Discover Culture, Nature and History in Lawrence County

Lawrence County combines music history, historic sites and water-rich landscapes into a journey with very different highlights. In Walnut Ridge, you can encounter the legacy of rock ’n’ roll, while Powhatan preserves historic buildings and archives. There are also river lowlands, lakes, hiking trails and opportunities for birdwatching. This allows you to tailor your search for a vacation rental according to whether cultural discoveries, days in nature or a mixture of both should be the focus.

Music History and Special Places in Walnut Ridge

A distinctive starting point for the county’s cultural history is Beatles Park in Walnut Ridge. There, the sculpture “The British Invasion of the Rock n’ Roll Highway” stands permanently at 110 Abbey Road. The Argenta Collection in the Lawrence County Library in downtown Walnut Ridge is also open to the public. The archive includes Beatles photographs, including numerous previously unpublished images.

At the Guitar Walk at Cavenaugh Park, the connection to early rock-and-roll music becomes particularly vivid. The 115-foot-long Epiphone Casino guitar honors Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Conway Twitty. A free audio presentation by Sonny Burgess accompanies the experience. If you would like to plan your trip around a special date, the Beatles at the Ridge Music Festival takes place in Walnut Ridge on the third Saturday in September.

The Wings of Honor World War II Museum also has its own special focus. It houses an extensive collection of aircraft nose art from World War II. The research library contains more than 2,500 volumes on aviation, World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, as well as numerous land and sea battles. A vacation rental in Lawrence County may therefore be particularly interesting if music and military history are among your preferred travel interests.

Historic Buildings and Places of Remembrance

Powhatan Historic State Park preserves seven historic structures at their original locations from the 19th and 20th centuries. The 1888 courthouse houses exhibits about the commerce and culture of Powhatan and the surrounding Lawrence County. It is open to the public free of charge; guided tours are offered through the other historic structures. At the Northeast Arkansas Regional Archives, more than 200 years of historic documents are also available to the public.

Other historic points of interest include Powhatan Methodist Church, built in 1872, a timber-frame church in the Greek Revival style, as well as the Cache River Bridge, built in 1934, a Parker pony truss bridge in rural Lawrence County. Both are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In Smithville, the fieldstone Public School Building, built in 1936 by the Works Progress Administration, commemorates the region’s architectural history. The Clover Bend Historic District includes a high school and other buildings constructed between 1937 and 1942 as part of a Farm Security Administration project.

In Walnut Ridge, the Walnut Ridge Commercial Historic District, with its concentrated collection of preserved historic commercial buildings downtown, and the Missouri-Pacific Depot, built around 1910, are among the defining historic sites. Hoxie’s public schools were desegregated in June 1955, making them among the first several school systems in Arkansas to take this step. The approximately 11.25-mile section of US 67 between Alicia and Hoxie also has particular significance in transportation history, with its original concrete surface dating from 1930.

Rivers, Lakes and Trails for Active Days

The Shirey Bay Rainey Brake WMA is divided by the Black River; most of it consists of bottomland hardwood forest. It offers opportunities for birdwatching and wildlife photography. A concrete boat ramp is available on the west shore near Horseshoe Lake. Horseshoe Lake and Hill Slough offer fishing opportunities. Lake Charles State Park is located on a 645-acre lake inhabited by largemouth bass, crappie, sunfish and catfish.

The Black River also shapes Davidsonville Historic State Park, which borders the river and a fishing lake. The Black River Trail runs along the elevated bank through the surrounding forest, passes the entrance to Phillips/Reeves Cemetery and continues to the dam on the south side of Trapper Lake. For a shorter active outing in Walnut Ridge, there is also a 6.5-mile paved rail trail for hiking and cycling that runs from the Williams Baptist University campus to Hoxie. Stewart Park adds to the selection as a 70-acre municipal park.

The Right Location for Your Travel Plans

Those who want to make culture and music history the focus can choose Walnut Ridge as their preferred point of reference when searching for a vacation rental. Powhatan offers a different focus with historic buildings, exhibits and archives. Days in nature can be combined with the county’s river, lake and forest landscapes. When choosing your accommodation, consider which places you plan to visit most frequently during your stay and whether a vacation rental in your preferred location fits your personal travel rhythm.

For additional orientation, Strawberry is also part of the regional selection. Other pages in the regional selection: Hot Spring County, Pope County, Sevier County, Van Buren County, Garland, Cleburne County and Marion County.

For the overarching travel overview: Arkansas.