Pope County in the Civil War

When the war reached Dover, the county's paper left first. On April 29, 1862, Pope County's records were carried out of town and kept in a cave five miles north until July 27, 1865. A skirmish at Dover on May 25, 1864, left no detailed report, and bushwhackers burned the town in April 1865. Dover had been the seat since 1841. The Encyclopedia of Arkansas notes that a school built in 1917 later took the site of the old courthouse.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Lake Dardanelle State Park — 3.6 mi
  A park on a 34,300-acre Arkansas River reservoir at Russellville, with aquarium exhibits and the story of the Norristown ferry crossing used in the removal of five nations.
• Mount Nebo State Park — 8.2 mi
  Arkansas's second state park, on a flat-topped mesa above Dardanelle: a Victorian summer town, a town run by women in 1924, CCC cabins and a Trail of Tears view.
• Holla Bend National Wildlife Refuge — 10 mi
  A 7,000-acre refuge on an island of former farmland made when the Corps cut off a bend of the Arkansas River in 1954, with winter ducks, geese and eagles and a 14-mile auto tour.
• Petit Jean State Park — 18 mi
  Arkansas's first state park, founded in 1923, with a Civilian Conservation Corps lodge, Cedar Falls and a Trail of Tears overlook on a canyon-cut mountain.

More markers nearby

• Pope County Militia War — steps away
• Action at Dardanelle — 4.8 mi
• Potts Tavern — 6.8 mi
• Potts Family in the Civil War — 6.8 mi