The Country Side of Little Rock

Sure, there is the city of Little Rock Arkansas with the capital building and Little Rock Central High School, but this time we stayed at a Corp of Engineers park and just visited areas outside the city limits. Willow Beach is along the Arkansas River and has several lakes.

Our first stop was the Toltec Mounds. The museum had a LOT of artefacts found within the area. I particularly like these plummets. I’ve never seen them before. I also liked the fact that they say they don’t know what these things were for. They thought maybe weights or jewelry. Who knows, maybe it’s a pendulum, a weapon, or just decoration to show off your rock forming skill.

There are supposed to be 18 mounds at this site. Some were pretty small. Some that were marked with letters seemed to be flat now. Perhaps they were altered over time?

The tallest mounds are 49 and 39 feet. For some reason this park doesn’t allow you to climb the mounds while other parks are fine with that. These seemed high compared to ones we’ve seen in the past but in looking back we’ve seen Pinson Mounds at 72’, Etowah at 60’, Kolomoki at 57’, and Letchworth-Love at 50’. OK, I guess these aren’t as high as I thought.

Part of the trail takes you here along this pond.

Our other stop was Plantation Agriculture Museum. It is all about cotton. This exhibit explained the phrase “fair to middling”. Click on it to read the sign.

There is a patch of cotton plants with the cotton boll just opening up.

They had a demonstration of how the cotton gin works along with a full sized cotton gin and building. Lots to learn. We enjoyed working out the transfer systems since there was ductwork to vacuum the raw cotton from wagons, augers to remove the seeds below the gin, and more ductwork to transfer the fiber to the press.

Loved the powered belt system!

After the seeds are removed, they are processed further in this building. They can be used to plant cotton or for cottonseed oil. The leftover is used for feed.