Arkansas
Our first stop in Arkansas was at Pea Ridge National Military Park. We enjoy visiting our National Parks but we knew very little about this one before today. The battle fought here in March 1862 was a pivotal one in the Civil War. The building is Elkhorn Tavern, which was turned into a field hospital, caring for both Union and Confederate wounded.
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Nestled in the Ozark Mountains is Eureka Springs, a picturesque town built around its natural springs. The City of Eureka Springs was founded in 1879, and as word of Eureka's miraculous, healing waters began to spread, thousands of visitors flocked to the original encampment of tents and hastily built shanties. By late 1879, the estimated population of Eureka Springs reached 10,000 people, and in 1881, the town became the fourth largest city in Arkansas.
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We took the historic tram tour and learned more about this quaint and quirky town with its mix of Victorian, Craftsman and Cottage dwellings. Because the town is so hilly, some homes have their upper stories on one street while the lower stories front another street (or two) below, so that these houses have multiple street addresses!
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Cliff Cottage, our B&B, was originally a Sears catalog home, arriving in Eureka around 1880 in 40 boxes on the train.
Nearby, in a wooded setting, is Thorncrown Chapel, soaring 48-feet-tall, with 425 windows and over 6,000 square feet of glass. The chapel was designed by E. Fay Jones, an apprentice of Frank Lloyd Wright, and constructed in 1980.
Buffalo National River was designated by Congress as America's first national river in 1972. We stopped at the Tyler Bend Visitor Center for a short hike that took us past the Collier Homestead. The house, shed, and animal pen remain as evidence of settlers.
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In 1928, Solomon Collier and his family left Kentucky, secured a forty-acre tract of land, built a house and outbuildings, cultivated the land, and improved it enough by 1937, to become some of the last settlers in the valley to acquire land under the 1862 Homestead Act.
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The next day we first stopped at the Old Mill, featured in the opening scene of “Gone with the Wind". It's a re-created 1880's water-powered grist mill, dedicated to the memory of Arkansas's pioneers. Then we visited the William J. Clinton Presidential Center, where exhibits explore Clinton’s early life, his presidency, and his continuing work with the Clinton Foundation.
The Center also contains a full-scale replicas of the White House Cabinet Room and the Oval Office.
In the photo above, the school is visible behind the sign as well as the Magnolia Gas Station across the street, which became a temporary “office” for reporters during the desegregation crisis.
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Little Rock Central High School is a place where history was made. The high school became a crucial battleground in the struggle for civil rights as nine African-American students, known as the Little Rock Nine, courageously desegregated the school in September 1957.
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Little Rock Central High School is still an operating high school today, with more than 2400 students.
We spent the afternoon at Hot Springs National Park. Fordyce Bathhouse, which opened in 1915, has been extensively restored and serves as the Park's visitor center and museum. We took a ranger-guided tour of the luxurious rooms.
Beginning with tent structures over the natural hot springs in the late 1880's, to the grand bathhouses established by 1921, the area catered to those seeking treatments for various health reasons. Hot Springs came to be known as "The Nation's Health Sanitarium". Today, two bathhouses offer modern spa services; one of them is the Buckstaff Bathhouse, in continuous operation since 1912.
Thermal fountains dispense water from the springs so we had to try some.
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We took an elevator ride to the top of the 216-foot-tall Hot Springs Mountain Tower for a great view.
Several people had recommended McClard's Bar-B-Q so we were surprised to pull up and see such a nondescript place. McClard's began serving their delicious barbecue in 1928, and has been at this location since 1942, still a family business and now managed by the fourth generation of the McClard family.
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