Delta, A Symbol for Change

We didn't bother with the GPS this morning. The route on back country roads took us more directly to Dumas, and the GPS always chooses Interstates. So I navigated: U.S. #30 to #7 to #8 to #79 to #35 to #114 to #83 to #54. I followed the map, watched the road, and read the last pages of Travels with Charley, John Steinbeck's account of his journey around the United States in the early 1960's, out loud to Andy as we drove. I guess I didn't do any of the three very well. He let me know. "Is this my turn?" "What route do I need next?" "How far to the next highway?" He interjected questions intermittently. Miles zipped by, mostly expanses of pine forests broken by occasional farms, then newer growth of yellow pine and a couple chicken farms.
"There is very little to do here," said Andy. "If you don't belong to a church, you have nothing. It's more rural than I anticipated, so I would guess that sports in high school are really important. That, and church activities. This is the Bible belt."
Farther east the chicken farms grew in size--six, seven, eight-barn coops a block long. "Where are the processing plants?" mused Andy. "Tara told me last night that Arkansas is the second largest chicken producer in the country, but I haven't seen a slaughter house or an egg processing plant." He took it back when we saw a large windowless factory in Star City.

The closer we drove toward the Mississippi River, the more the land leveled. Farms spread wider and deeper, with small neat brick houses and trailers on footings off the ground. Occasionally a brick mansion stood out next to a junk yard or shack surrounded by garbage bags and buckets and tires. One house had six old trucks without tires and an overstuffed sofa in the front yard, and then more plowed fields, tinged green with clover to be turned under the wet earth. "It's too rich for hay. I would guess corn or soy beans," said Andy, as we drove past black dirt as far as the eye could see on both sides. 

A steam shovel dug deeper drainage by the side of Route #212, and in one field, thousands of geese feasted on the remains of a corn crop. Canada geese and snow geese took off en masse when I opened the car door, darkening the sky, blocking the sun and totally changing the focus on the camera as they circled before my lens.

Twenty miles from the Mississippi River, it was easy to see why this could be called delta--low, flat land easily flooded by the river. Water levels looked high. Cypress trees, totally surrounded by water, grew on the sides of the levy. More geese filled the fields along Route #169 on the way to Arkansas Post National Memorial. Even a farmer stood next to the road with his camera.

"There's the bayou," said Andy, "and that's the Arkansas River." It has always amazed me how he recognizes geographic features and remembers places. And this was one we had never seen firsthand.
Arkansas Post National Memorial is part of U.S. history that I didn't learn or don't remember, and yet occurrences there significantly affected the country. Through five changes of ownership, the site of two 18th century trading and military posts and a 19th century town, the fort opened the Mississippi Valley to trapping and trade and protected Little Rock.
We browsed in the museum. "I'm going to upload the history quiz this weekend if you want to take it. I have two versions," said Ranger Joe, when I tried the museum "test yourself" display.

"Sure, but I think I'd prefer to look at the outdoor displays and read about the history first," I told him. We agreed he'd leave the quiz at the front desk, along with an answer key.
We walked the expansive grounds to learn about the history of the region.

The written history of Arkansas Post begins in 1682, when a land grant to Henri de Tonti allowed a trading post on the Arkansas River near a Quapaw Indian village. Eventually the French established a military post there to protect river convoys of furs and create a staging point for Mississippi River trade between New France and the Gulf of Mexico. The Spanish renamed the military post Fort Carlos III, when it was ceded to Spain after the French and Indian War, but Spain also maintained friendly and cooperative relationships with the Quapaws. It helped in 1783, when the British attacked under James Colbert during the American Revolution, one of only two battles fought west of the Mississippi River during the war and the last battle of the war.
The movie explained that Arkansas Post changed hands again in 1803, when France sold the Louisiana Purchase to the U.S. By 1817, hunting and trapping gave way to farming, and even though some slaves lived in the area, so did free people of color. Two years later Arkansas Post was named as the capital city of the territory. With prime agricultural land, plenty of water and easy transportation, Arkansas Post thrived and grew into the 1830's as a center of cotton production and a river port, but the Civil War marked the complete collapse of what had been a thriving river community.

Union troops, 30,000 infantry under Major General John McClernand, saw the adjoining Fort Hindman with its 5,000 Confederate troops as a threat to Union supply lines in 1863.

With support from gunboats in the Arkansas River, they attacked and gained a Confederate surrender with 4,971 prisoners and the town shelled to total destruction. Ironically, the north lost twice as many men and suffered eleven times as many wounded. (Confederate dead-60; Union dead-134; Confederate wounded-80; Union wounded-898, Union missing-29) In spite of the Northern "victory" because of the Confederate surrender, northern Major General McClernand never recovered and played a diminished role in the Civil War at the hands of Ulysses S. Grant, and when the river changed course by half a mile in 1912, Arkansas Post died for good.

Walking back to the Visitor Center, we saw two armadillos foraging in the grass.

"This is a beautiful park," Andy told rangers Donna and Jason, after we had walked every trail and picked up the tests that Ranger Joe had left for us.

"Did you see any beavers?" asked Ranger Jason. "We spotted a couple swimming in the pond earlier."

"We saw the beaver house," said Andy, "but no activity. No alligators. It's too cold. No snakes. And we covered all of Texas and never saw an armadillo until today."

"Oh," said Ranger Jason, "they are really dumb. I watched one walk into a pillar, drop on his back with legs in the air, and then get up and walk away."

We all laughed in understanding. We didn't want to leave this peaceful bayou with its quiet waters and swooping egrets and herons and wide expanses of lawn where a thriving city once stood. We stayed and visited with the rangers, talking of nothing, but enjoying the peace and beauty of the lowland hardwood forests and the wetland marshes. How sad, its history. How wonderful, the government protects and preserves sites like Arkansas Post for all Americans.

Before heading to the motel, we stopped at Wilbur D. Mills Dam, a hydroelectric power source for the area, and walked the channel. Level fields stretched as far as we could see, with rich black earth of thriving farms in what was many years ago a staging point for Mississippi River trade.