Petit Jean State Park

Petit Jean was Arkansas's first state park, and it began with a lumber company's doctor. In April 1907 officials of the Fort Smith Lumber Company toured their holdings, reached the Natural Bridge in the Seven Hollows area and began arguing over the cost of logging such rough ground. Their physician, Thomas William Hardison, later recalled that the idea came to him that the trees should be left alone and made into a park. He first campaigned for a national park, which ended in 1921 when National Park Service director Stephen Mather judged the tract too small. The state legislature established Petit Jean State Park in 1923.

From 1933 to 1941 the Civilian Conservation Corps built the park's roads, bridges, lakes, trails and rustic buildings. The company here was made up mostly of World War I veterans, and a visiting CCC official in 1934 judged it the best camp in Arkansas. Mather Lodge is the only lodge the CCC built in an Arkansas state park. The Cedar Falls Trail, about two miles round trip from behind the lodge, is a National Historic District. A CCC rock dam forms Lake Bailey.

In the 1830s the Cherokee and members of other southeastern nations passed Petit Jean Mountain on the forced journey to present-day Oklahoma, and a portion of that route can be seen from the overlook at Stout's Point. The park has more than 20 miles of trails, and its visitor center, named for Hardison, opened in December 2020.