[Old Fossil]

Montgomery County - Here is a small cemetery I was shown several years ago but never took any photos, so in November I decided to go do that and found it was not listed on any maps I had at that time, but is well maintained. That got my curiosity up so I started digging. I got the latest available topo map and find it is listed on it as the Ellis Cemetery. As I continued to dig I find lots of wonderful associated history and will file an archeology report on it with the recommendation that it be placed on the National Register. Now I gotta get back over there, map it, and get my paperwork done.


It is west of Black Springs, at the intersection of Arkansas Highway 8 and North Polk Creek [county] Road/Forest Service Road 73. Here are introductory photos but there will be more later.

[Old Fossil]

Clark County - We were out and about again yesterday. A perfect day for exploring. Found two new Indian Sites, though that wasn't what we were looking for. We were looking at two old pioneer house sites to see if we could find anything to date them. We did, but also found Indian artifacts. I have posted here in the past that if you carefully search an old pioneer house site you will, usually, find Indian artifacts. The point is that if the pioneer thought that was a good place for a house, hundreds or thousands of years ago the Indians had already picked it as a good camp site.


The attached photo is one of the last two iron bridges (that I know of) in Clark County. It is across Terre Noire Creek on Bateman Road.

[Old Fossil]

Another view of the bridge. When we were there taking photos, my friend told me that a long time ago when he was in high school, he and his high school buddy got summer jobs driving gravel trucks for Clark County and on one trip the rear wheels of his buddy's truck broke through the deck of this bridge. Getting the truck unloaded and out and off the bridge was a very interesting story.

[Old Fossil]

Clark County on Arkansas Highway 26 between Arkadelphia and Antoine - Many years ago when I first drove 26, this was an occupied farm house. I don't know anything about it's history but as the years went by it was vacated, then used by deer hunters, and began to deteriorate. Originally the porch also went down the right side and on around the back. The part on the right side and back rotted and fell down and the hunters started parking their campers in the yard. The other day when I took these photos there are still old mattresses on the floor of some of the rooms and some chairs. All appear to have been there, unused, for a very long time. The missing floor could have been taken out for firewood, or possibly taken elsewhere to reuse because it was very old pine.

[Old Fossil]

I Posted the 1st of January that my archeologist friend and I had been out scouting and mapping segments of the Old Military Road west of Arkadelphia which Arkansas Highway 26 follows (more or less) and that I had forgotten my camera. Here are a couple of photos he took and forwarded to me. The photo that shows the hood of his truck is the old highway 26 which was blacktopped, and across the present highway is the other photo which is the military road. The Federal Government financed improvements of this road in the early 1800s but those "improvements" consisted only of removing underbrush and tree stumps and filling in wash-outs. From Arkadelphia west there were several branches of the road but the main road passed through "Old Washington".


All along Highway 26 you can see segments of the military road if you know where to look and what to look for. A year or so ago I posted the remains of a military road bridge a few miles from where these photos were taken.

[Old Fossil]

West of Little Rock between east and west bound Chenal Parkway. Several weeks ago Michael Storey featured this trail in his Happy Trails column in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. We finally got around to checking out it's west end that was completed this past summer and found a great trail that is both wheelchair and stroller friendly. About half of this segment is asphalt and the other half is concrete and is about eight feet wide. We will check out the rest of the trail later. This segment is between Pride Valley and Loyola Drive, is about .4 mile long, and follows Rock Creek. It has nice benches set along the creek.


If you could wear noise canceling ear muffs you would think you were out in the wilderness on an improved trail, not walking between the lanes of very busy Chenal Parkway. When the foliage greens up you will not be able to see the vehicles on the street, but you certainly can hear them.


More photos to follow.

[Old Fossil]

Rock Creek Trail - Here is one of the benches that are set at intervals along the creek bank.

[Old Fossil]

Well, today I found out that I don't have to go to the boonies to find old artifacts. We were having the carpet replaced in my home office and in the process of clearing the "stuff" out of the way so the carpet people could move the furniture, file cabinets, etc. I kept finding things in nooks and crannies that I had forgotten about. I thought I had removed it all but when they started moving the file cabinets one of the guys asked what I wanted to do with a framed picture they had found between the cabinets. It was not a picture, but a large framed certificate appointing one of my great grandfathers as a Justice of the Peace in Caney Fork Township in Pike County, and was dated 30 October 1890. I don't remember where, when, or how, but there it is. I would like to post a photo of it here, but it's so large that reducing it to fit would make it unreadable.

[Old Fossil]

Since yesterday was "leap day", the food service people here in this old folks city decided to prepare a treat for us. We could get extra servings of our favorite dish, but the main course was frog legs. The first I've had since I was a kid (a very long time ago) and they were wonderful, and perfectly prepared. I haven't had a chance to talk to the dietitian, but I need to ask her what our "Yankee" residents thought about them .

[Old Fossil]

Originally Posted by Old Fossil

Since yesterday was "leap day", the food service people here in this old folks city decided to prepare a treat for us. We could get extra servings of our favorite dish, but the main course was frog legs. The first I've had since I was a kid (a very long time ago) and they were wonderful, and perfectly prepared. I haven't had a chance to talk to the dietitian, but I need to ask her what our "Yankee" residents thought about them .

I talked to the dietitian and she said that the reaction of the "Yankees" and "Southerners" was about the same, that some of both groups wouldn't even try the legs. Those Southerners must have grown up in the cities because if they had grown up in the country not too many years ago, they would have had, and loved, frog legs. Oh well, their loss