Davidsonville Historic State Park

Davidsonville Historic State Park preserves the site of a town that had several firsts in what is now Arkansas. Lawrence County was created in the Missouri Territory on January 15, 1815, when it reached across much of northern Arkansas, and the county bought the town site on December 16, 1815. Davidsonville was named for John Davidson, who represented the county in the Missouri legislature, and got the first post office on June 28, 1817. A two-story brick courthouse was finished in 1822, and the town also had the first federal land office in the future state.

The end came with a road. Army work on the Southwest Trail in the late 1820s moved it out of the swamps and west of the town, and a new town called Jackson grew up on the new road across the river. Davidsonville lost its county seat in 1829 and became a ghost town. Because it was never rebuilt, archaeologists treat it as unusually undisturbed, and digs are still turning up streets, foundations and artifacts. The state approved the park in 1957 and the site joined the National Register in 1974.

Two open frameworks added in 2014 outline a two-story dogtrot house and the courthouse. The visitor center, rebuilt in 2016, has a replica hunter-trapper flatboat from the 1820s, an audio tour and finds from the digs. Trails reach the townsite, the Black River and Scott Cemetery, and the park rents jon boats.