Jacksonport State Park

Jacksonport State Park sits where the White River and the Black River meet. Thomas Tunstall, a riverboat pilot, saw the spot in 1831 when low water delayed his steamboat, and steamboats began landing in 1833. The town was the Jackson County seat by the mid-1850s and shipped goods for much of northern Arkansas and southern Missouri. Jacksonport was shelled on June 2, 1862, and neither side held it for long. More than 6,000 Confederate soldiers under General M. Jeff Thompson surrendered here on June 5, 1865.

The courthouse, finished in 1872, is a brick and limestone Second Empire building that cost between $65,000 and $70,000. Engineer John A. Schnabel had the stone foundation raised two feet, and floods have reached within inches of the floor without entering. The town then lost the railroad. It refused the company's request for $25,000, so the line crossed the White River at Newport, three miles downstream, and the county seat moved there in 1892. The Encyclopedia of Arkansas also records lynchings in the town: Rowland and Dickerson, taken from the jail in October 1880; Henry Allen on September 10, 1881; and Leonard Boyd, a white man, on August 2, 1887.

The old courthouse was a school, a cotton gin, housing and a rice store before Lady Elizabeth Luker and the Jackson County Historical Society bought it in 1961. The park was dedicated on June 5, 1965. Exhibits, a visitor center, a pavilion and the Tunstall Riverwalk are on site.