Arizona Academy Site

Arizona's academy grew out of one preacher's habit of teaching alongside his ministry. Austin Dabney Harris, born in Georgia in 1835 and ordained a Baptist in 1858, established it while pastoring, and from 1871 served four churches, a weekend each month. His sixth child, born Lee Marcus Harris in Arizona in 1869, went briefly to his father's school, then to Lisbon Academy, a college at Homer and the state normal school at Natchitoches. Austin died in August 1881; his son became Louisiana's state superintendent of education.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Germantown Colony Museum — 17 mi
  Two hewn-log buildings from an 1836 religious commune near Minden, the earliest of its kind in Louisiana, with a museum added in 1975.
• Eddie G. Robinson Museum — 23 mi
  A state museum in a former women's gymnasium at Grambling State University, on the 408-win coach who sent more than 200 players to the pros.
• Lake Bistineau State Park — 35 mi
  A 903-acre state park on a lake the Great Raft made, opened in 1946 with a separate section for Black visitors from 1956, and now known for cypress water and a lake that is drawn down.

More markers nearby

• T. H. Harris — 1.4 mi
• Sheriff Pat Garrett — 4.6 mi
• St. John Colored School — 5.4 mi
• Claiborne Parish Court House — 5.6 mi