Over the first half of Spring Break last week I went to northeast Arkansas, the last part of the state that I really havent explored at all. I still have a few random small areas of the state to cover for my book on the state but they are close by and not very large areas. Anyways, I made a thread a few weeks ago about my trip down to southeast Arkansas. The northeast part of the state is still in the Mississippi Aluvial Delta and is as flat as can be. The southeast part of the state is largely black, while the northeast part is largely white. The small towns although, were in a little bit better shape than the southeast part, but not by much. The nicest town I visited was Jonesboro, home to Arkansas State. Their downtown had lots of new infill development of high quality, which was surprising to see. But, most of the other towns I visited were in shambles and have lost tons of population. It is very very important to photograph these places as most in 20-50 years I would surmise, will no longer be in existence. Anyways, heres the photos from my trip.
Orange is the first half of my trip, blue the last.
Little Rock
Little Rock
Lonoke, first little town I stopped in along 40/70 east
Lonoke
Carlisle, all of these small east Arkansas towns barely survive off of farming for the most part now.
This lady was restoring this beautiful turn of the century house in Carlisle, she let me tour her house too which was pretty cool.
Hazen
Little tiny podunk town of De Valls Bluff along the White River.
Louisiana Purchase State Park on the way to Helena. This was the starting off point in 1815 for plotting township and range from the original Louisiana Purchase in 1803.
This was very cool, saw this house out of the corner of my eye leaving the state park, it even had some awesome little houses out back that you rarely see.
Last town on the way to Helena, Marvel, its pretty much a hell hole.
These following pictures are form Helena, a town a lot like Cairo Illinois along the Mississippi, its not quite as bad, but its getting there.
Leaving Helena
Marianna
Marianna
Abandoned school in the pretty much abandoned town of Hughes.
Hughes, this place was something else, I talked to a cop that told me to not hang around in this town. He said crack is a huge problem in this little podunk, I drove around the neighborhood that surrounded the destroyed downtown, and it looked like a hurricane went through it. Its seriously, the worst town Ive ever seen in the entire state.
Leaving the hell hole of Hughes, a tiny little church outside of Hughes.
Crawfordsville
Parkin, home to one of the most important archeaological sites in the state, Parkin Mounds where De Soto went through as they have found Spanish horse bells and beads from his expedition.
This pottery is some of the most advanced ever found in North America, it dates from around 1200-1400.
The mound site used to be a very large city, when De Soto came through in the 1520s, it was a town of around 2 thousand people, huge for a Mississippian community.
I ended day two in West Memphis, the most crime ridden town in the state, along with Pine Bluff near Little Rock
Memphis
Memphis
Beale St. was super crowded since it was Spring Break, it was awesome.
Beale St.
West Memphis just over the Mississippi from Memphis.
I tried getting a photo of the Memphis skyline from the Arkansas side but the Mississippi was flooding and all the roads to the areas I wanted to go were underwater.
Ill make part 2 in a few days. I have so many photos to go through.
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