South Arkansas Day Trip

[Wanderlusty]

I had a little bit of comp time at work, and one of my friends (and co-workers) also had some, so Monday, when everybody else was getting back to the grind, we loaded up in the Jeep and headed out on a day trip.

We spent the first few hours in the Ouachita National Forest and the later part of the day near Arkadelphia trying to find a ghost town, which either

1) Does not exist
2) If it does exist, we were unsuccessful in finding it
3) We did however stumble upon a state maintenence worker in a road grater that had stopped to take a dump.
4)The road he was grading had not been used in months. Until yesterday. . .sucks for him that we happened upon him just as he was answering the call. . . but we quickly turned around and restored his privacy. . .

Anyway, here are some pics. The first seven are in the National Forest, the last 3 looking for the ghost town. See the ghost town? Neither did we. . .

Still an AWESOME trip. Hope I can make another like it soon. Put in about 400 miles, about 1/3 of it was off pavement. The next big challenge is to make it from Conway to the Oklahoma border (about 120 or so miles on as few paved roads as possible, should be able to make that trip about 80% trail 20% paved. . .

 

[Scott Brady]

Great pictures. The few times I have travelled off-highway in the south were very enjoyable. Not too many challenges, but great scenery.

 

[datrupr]

Great pics and nice report. Sorry you did not find the town though. But look at it this way, it gives you a reason to go back out and try to find it again. And I feel for that poor guy in the road grader. I t is also just my luck that when I am on a road that rarely ever gets used and I am answer the call of nature someone decides to drive by at that moment. Good on you for disturbing his private moment. Let us know if you decide to get back out and find the ghost town.

 

[Wanderlusty]

Yeah, not too technical at all. I never even had to engage 4WD at all. Now there were a few trails off of the main trail that looked a bit more challenging, but right now I am woefully lacking in recovery equip, so we did not risk it. . .

 

[Wanderlusty]

Great pics and nice report. Sorry you did not find the town though. But look at it this way, it gives you a reason to go back out and try to find it again. And I feel for that poor guy in the road grader. I t is also just my luck that when I am on a road that rarely ever gets used and I am answer the call of nature someone decides to drive by at that moment. Good on you for disturbing his private moment. Let us know if you decide to get back out and find the ghost town.

We followed the directions to a tee, and also had a map that had the town marked on it. We followed the map to a tee, and if there was anything there, it was SO overgrown that it was not visible. The last picture is where the town should sit, but there is nothing. What may be the case is it doesn't state the last time the person who posted it was out there. It could be decades old info. The area was neat and may return, but I think we exausted all possibilities on the town. Too bad, it sounded really cool...

Here is the info we had off of www.ghosttowns.com:

GRAYSONIA


NAME: Graysonia
COUNTY: Us
ROADS: 2WD
GRID: 1
CLIMATE: Cold, wet winters, hot in summer
BEST TIME TO VISIT: Summertime or winter-skip deer seasons COMMENTS: Graysonia's last recorded resident was Brown Hickman, who left the area in 1951. The remains of the city are not on a main highway, but are located on a dirt county road named after the town. It is located off of Highway 8 about 15 miles west of Arkadelphia and 10 miles east of Amity on the Antoine River in Clark County.
REMAINS: Several concrete mill buildings circa 1907 including two kilns, the fire house, water resovoir, a portion of the main mill building and one shotgun house. Several deer camps dot the area, some made from buildings once used as company housing. Several foundations remian in the woods that was once the city limits.
William Grayson, the majority sharholder of the Arkadelphia Lumber Company at Daleville (Clark County) founded Graysonia in 1907 as a company owned sawmill town. The town incorporated soon after as an actual city with Nick Peters as the first mayor. The company was first known as Grayson-McLeod Lumber Company, but after Grayson's death in 1910, it was called Ozan-Graysonia Lumber Company. It concentrated on cutting the virgin timber in the area. The mill officially cut out in 1932 and immediately turned its attention to the recently discovered cinnabar ore found in the region. Unfortunately, cinnbar was not enough to keep town alive. A CCC camp was located in the city during the 1930s as well. The city, all company owned, slowly petered out as its residents were forced to seek work elsewhere in the 1930s and 40s. The Graysonia Post Office officially closed in 1950, even though the town was largely gone and grown up by that time. Dougal McMillian of Arkadelphia purchased many of the buildings in the city and moved them to Arkadelphia for use as rental property. Some still stand in that city. Today, the city is completly grown up. No dwellings or businesses lie within the former corporate limits. As the area lies miles away from the nearest highway, with only county roads and rail transportation, it could not last long. The town and all the acreage around it, save some privately held parcels, is largely owned by International Paper Company and leased by deer camps. The orignal town was exactly one section. Graysonia has the distinction of being the only Clark County ghost town to ever be incorporated. The town also shipped the first flask of Arkansas cinnabar in 1932. Submitted by: Joe May

 

[The BN Guy]

Great pix! I love that area. I'm from Russellville, mom is from Mena and my dad is from Pencil Bluff. Ouchita area! Love it!

M&D just got back from Mena for a birthday party and she said that the colors are coming on strong due to the low rain total for the year.

I can only imagine what Queen Wilhelmena is like right now! Petit Jean and Mount Nebo too!

 

[Wanderlusty]

Great pix! I love that area. I'm from Russellville, mom is from Mena and my dad is from Pencil Bluff. Ouchita area! Love it!

M&D just got back from Mena for a birthday party and she said that the colors are coming on strong due to the low rain total for the year.

I can only imagine what Queen Wilhelmena is like right now! Petit Jean and Mount Nebo too!

Well, we were pushing darkness by the time we got to Mena, and we had to get back so I could pick up the oncall phone (ugh!) so we didn't get to Wilhelmina, but it has been on my list for a really long time...good excuse for another day trip.

Yeah, I have noticed the colors are a lot more vibrant this year than previous years. It was really nice.

Speaking of Petit Jean, though, I did make it up there too last Friday with some family. Here is what it was like:

 

[datrupr]

Very pretty, the colors are AMAZING!!!!

 

[kcowyo]

There are few things I miss about living back east, but the Fall colors are at the top of that list.

My wife's family lives fairly close to that area, right on the MO/OK state line and I've driven across AR on I-40 I don't know how many times. The road will beat you up pretty bad but the scenery, even on the interstate, is great. The wife and I have talked of someday building a small cabin on the Grand Lake of the Cherokees, where her family has some property.

Good on ya' for getting out and thank you for sharing pictures and giving me a Fall colors jones!

 

[The BN Guy]

Those are making me homesick! Magnificant colors and pix!

 

[Wanderlusty]

Man, it is really all I can do to keep myself sitting here at work. . . I really can hardly wait until the next time I can get back out there.

Addicting. . . boy is it ever. . .

 

[riverguide]

man that stinks...I'm only about 5 hrs from there I'll join next time if you give me some heads up. good pix.

kcowyo- if you ever head down to Grand or build a place on it let me know. We've got a place right on the water.

 

[Wanderlusty]

man that stinks...I'm only about 5 hrs from there I'll join next time if you give me some heads up. good pix.

kcowyo- if you ever head down to Grand or build a place on it let me know. We've got a place right on the water.

What part of Oklahoma are you located in? I mentioned earlier in this thread that I wanted to make it to the Oklahoma border on as little pavement as possible, which is somewhat surprisingly easy to do. Maybe that could be extended a bit more into Oklahoma. . .

Dunno when the next time I will get to do this will be. A number of factors have to line up, but if I can get it going, then yeah, more company would be great. I want to do a multi day trip sometime, too.

 

[riverguide]

i'm right across the border...well sort of. Tulsa

 

[Raw7s]

I know I'm reviving an old thread, but I hope you're still around these boards.

Some college buddies(HSU) and I went out looking for Graysonia also, after a week of scouring the internet for pictures, we had a pretty good idea of what to look for if it was actually still there. We didn't get out there until it was dark, but we did find the railroad tracks. At least from the pictures, they seemed to be close to the center of town. With it being dark though, we couldn't see much beyond the trees. When we found the tracks we used Yahoo Maps and just searched for Graysonia.

We went a second time in the day, but used Google Maps and came upon the modern Graysonia. People living in not too old of houses, and a couple deer camps. Never could figure out where the tracks were on this trip.

Then a couple months later, one of my buddies who is a pilot at HSU took us on a sight seeing trip over the area(and he gained some needed flight time). We pretty much just followed the roads from the air. Found the train tracks, but no buildings that we could see. Although, I'm sure we missed quite a bit being at 2,000 ft and looking down at a heavily wooded area.

Then just a couple months ago, went with the same friend(and we made the mistake again of using Google Maps). And with a full tank of gas we drove around for hours as we were destined to find it this time. We never found a town center, but did find 2 houses that definitely looked a hundred years old. Wish I took pictures to share. There were gates closed up everywhere, and we got lost a couple times. Even found ourselves on the opposite side of a gate from where we were previously.

Next time I head out there will be with a GPS in my H3. If anyone wants to go along pm me and we can set up a time during cooler weather.