Moving into Arkansas (5/1/25)

 At this point in our travels we have decided several things- we want to go to the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, and we really want to stop at the new National Park- New River Gorge National Park. Our “bookend” is our two week stay in Laurel Springs NC, to visit good friends that we haven’t seen in a long time. Our stay there begins May 14  so we have some time to see things along the way.

Our next stop was barely over the Arkansas border, in the small town of Fort Smith. I really liked this town, and the RV park we stayed in was new, and very well thought out.

In addition to housekeeping, we found time to visit the U.S. Marshal’s Museum.

The U.S. Marshal's Office is the oldest Federal law enforcement agency in the country.

 It was created in 1789 by George Washington when he signed the Judiciary Act of 1789.

 Their function was, and is, to support the federal courts and enforce the laws of the United States. Each judicial district has one Marshal, and however many deputy marshals are deemed necessary (some of them are even temporary).

Although one of their more noticeable jobs is to transport federal prisoners, it is just a small part of what they do. 

They are also responsible for apprehending fugitives, by whatever means they can. In 1985 Operation Flagship was put into play. Letters were sent out to 3000 fugitives, congratulating them on winning tickets to a football game. All they had to do was show up at a specific day and time to collect their tickets. Of course, once the fugitives were all assembled, they were placed under arrest. 144 fugitives were apprehended in this sting.

In the early days, there were also special marshals, called Frontier Marshals. As the name implies, they worked mostly out west where life was rougher and many of our states were just territories. Probably one of the most famous Frontier Marshals was Bass Reeves (apparently there is a TV show about him). Born into slavery, he escaped, and eventually became the first black deputy marshal west of the Mississippi. By some accounts he was responsible for capturing over 3000 fugitives. His intelligence and ingenuity seemed to be his most important weapons.

As more territories became states, the frontier was declared closed. So after 30 years as a deputy marshal, Reeves was out of a job. He finished out his career with the Muskogee Police Department.

Prohibition and desegregation were just two of the many areas where marshals played a huge role. In 1960 they were responsible for the safety of Ruby Bridges, a six year old black girl, as she attended an all white elementary school. They were also on hand to protect the first black man to attend a white university. Nothing was easy for these kids, so I give them a ton of credit for standing up. Ruby became an honorary marshal much later in her life.

The museum is very well done with several interactive displays – it’s  high on our list of best museums.

Leaving Fort Smith, our next 3 day stop was Compton Arkansas, in the Ozark mountains. No museum here, just hiking- and gorgeous sunsets.

This is the area where Buffalo River flows but its a bit early in the year to be on or in the water.

 

Our first hike was ok- 3 miles round trip to Hemmed in Hollow. If we had kept going we would have gotten a better view of the waterfall, but since we wanted to do another hike, we chose to turn back.

The second hike was much better- 3 miles round trip to “ Lost Valley”. This is a popular hike so we were certainly not alone.

The trail entailed crossing over a stream several times but luckily the water wasn’t too high.

The payoff for the hike was a couple of decent waterfalls and some cool rock formations.

Sometimes its better to have a person in the picture, to get some perspective.

Now it's on to Little Rock.