Queen Wilhelmina State Park

Rich Mountain, at 2,681 feet the second-highest peak in Arkansas, is where railroad officials opened a 35-room hostel on June 22, 1898. The Kansas City, Pittsburg and Gulf Railroad, now Kansas City Southern, ran through the Ouachita Mountains, and Dutch investors helped finance it, so the lodge was named Wilhelmina Inn for Holland's Queen Wilhelmina. It changed owners several times after 1900, was raffled off in 1905 and closed for good in 1910.

The state took up the site in the 1950s. Act 76 of 1957 established Queen Wilhelmina State Park, and the first land was acquired on June 19, 1957. A second lodge, built on the 1898 ruins, opened on June 22, 1963 and burned on November 10, 1973. A third was dedicated on November 23, 1975. It closed in early 2012 for renovation and reopened in summer 2015.

Today the 40-room lodge is open around the clock, and Queen's Restaurant serves Southern cooking. The park has 41 campsites and trails including Lovers' Leap, plus a section of the Ouachita National Hiking Trail. Representative Landers L. Morrow brought a 1.5-mile miniature railroad to the park in 1960, and the Mountain Glory Station, with a train, miniature golf and a store, runs from Memorial Day to Labor Day. The Talimena byway passes through the park.