The Salem Campground

Salem is a community the camp meeting made. The Scott family came from Alabama in 1833 and settled near the Military Road, and William Scott had a brush arbor up for meetings by 1834. The earliest known reference to Salem is from 1863, when a captured Confederate gave his residence as Salem, Post Office Benton. A cotton gin, mill and store opened at nearby LaBelle in 1889. The camp meeting has run continuously since 1867. During World War II the Alcoa and Reynolds aluminum plants drew thousands of workers and caused rapid population growth around the church.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Pinnacle Mountain State Park — 15 mi
  A day-use state park west of Little Rock around a 1,011-foot Ouachita peak, with a strenuous summit trail, the Arkansas Arboretum and a visitor center above the Arkansas River.
• Big Dam Bridge — 16 mi
  A 14-foot-wide walking and cycling bridge built onto Murray Lock and Dam, 90 feet over the Arkansas River between Little Rock and North Little Rock.
• Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site — 17 mi
  The 1927 high school where nine Black students entered under federal troops on September 25, 1957, with a National Park Service visitor center across the intersection.
• Arkansas State Capitol — 17 mi
  The neo-classical Capitol built from 1899 to 1915 on the old penitentiary site with state convict labor, free to enter, with the Little Rock Nine monument on the grounds.

More markers nearby

• George M. Holt — 3.3 mi
• William Ayers Crawford — 3.3 mi
• 11th Arkansas Infantry, C.S.A. — 3.8 mi
• The Niloak Pottery — 3.8 mi