Short stops: Fort Smith National Historic Site

Confluence of the Poteau and Arkansas rivers at Fort Smith

Remains of an earlier Fort Smith

Heavy rains pummeled Georgia roads until the Alabama border. No one was awake yet in Birmingham. After many rolling rural miles, the sun came out near Tupelo. But there was nowhere to stop yet. 

I was too early for the Natchez Trace Parkway facilities. Still, I drove a few miles of the parkway for a break from the interstate and trucks, even if I had to backtrack and drop straight into the flow of passing and speeding. 

Hours later, with Memphis and the Mississippi far behind, I took a quick diversion to Little Rock Central High School, where nine students broke segregation by enrolling in classes in 1957. 

Last time I walked the grounds during a break in the rain. We spent significant time in the visitor center and museum, watching the park documentary about the Little Rock Nine, the students who braved protests and slurs to break segregation the school. I felt versed in the site’s history. 

Unlike other national historic sites, Little Rock Central is still an active high school, so visiting during Christmas time was opportune. Numerous visitors wandered the grounds along with the gardens at the intersection where the school and museum stand. Others stopped their cars in the no loading zone long enough to take pictures. Perhaps most remarkable is as of December 2023, eight of the Little Rock Nine are still alive. all in their eighties.  

Another 150 miles of Arkansas had to pass before I reached the one-time frontier on Arkansas’ western border. Fort Smith is no longer a distant outpost, but a city of almost 100,000 people. 

When would I run into the Fort Smith National Historic Site? It had to lie along the city’s riverfront. I passed though the suburban areas of town and the buildings grew more historic as I approached a bridge to Oklahoma. 

Those numerous blocks of historic buildings across Fort Smith’s stately downtown threw me off.  Fortunately, the park service occupies most of the oldest standing structures in Fort Smith, leaving no doubt to their role on the waterfront. THe former courthouse has been turned into a park service visitor center and museum, which details the history of the Fort Smith area, displays artifacts of Indian Territory days, goes in-depth on Judge Isaac Parker, and recreates several historic places. 

Several iterations of Fort Smith stood on the banks of the Arkansas. None saw any armed assaults, especially not the incursions they feared from the Indian tribes expatriated to present-day Oklahoma. At the edge of one version of the fort lies a boundary marking Indian Territory. That boundary moved further back, with the southeastern tribes settled across the river after the Trail of Tears brought some up to 900 miles west from their ancestral grounds. 

Before a string of smaller forts rose from the territory, Fort Smith was the primary supply station for Indian territory, from blankets to anvils to other necessities in the mid-19th century. Confederate soldiers held Fort Smith for more than a year although once the Union reestablished control, it held the town till the end of the Civil War. 

Judge Parker's courtroom

Much of the museum is devoted to the long tenure of Judge Isaac Parker. Known as the Hanging Judge, Parker oversaw the western district of Arkansas for 21 years, where he presided over 13,000 cases, of which 160 came with death sentences and 79 ended at the gallows. 

Despite his reputation, Parker never witnessed an execution in Fort Smith and was no fan of capital punishment, but mainly wanted consequences for crimes. Parker was also supported Native rights and women’s suffrage, among other emerging issues of his day. 

The district included crime in the Indian Territory, where numerous bandits and other criminals operated in the late 1890s. That drove the image of the territory as a lawless place, a reputation Parker and U.S. marshals sought to address. But there was law, and many landed in Fort Smith's basement jail, which had zero amenities and a bucket for a bathroom. 

Jail cross-section

Bass Reeves, the first Black marshal west of the Mississippi, primarily worked in Indian territory. After the 2023 Taylor Sheridan mini-series about Reeves, I expect Fort Smith to get a little more attention, as Fort Smith features prominently, as does Donald Sutherland as Judge Parker. The U.S. Marshals Museum also lies in downtown Fort Smith, but I lacked the time for another museum after the historic site. 

Between the riverfront scenery and an outdoor replica of Fort Smith's busy gallows, I was eager to get outside the courthouse museum. 

At Fort Smith, the Arkansas is not the trickle that moves downhill from the Colorado Plains and dries out entirely by Garden City, Kansas. 

Healthy tributaries and reservoir releases upstream give it a fuller appearance here. Lush green islands dot the waters off the Arkansas’ junction with the Poteau River. In the afternoon sun, a flock of pelicans, cormorants, and other waterfowl bobbed in the shelter of a wooded peninsula where the rivers meet.

From a certain angle, this view from Fort Smith didn't seem dissimilar from what soldiers, migrants, and merchants might have seen looking west during the fort's heyday. 

Pelicans and cormorants where the Poteau meets the Arkansas.