Rohwer

There is a great amount of history situated around the small town of Rohwer. But like Arkansas Post, most of that history has been lost and there is little to show for what took place here 65 years ago. Although Rohwer now looks like a typical small town, it was vastly different during World War II, when it was the setting for one of the darker chapters of recent US history.

In 1942, President Roosevelt established the War Relocation Authority for the "relocation, maintenance, and supervision" of Japanese-Americans. The WRA built ten relocation camps, with the majority of them being located in Western states. But two sites were selected in Arkansas, one by the town of Jerome, and the other one in Rohwer.

The camp in Rohwer was situated on over 10,000 acres of land, which included the barracks for the relocated citizens, and buildings for schools, health care, laundry and even a cinema. The Rohwer camp operated from September 1942 to November 30, 1945. The highest number of people recorded in the camp was in 1943, with 8,975 people living behind the barbed-wire fences. Among that number was George Takei of Star Trek fame, who lived there in 1942.

The state of Arkansas was not pleased to have the two camps here. In 1943, the state legislature passed a law meant "to prohibit any Japanese, citizen or alien, from purchasing or owning land in Arkansas." While that law was ruled unconstitutional, the governor at the time was against allowing any Japanese American student to attend college classes in the state. In fact, only one Japanese American student was accepted into a college during the length of World War II. I was a bit pleased to see that the only university in the state to accept a Japanese American student was the University of the Ozarks in Clarksville (my alma mater).

At the end of the war, the camps were shut down and the Japanese Americans were finally allowed to return home. The camp's buildings were torn down, and the land became cotton fields. The only lasting legacy of the Rohwer camp is a small cemetery. I drove up to the cemetery, located along a dirt road that was surrounded on all sides by rows of cotton.


The cemetery contains the graves of about twenty people who died while at the camps. There are two huge markers. One is a memorial for those who passed away while living in Rohwer. The second one, which is shaped like a tank, commemorates the 326 Japanese Americans who decided to join the US Army while being forced to live at Rohwer. During the war, the soldiers fought in France and Italy. The memorial here is for 31 soldiers from Rohwer who died in battle.




The cemetery became a National Historic Landmark in 1992. The concrete markers have faded over time, but they provide a somber contrast to the verdant farmland that surrounds it now.


The cotton fields that surround the cemetery seem to stretch on for miles, and there were a few pieces of cotton that must have escaped last year's harvest.


Across one of the fields was this old barn, one of the few buildings that you can see from the cemetery.


I couldn't help but wonder where the old buildings and barracks of the camp used to be. Were the foundations replaced with the rows of cotton? If there wasn't a cemetery here, there would be no lasting trace of the Rowher camp.


Rohwer is a place I've been wanting to visit for several years now. My Grandmother was from this part of the state, and worked at the camp during the War. Occasionally, she would tell us some stories about the camp, which I'm sad to admit that I don't really remember all that well now. She worked in the administrative offices, which were generally kept separate from the Japanese population. She needed help making ends meet while my Grandfather was in the Navy, and the relocation camps were one of the few places in that part of the state that were hiring.

I left the cemetery and headed back to the main road, stopping to get this view looking down the train tracks that must have passed by the camp at one time.


The cemetery at Rowher probably doesn't see too many visitors. The markers there are faded, the concrete reflecting the 65 years that have passed since the camp was in operation. But for all the activity and humanity that was placed here, the cemetery and its weathered markers are all that remain, surrounded by fields of cotton.

Watson

From Arkansas Post, I drove south on Hwy. 1 past more vast fields. I stopped at this old church, which probably isn't home to many services anymore. Although the church's sign is gone, what's left is still welcoming visitors.


The sign is still there, but laying on the ground under a huge tree...


The next stop was the small town of Watson. The town just has a population of around 300 now, but at one time was the county seat. But like most of its neighboring towns in the Delta, it seems to be fading away. This was along the main street in the town's small downtown, just across from the railroad tracks.

There was a small cafe next to it, which was open but only for lunches.

I was interested in visiting Watson, because my Grandmother was born and grew up there. She moved away after the Great Flood of 1927, heading off to North Little Rock to attend school. It was in a class at North Little Rock High School that she met my Grandfather. I still have some distant relatives that live around Watson. But unfortunately, they aren't among the major families that still live in the city. According to Wikipedia, in a post no doubt written by Tyler Cox: Watson is home to many notable families, none of which is more recognized better than the Cox family. This family has begot a most loved son, Tyler Cox. With the love of his family, Tyler has become one of the most loved people of Dumas Ar.

Across the train tracks from the Highway One Cafe is the old cotton gin. I ended up using a texture for this shot (which might be too much, I don't know).

(the texture is from skeletal mess on Flickr).

While looking up stuff tonight on Watson, I found something cool about a nearby "ghost town." There used to be a busy little city, called Napoleon, that was built at the intersections of the Arkansas and Mississippi Rivers. The post office there was established in 1836, and people there were optimistic that the town would develop into a major city due to its location by two rivers.

The town was chosen for a federal hospital for wounded boatmen, and it began seeing patients in 1855. At the time the town had a population of about 1,000 people. Mark Twain even mentioned the book in his memoir, Life on the Mississippi, by saying that it was a “town of innumerable fights—an inquest every day; town where I used to know the prettiest girl…and the most accomplished in the whole Mississippi Valley.”

But the town would soon disappear after the Civil War. The Encyclopedia of Arkansas best summed up the sad fate of Napoleon:
On February 12, 1861, even before Arkansas had voted to secede from the Union, Governor Henry Massie Rector had state troops seize the marine hospital and any ammunition shipments in Napoleon to prevent them from falling into Union hands. By September 1862, Union troops occupied Napoleon, and most of its citizens had abandoned the town. In January 1863, Union soldiers destroyed the county courthouse in Napoleon, using its wood to fuel their fires in the midst of a blizzard.

Meanwhile, Confederate guerillas were using the wooded peninsula east of the town as a base to attack Union boats. The main channel of the Mississippi River swung east and then west along what was called the Beulah Bend. The turning was so abrupt that the guerillas were able to use the same cannon to fire on boats as they entered the bend and again when they left it. Lieutenant Commander Thomas O. Selfridge, seeking a way to avoid this ambush point, had the men under his command dig a channel across the peninsula. The work took only a day, since the land was soft, the distance only a few hundred yards, and the current of the river itself assisted their work. In fact, on the day after the work was completed—in the first week of March 1863—Selfridge was able to pilot his steamship, the USS Conestoga, through the new channel.

Although Selfridge was only seeking a shortcut around the guerilla ambush, he succeeded in rerouting the Mississippi River, ultimately turning Beulah Bend into an oxbow lake. His work also spelled the end of the town of Napoleon, for the new channel of the river happened to be aimed directly at the town. High water in 1868 caused the marine hospital to crumble into the river. Another flood in 1874 completely submerged what was left of Napoleon. By October of that year, the county government was moved to Watson. The iron church bell once used in Napoleon is now in the Catholic church in McGehee (Desha County). At times when the level of the Mississippi is unusually low—as it was in the summer of 1954—the remains of the town can still be detected in the sandbars of the river.

Arkansas Post

About 14 miles from Dumas is the Arkansas Post National Memorial, one of the most historic spots in the state. The post sits along the Arkansas River, not too far from where it meets up with the Mississippi River. The road to the park passes by miles of fields, and also this large figure made out of tires.


A lot of history has taken place at Arkansas Post, which was established by the French way back in 1686 (which makes it the oldest European settlement west of the Mississippi River). The post was an isolated and lonely place, and it never had a large population. In 1723, the Inspector-General of the colony visited the post to find only 17 Frenchmen living there. In 1763, the post and surrounding land were given to Spain at the end of the French and Indian War. A census taken that year showed that only 31 people lived at the post.

One of the last battles of the Revolutionary War occurred at Arkansas Post, when British loyalists attacked the fort. Spain was an ally of the Americans, and the Spanish forces successfully defended the fort from attack. By 1798, the population there had risen to nearly 400. And in 1800, Arkansas Post and all of colonial Louisiana became the property of Napoleon’s France. The period of French rule was short-lived, as the U.S. government got all the land as part of the Louisiana Purchase.

Arkansas Post remained a small and isolated town up until 1819, when it became the capitol of the new Arkansas Territory. The population here grew to over a thousand people, and several new buildings were constructed. That was again also short-lived, when the territorial capitol was moved to Little Rock in 1821. The town of Arkansas Post declined after this, only to see a lot of activity during the Civil War. A fort was constructed next to the town, which was attacked by Union troops in 1863. The battle destroyed the fort and most of the civilian buildings of Arkansas Post. In the decades after the war, the Arkansas River claimed the ruins of the civil war fort, and the town was moved a few miles upstream. By then all of the historic buildings were gone, lost to time or the waters of the river.

For all the history that has occurred in and around Arkansas Post, there really isn't much to see at the park. The visitor center sits near the plot of Arkansas Post back in the time when it was the territorial capitol. But it takes a lot of imagination to see what the town was like back in those days. The only remains are a few pieces of foundation, and an old cistern. Sidewalks criss-cross the park, following the path of roads in the old town.


There are signs that show where the major buildings were, and a few markers stuck in the grass. This one marks the location of the Arkansas State Bank.


There is a lot of wildlife in the park. A small lake by the visitor center had a sign about alligators, saying that the lake was an important habitat. I carefully looked in too see if there were any gators there, but didn't see any. Probably a good thing, since they would have probably taken a leg or arm as lunch. But some paved trails head off into the woods, and I heard some owls hooting in the distance. I hoped to see some type of wildlife, and managed to see a few armadillos running around.


After that I left the ghosts of the old fort and headed back out onto the road, heading south through the flat lands of the Delta...

Mitchellville

Mitchellville is a small town (population around 500) that sits along Hwy. 65 north of Dumas. The town is a collection of homes all bunched around a huge silo and grain elevator (or I guess that is what it is). The building looms large over the homes there.

I thought that it looked neat, so I turned off of Hwy. 65 and drove around some to try to find a good angle for some pictures. It's a very active place, with trucks moving in and out. I ended up behind the buildings, along a dirt road that runs next to some train tracks.




This is the view a field nearby, with the final remains of last years harvest...


From there I headed back south on Hwy. 65, and would soon visit one of the most historic places in Arkansas...

Grady & Gould

The next stops on our little Delta tour are the two small towns of Grady and Gould. Both of these towns sit along Hwy. 65 south of Pine Bluff. They aren’t all that big, but I do have some bad memories from here. Way back in 1999, I got a speeding ticket in Grady. It wasn’t too happy to have to make the drive back down Hwy. 65 for traffic court.

This time around I didn’t see any of the Grady P.D. patrolling the streets, although I did make sure I drove legally (or somewhat close to legally). Grady has a few old buildings lined up off of Hwy. 65, including an old building that looked perhaps like it might have one time been a train station. A weathered sign was propped up that said “Grady Public Library,” but the ravages of time left most of the sign unreadable (sadly ironic for a sign promoting a library).


It didn’t look like the library has seen any recent use, especially with the deep bed of moss growing in front of the door like a mass of green shag carpeting.


The paint along the building was flaking and peeling. If this had been a library once, it doesn’t appear that anyone has checked it out in years.


Just about 30 feet away was an old metal building, with the Grady water tower rising up above…


And just down the road was the small town of Gould. I drove around there and stopped at a few places for some quick pictures. The picture of this old store was taken while looking out the passenger side window of the car (and is the only shot that didn’t accidentally include part of the window in it).