Logoly State Park

Native Americans lived here, and artifacts have turned up along the trails. By the late 1800s settlers came for Magnesia Springs, a group of springs thought to cure illness. The Encyclopedia of Arkansas says it is believed that Caddo people first introduced settlers to the springs. A small community followed, with two hotels, the Duke and the Mendenhall, and the Cotton Belt railroad stopped nearby to unload passengers. Methodists held camp meetings here from 1888 and into the 1930s.

By 1940 three families owned the land, the Longinos, Goodes and Lyles, and leased it to the Desoto Council of the Boy Scouts, who named it Camp Logoly from the first two letters of each name. The scouts moved to Camp Desoto near El Dorado in 1967, and every structure they had built was removed, leaving a few concrete slabs, outdoor toilets and a water pump. Hugh Longino then asked the state about a park. The Nature Conservancy bought the land in 1974 to hold it until the state could pay, and the legislature funded the purchase in 1975 and 1977. Logoly's planners met at the Columbia County courthouse in Magnolia.

The park opened on May 19, 1978, the state's first environmental education park and only the third of its kind in the nation. About 200 acres is a natural area protecting pine, oak, hickory and beech forest and the mineral springs. There is a visitor center with exhibits and a classroom, a bathhouse, a pavilion and trails, and interpreters lead programs and school field trips.