center, Walnut Corner, AR
62º partly sunny, breezy
I closed out this three-park journey with Delta Heritage, a rails-to-trails project running north-south along the eastern border of Arkansas from Lexa to Arkansas City (roughly from Helena-West Helena to 14 miles south of Rohwer). Eventually, the trail will run for about 85 miles. When I visited, I walked a bit of the 21 miles now open from Lexa to Elaine. At the southern end, the trail is open from Watson to Arkansas City for 24 miles. In 1992, Union Pacific Corporation donated 73 miles of railroad, and in 2010, the state parks extended the southernmost trail by another 14 miles on the Mississippi River Mainline Levee.
On arrival at the Barton entrance, the visitor center, a converted cotton gin, offers some history of the railroad and some info on local wildlife. Lucky to visit on a very quiet day, I got a tour of the behind-the-scenes rooms so I could take in the enormity of the gin from the inside. In terms of accessibility, this trail gets a huge thumbs up. With a need to accommodate walkers, runners, and bicyclists, the wide trail of compacted gravel made for an easy stretch of the legs. While I didn’t choose to bike on my visit, wanting to do so makes adding this park to my “must return to” list a no-brainer. In fact, I’m even more curious now about the southern portion that runs along the levee.
Because the park is all about movement on the trail and I visited at midday, there wasn’t much in the way of wildlife. I enjoyed tracking a red-bellied woodpecker as I practiced with my brand new set of binoculars. Of course, an abundancy of squirrels kept me entertained, along with many LBBs and LGBs (little brown birds and little gray birds 🙂 ). However, given a slow pace and great sunshine, I stopped to photograph some blooming moss. This has come to be one of my favorite photos from all of my park adventures. For the sake of the moss, I cheered the lack of bicyclists.
Next up: Historic Washington