Springhill Park, Fort Smith, AR; Sept 22-30, 2013

Lake behind our RV

Little flower - rain lily? in campground

Springhill Park is on the John Paul Hammershmidt Lake, which extends 26 miles along the Arkansas River – half of the lake is in Arkansas nd half is in Oklahoma. The park itself is beautiful - the lakeside sites were fairly crowded but the loop in the forest was nearly empty. We had a lakeside site and Rich went down to the shoreline to fish several days. Didn't catch anything, but he had fun anyway. The restrooms were ok, but the showers had problems. The hot water didn’t work in the showers in our loop and the showers in the other loop had water so hot you couldn't stand beneath the stream. Both had push-button water that lasted about 45 seconds - not even enough to get my hair wet enough to shampoo. The weather was beautiful and we sat in the shade by the lake most days we were there.

                                                                                                                                                             

The park is near Fort Smith which at 87,000 people is the second largest city in Arkansas (Little Rock is the largest at about 200,000). It’s an interesting place with history oozing throughout the entire town.  We spent the better part of a day visiting some of the historic spots and could easily have spent another day or two.

There were many movies filmed in the region: True Grit, Hang ‘Em High, Cattle Annie and Little Britches, Belle Star, Frank and Jessie to name a few. The TV mini-series Lonesome Dove as well as the Blue and The Gray were also filmed in the area.

Fort Smith (the second one)

Foundation from first fort

The town of Fort Smith sprang up around the fort of the same name, which was originally built on a bluff on the Arkansas River where the Poteau River splits from the Arkansas.  Just across the bridge at the western edge of town is Oklahoma.

The first fort was built to keep peace between thee Osage and Cherokee. That didn’t work so well and the army abandoned thefort in 1924 and moved farther west.

Wagon in which prisoners were transported

Part of area prisoners were kept

It was during the 1830’s that Arkansas gained statehood and President Andrew Jackson forced the Indians off their lands in spite of treaties in place and even Supreme Court decisions saying he couldn’t.  The forced march, known as the Trail of Tears ensued relocating thousands of Chickasaw,  Choctaw, Seminole,  10,000 Native Americans died along the way due to exposure, disease, and starvation.  In 1836, the army returned to Fort Smith temporarily to provide supplies during the tragedy.

Courtroom

Creek, and Cherokee to Indian Territory (Oklahoma).

Double-sided bookcase turns on pedestal

The second Fort Smith was built shortly after the Trail of

Tears(1833) because of an unfounded fear of Indian attack and was garrisoned until 1871. During this time it was used as a supply depot for forts springing up farther west due to the US-Mexican War (1846-48), 1849 California Gold Rush, and the western migrations.

Gallows (reconstructed)

The fort saw little action during the Civil War in spite of changing hands from the Union to

This area had an outside door used to transfer prisoners

Confederate to Union armies, but was used as a major supply depot to both sides.

After the closure of the fort as a military post, it was used as a federal court and had jurisdiction over 74,000 square miles of country then called the Indian Territory, which covered the land west of Arkansas to but not including California.

Typical items used during this era

During its time as Federal Courthouse, Isaac Parker was its most

More items

renowned judge. Although he was known as the hanging judge, he worked to keep the court honest and tried to rehabilitate prisoners. No federal judge ever hanged more criminals or lost more on-duty deputy marshalls but during his tenure, Judge Parker tried over 13,000 cases, 344 for murder or rape at a time when federal mandated the death penalty for those crimes. Of the 160 people Judge Parker sentenced to hang, only 89 had the sentence actually carried out. Presiding over so
many trials, holding all the prisoners bound over for trial,
awaiting hanging or transportation to other facilities if sentenced to more than one year, cost a great deal of money. So much, in fact, that President Grant sent Senator Davis to look into why it cost so much. What the President didn’t understand was that, because all jurors were required to be literate in an area where many were not, the Judge had to bring in jurors from surrounding towns, thus paying for transportation as well as room and board during the trials.

Along with Senator Davis came his journalist daughter, Anna. Her investigation and subsequently published report on the conditions at the jail (sometimes housing more than 120 prisoners in a 20’ by 40’ room with only buckets for toilet facilities, prodded Congress to fund a new jail.

                                                                                                                                                                                 

Rich and Ed Myer

During our visit to the fort, we met a delightful volunteer (Ed

Quilt made by school children

Myer) for the park who regaled us with stories about the court as well as a story about his time in Viet Nam when John Wayne visited his unit.  We learned that every couple of months a “night court” is held by volunteers who reenact a case using transcripts of original trials. Often the verdicts in night court are different from the original verdicts.  During the Fort Smith National Historic Site’s 50^th Anniversary event school age children who visited were given a 5 inch square of muslin cloth and asked to draw something they had seen or learned during their visit. The quilt is on display at the entrance of the Fort.

Miss Laura's

Original stained glass

We also visited Miss Laura’s, a former bordello located in town

just north of the fort. This was one of seven houses that operated in the town of Fort Smith and the only one that survived the explosion of an oil storage tank and the

Door through which Laura interviewed clients

A typical room

subsequent fire. It is the only bordello listed on the National
Register of Historic Places.

Roll-top Table

Built in 1896, the house was bought by Laura Ziegler in 1898. She borrowed $3,000 from a banker, renovated the building, and opened it in 1903 as a brothel. It became the most celebrated in the Southwest and her ladies were known as the healthiest and most sophisticated in Fort Smith.  In 1911, she sold the  

Typical furnishings

house for $47,000.

Livestock auction house

We took a drive across the bridge to Oklahoma – just so I could say I’d been J  We saw harvested corn fields, mountains in the distance, a large building where livestock auctions were held weekly, some empty buildings, and a
school there

We also came across a wonderful doughnut shop called Shipley’s. The apple fritters are wonderful, the cake doughnuts crispy outside and tender inside.  There are several of them around this area, but it’s a good thing they aren’t national!

There were several other attractions we wanted to visit in Fort Smith – an antique carousel,  a trolley museum, the Fort Smith National Cemetery, and the Fort Smith Museum – and hope we get back to go through those.