Arkansas

☆ – Sights we have seen
★ – Attractions we would like to see

Unusual Attractions and Oddities

  • Alma:
  • Ashdown: Box Car Apartments [RA] – There are about a dozen different colored box cars scattered about the property and all for rent or occupied.
  • Barling: Scrap Metal Gorilla [RA] – A gorilla made of scrap metal stands outside a vacuum cleaner dealership.
  • Batesville:
    • Jesus Standing on Water [RA] – Roselawn Memorial Gardens Cemetery. A cemetery has taken a typical statue of Jesus and made it memorable by miraculously standing it on the surface of a pond.
    • NASCAR Mark Martin Museum [RA] – NASCAR star Mark Martin set up a museum about himself inside his Ford dealership. On display: his championship cars, suits, helmets, and trophies.
  • Bauxite:
    • Bauxite Miner Family Statue [RA] – The sculpture, officially titled, “Unsung Heroes: Bauxite Miners,” was unveiled in October 2008, on the front lawn of the Bauxite Museum, by three former bauxite miners.
    • Bauxite Museum and Teeth [RA] – Bauxite was once the center of U.S. aluminum production, home to Alcoa and Reynolds Metals operations. From 1900 to 1964, this was a boom town for aluminum ore, providing 90% of the bauxite needed to build bombers and fighter planes during World War II. This small museum presents artifacts of that period and the local mining industry.
  • Beaver: Terrifying Beaver Bridge [RA] – One lane wooden plank suspension bridge, 554 feet long, spans the White River, built in 1949. Known as “The Little Golden Gate Bridge” for its yellow towers.
  • Bentonville:
    • Birthplace of Walmart [RA] – A corporate museum occupies the town square spot where Sam Walton’s Walmart began. See Sam’s preserved office, his hunting boots, his favorite pickup truck, and his wife’s wedding dress. Or just pose outside in front of the “Walton’s 5-10” storefront.
    • Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art [RA] –
    • Museum of Native American History [RA] – Features a woolly mammoth skeleton, feathered headdresses, the thinnest flint blade found in the U.S., and “scalp shirts.”
    • Orange Bicycle Pile [RA] – Pile of mashed-up bikes and trikes, painted day-glo orange, along a bike trail. Artist Tylur French thoughtfully incorporated an air pump for tires in need. On the bike trail.
  • Benton: World’s Only Building Made of Bauxite [RA] – Colorfully blocky 1893 three-room building was the office of Dr. Dewell Gann and is the only known bauxite building in existence. Historical marker out front.
  • Berryville:
    • Cosmic Cavern [RA] – Cosmic Cavern has blind fish in its two advertised “bottomless” underground lakes.
    • Home-Built Razorback Hog [RA] – This particular Razorback is hand-made, and stands on someone’s lawn outside of a honey store on US 62. It’s made of metal, chubby with stunted legs, but fierce-looking in a cartoonish way. It appears to be designed for mobility, perhaps to be pulled in parades or used to chase down rival mascots.
    • Snake World [RA] – Dale Ertel loves snakes. He has over 70 of them — “more snakes than the reptile house at the Little Rock zoo,” he claims with pride — in an old trailer parked on his property off of US 62. “Snake World” says the hand-made sign out by the road.
  • Blackton: Monument in a Swamp [RA] – Official limestone monument marks the “initial point” for surveys of 12 of the 13 states that were carved out of the Louisiana Purchase. Special road and boardwalk leads into the swamp, just to see the monument.
  • Blytheville:
    • Art Deco Greyhound Bus Station [RA] – Stylish deco-moderne 1930s bus station closed in 2001, was restored, and reopened in 2010 as a transportation museum. Segregated customer entrances are visible.
    • Scrap Metal Dinosaur [RA] – A home yard has several abstract metal sculptures, and one white, skeletal T-rex made of metal junk, maybe ten feet tall, right next to the street.
  • Bull Shoals:
    • Bull Shoals Caverns [RA] – Small limestone cave with guided 45 minute tour. Lots of lit formations, and an interactive music experience. Co-located “1890 Village” attraction of old buildings aboveground.
    • Rock Ranch – Yard Art House [RA] – Home owner Shirley Weaver’s front yard decorated with gnomish fantasy lawn ornaments.
  • Carthage: Tree Surgeon Buried in a Tree, Maybe [RA] – Hampton Springs Cemetery. Local teens are convinced that the bricked-up trunk of this cemetery tree entombs a human corpse!
  • Chaffee Crossing: Elvis Haircut Historic Site [RA] – The Chaffee Barbershop Museum enshrines the spot where Elvis got his first Army buzz cut on March 25, 1958.
  • Clinton: Natural Bridge of Arkansas [RA] – On private property, you’re allowed to look at this 120-ft. long bridge — which is a slab of sandstone, not an eroded archway — but you can’t drive or walk across it. “Natural” doesn’t mean trustworthy.
  • Conway:
    • David’s Burger Mascot Chicken [RA] – A fiberglass statue of a chicken hawks the beefy delights of a fast food restaurant
    • Finton Shaw’s Metal Sculpture Garden [RA] – Arkansas metal worker and artist Finton Shaw, 65, who just died in May 2012, has a roadside studio displaying his scrap art assemblages and welded works. Mostly abandoned and unkept now.
    • Pickles Gap Village [RA] – An interesting little stop along Highway 65 North of Conway. Has a petting zoo, a fudge shop, an antique store, a gun/knife store and even a store for all of your quilting/crafting needs. Some coin-operated rides near the petting zoo for the kiddos.
    • Toad Suck [RA] – Toad Suck Park is along the Arkansas River about ten miles south of Conway. Toad Suck Daze are held annually in early May. The “toad suck” name supposedly started as a slang term for riverboat crews that hung out at a nearby tavern.
    • Wampus Cat [RA] – Bronze statue of a six-legged mountain lion, the mascot of the local high school. Four legs for running, two for fighting.
  • Crossett:
  • Dennard: Hummingbird Mountain – Zoo Now a Church [RA] – Former tourist attraction zoo, abandoned, renovated under new ownership as a church with a “He-Brews” cafe and gift shop. Reptile house and other buildings remodeled for visiting missionaries.
  • Dogpatch: Washington Monument Marble Quarried Here [RA] – A mortared pile of rocks frames two marble slabs: one is engraved “Arkansas” while the other asserts that this was the spot where marble for the Washington Monument was quarried in 1836.
  • Dumas: Giant Tire Man [RA] – Instead of a muffler man, this is a tire man – a figure of a man, holding aloft a tire, who is made up entirely of various sized tires.
  • Dyess:
    • Johnny Cash Boyhood Home [RA] – Nothing fancy here, just a very small, old farmhouse out at the end of what until recently had been a dirt road. Restored 2012-2013, opened to the public in 2014.
    • Johnny Cash Boyhood Home Visitor Center [RA] – Sights include a Visitors Center with Johnny Cash exhibits as well as the old building where the scene of Jack Cash’s accident from “Walk the Line” was filmed.
  • Elkins: Drive the Pig Trail [RA] – It’s called the pig trail, as far as what I’ve always heard, because it’s as crooked as pig’s tail.
  • Emerson: PurpleHull Pea Festival and World Championship Rotary Tiller Race [RA] – Every June at the festival, souped-up rotary tillers race each other — like nitro-burning funny cars — on a dirt drag strip.
  • Eureka Springs:
    • Gaudy Goddess of Feminine Cosmic Energy [RA] – Unveiled in late 2012, Aza is the celestial goddess of feminine energy (Her sculptor made her up out of a composite of various deities). Covered in elaborate sparkly tiles, some people think the blue-green creature is a mermaid.
    • Magnetic Spring [RA] – Eureka Springs’ number one attraction at the dawn of the 20th century was Magnetic Spring. Its waters were said to cure drunkenness and drug addiction, which were big problems among the sick at that time, since many medicines were boosted with alcohol, cocaine, and heroin. Also, any metal object placed in the spring supposedly became magnetized — proof of the water’s mysterious power.
    • Most Haunted Hotel in America: Ghost Tours [RA] – Built in 1886, the Crescent Hotel (which is still a functioning hotel) has produced a number of ghosts, particularly from its days as a hospital. Rooms 218, 419, and 3500 are supposedly the most haunted. The two-hour tour ends in the basement morgue.
    • Pivot Rock and Natural Bridge [RA] – The rock doesn’t really pivot and the natural bridge is not very big. But they’re both in the same spot, so you get two earth wonders for the price of one, if you don’t mind paying to see natural wonders.
    • Quigley’s Castle [RA] – More a weird dwelling than a traditional castle, with live trees growing up through the floors; its original owner, Mrs. Quigley, liked to glue rocks over everything. Touted as “The Ozark’s Strangest Dwelling.”
    • Razorback Tower [RA] – Razorback Tower is a previous forest service 100-foot-high lookout tower with its own gift shop.
    • New Holy Land
      • New Holy Land Tour [RA] – An electric tram carries the pilgrims along a narrow road — very, very, slowly — past pagan altars and biblical scenes. Although it winds through wooded hills of only about 50 acres, the trip takes 2.5 hours. Tours on day of Passion Play
      • Sacred Arts Museum [RA] – The core of this collection was assembled by the late Gerald L.K. Smith, founder of the Great Passion Play theme park, and it has steadily grown since his death. For all of its many mediums — carvings, watercolors, mosaics, ceramics, bugs — the art here is all literal, narrative-driven, with symbolism but no abstraction.
      • Slab of the Berlin Wall [RA] – A 10×10 section of the Berlin Wall on which an East Berliner painted part of the 23rd Psalm. Part of the New Holy Land complex.
      • The Bible Museum [RA] –  It somehow packs over 6,000 Bibles (in 625 languages and dialects) into a relatively small exhibit space
      • The Great Passion Play [RA] – The Great Passion Play recreates the last week of Jesus’s life, from his entry into Jerusalem to his rising from the dead. It’s modeled after the Oberammergau Passion Play in Bavaria, which literally takes a week to perform, but which is staged only once every decade. This version — condensed into 2.5 hours — goes on five nights a week in the summer, and less frequently as the nights get chilly.
      • The Great Passion Play Theme Park [RA] –
    • Sleep Near Lions and Tigers [RA] – Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge. Rescue shelter offers a variety of lodge rooms, RV and tent spots, and a tree house bungalow in close proximity to animal habitat areas. You can also tour the facility as a day visitor.
    • Thorncrown Chapel [RA] – Glass and wood church in the forest, built in 1980 by E. Fay Jones, supposedly an apprentice of Frank Lloyd Wright. It looks like something elvish out of The Lord of the Rings.
    • Yard Dinosaur of Ola Farwell [RA] – The personal yard thunder lizard of the creator of John Agar’s Land of Kong dinosaur park. Ola Farwell died in 1988, but he built his cement dinos to last.
  • Evening Shade: Evening Shade TV Town [RA] – Town provided the name for small town TV sitcom (1990-94) that starred Burt Reynolds, Marilu Henner, Hal Holbrook, Ossie Davis and Charles Durning. There’s a “Welcome to Evening Shade” sign over a business on Main St.
  • Fairfield Bay: Razorback Rock [RA] – Boulder painted to look like the fanged razorback mascot of the University Arkansas.
  • Fayetteville:
    • 30-Foot-Tall Dancing Hog [RA] – Hogeye the Dancing Hog. Hogeye is made of copper, stands 25 feet tall atop a five-foot-high concrete base, and weighs 3,500 pounds. He was hoisted into place on June 10, 2018, outside Hogeye, Inc., and serves as the company’s oversized logo. He’s the largest hog in the world, and the second tallest statue in Arkansas, shorter only than the Christ of the Ozarks in Eureka Springs.
    • Bank in a Train [RA] – A vintage passenger car and a former Cotton Belt wood caboose, still sitting on old railroad tracks, serve as the “Train Branch” of the Bank of Fayetteville. Most of the everyday banking takes place in the passenger car; the caboose contains the bank’s conference room and bathroom.
    • ☆ Land of Terra – On the Pig Trail [RA] – The Pig Trail, Highway 23, passes near Terra Studios, home of the handblown glass Bluebirds of Happiness, an indoor wizard’s cave, oversize board games, and bas relief mural garden.
    • Razorback Pig Statue [RA] – A huge razorback pig statue is located on campus at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, AR. While many other, smaller statues can be found on campus and around town, this is the largest.
    • Ten-Ton Hog Head [RA] – The ten-ton hog head was carved out of a limestone boulder by Orville Roosevelt Skaggs (1909-1998), a retired coal miner and lumberyard worker.
    • Tiny Church [RA] – St. Catherine’s is one of many itty-bitty houses of worship that freckle the USA.
  • Fifty-Six: Blanchard Springs Caverns [RA] – Run by the Forest Service. Has walking tours through rooms with well-preserved formations, and a crawling, scuttling Wild Cave tour.
  • Fort Smith:
    • Biker General [RA] – William Darby led “Darby’s Rangers” in World War II. The statue by artist Kevin Kresse depicts the general astride a 1942 military Harley Davidson, facing Europe. He was killed two days before the Nazis surrendered.
    • Captain Hydraulic Mascot [RA] – A hydraulic repair company displays a skinny robot mascot in its parking lot, built mostly out of cylinders.
    • ☆ Gallows of Hanging Judge Parker [RA] – Fort Smith National Historic Site.
    • Mr. Peanut Sign and Statues [RA] – Planters Peanut Company. A flat, pointing 30-foot-tall legume pitchman graces the Planters Company lawn. At the visitor entrance, there are two small Mr. Peanut statues and a large copper-colored sit-with-Mr.-Peanut photo-op.
    • Retro Theme Oasis [RA] – The Park at West End, in the city’s historic district, is a lot turned into a tiny amusement park. Described as a “retro fun park” when it opened in 2006, it includes a 1957 Pullman dining rail car (now the “Boomerang Diner”), a 56-ft. tall Ferris wheel that operated at the 1935 San Diego World’s Fair, a hand-painted carousel, an arcade, and a big fiberglass rooster statue.
    • U.S. Marshal Bass Reeves And His Dog [RA] – Bronze statue of U.S. marshal Bass Reeves on his horse with his dog following. Bass, a former slave, captured criminals and kept Hanging Judge Parker’s court full.
    • Zachary Taylor’s Chimney [RA] – All that remains of the former home of Zachary Taylor, U.S. President #12.
  • Fouke: Monster Mart: Boggy Creek Monster [RA] – The legend of a Bigfoot-like creature lives on at the local Monster Mart. Indoor displays, outdoor monster photo-op.
  • Gateway: Large Goofy Bunny Rabbit [RA] – Somewhat disturbing cartoon rabbit stood outside a Gateway restaurant for many years. New owners down the road have spruced him up because he’s just so cute. Pull off onto the shoulder; stumps have been provided around the bunny for sitting, but do not sit on the bunny.
  • Gentry: Wild Wilderness Drive-Through Safari [RA] – Visitors view wild animals on the 400-acre property from the comfort of their own vehicles — rhino, bison, camels, zebras. Also a petting zoo.
  • Glenwood:
    • Billy’s House of Guitars and Musical Museum [RA] – The late Billy Herrell turned his store into a museum packed with obscure musical mementoes, and a full-size stagecoach.
    • Scrap Metal Humans and Animals [RA] – Baker’s Fabrication and Welding. John Mark’s sculptures include angular, welded humans and animals, Christian subjects, and pop culture icons such as Darth Vader and Iron Man. It’s all for sale, so the artwork changes over time.
  • Goobertown: Town Named Goobertown [RA] – The only thing to see is the north and south city limit signs, which are very close together. Don’t blink or you will miss them both.
  • Grannis: Christian Signs Made of Rusty Chains [RA] – Signs with large, neat letters made of rusty chains by Robert Wells, stand alongside a highway, quoting Jesus and blessing truckers.
  • Gurdon:
    • Gurdon Spook Light [RA] – An unexplained glowing sphere intermittently appears at night along an abandoned and overgrown railroad bed. Was it a railroad worker beheaded by a train and knocked into the lantern-friendly afterworld?
    • Hoo Hoo Monument and World Headquarters [RA] – The International Concatenated Order of the Hoo Hoo was founded here in 1892 by apparently fun-loving lumbermen stranded in town. The monument is topped by two of their so-called Hoo Hoo cats, with upraised tails that form the number 9.
  • Harrison: Mountain Meadows Massacre Monument [RA] – has an inscription that pulls no punches, describing how 140 settlers left the area, camped at Mountain Meadows in Utah, and were then “attacked by Indians directed by Mormons.”
  • Heber Springs:
    • Puffy-Eyed JFK of the Dam [RA] –  The anonymous sculptor (possibly from Missouri) gave the President thin lips and a flattened face that looks as if it’s pressing through a piece of Saran Wrap.
    • Ruland Junction Train Museum [RA] – Toy trains and train-related memorabilia collected for over a half-century inside a replica of an old rural train depot in a residential neighborhood.
  • Helena: Gravity Hill [RA] – Another strange piece of public pavement, well-known by locals
  • Hope:
    • Bill Clinton And Big Melons [RA] – Hope City Visitor Center and Museum. As “Watermelon Capital of the World,” Hope’s Visitor Center mostly devotes itself to exhibits on Hope’s giant watermelons, but does reserve some space for its other local pride and joy, President Bill Clinton.
    • Birthplace Bricks of Bill Clinton [RA] – After Julia Chester Hospital was demolished, a hopper-full of its bricks was evidently saved. They were later mortared into a pedestal, topped with a plaque, and placed on the front lawn of Bill Clinton’s second boyhood home.
    • Funeral Home Birthplace of Bill Clinton [RA] – Before the funeral home was here, the property was the site of Julia Chester Hospital, where Bill Clinton was born in 1946. A plaque on a granite block next to a flag pole on the front lawn marks the spot.
    • Klipsch Museum of Audio History [RA] – Audiophiles will enjoy this small museum devoted to the history of loudspeakers and their outspoken pioneer, Paul W. Klipsch.
    • President Clinton, Train Engineer [RA] – The local museum is located in the Amtrak train station. Flat-cutout sculpture of a train along the Amtrak platform features a cartoonish TV screen displaying Bill Clinton as the engineer.
  • Hot Springs:
    • Josephine Tussaud Wax Museum [RA] –
    • Tattooed Rooster [RA] – A tattoo parlor has hoisted a standard Roadside-size rooster on a pole and covered it with painted-on tattoos endorsing its business.
    • The Galaxy Connection: Star Wars [RA] – Opened in 2014. The personal lifetime collection of Jon Cowers includes a handmade X Wing fighter and a large assemblage of toys and memorabilia.
    • ★ Tiny Town [RA] – Mechanized celebrities of the past populate this miniature world. The vision of Frank Monshinskie (an ex-plumber) became a family effort. Short tour is extremely informative and very interesting.
  • Huntsville: Home-Made Dinosaur [RA] – Handmade dinosaur of undetermined type, constructed of polyfoam and wire by dinosaur maker Leo Cate.
  • Jasper:
  • Jenny Lind: Jenny Lind Outhouse [RA] – Built in the early 1990s, this public outhouse is still functional. Not recommended for those sensitive to odors or a lack of toilet hygiene.
  • Kingsland: Birthplace of Johnny Cash [RA] – A monument marks the 1932 birthplace of country music superstar Johnny Cash.
  • Lavaca: ★ Giant Beer Can – As Seen on TV [RA] – A local farmer — and beer distributor — loves Bud so much that he had one of his silos painted to look like a giant version of the familiar can.
  • Lincoln: Big Turkey and Rooster [RA] –
  • Little Rock:
    • ☆ 80-Ton Korean Gate [RA] – Built in Korea in 2007 for $1.4 million, then shipped here. Donated by the heirs of Grand Master Haeng Ung Lee, who had his U.S. Taekwondo headquarters in Little Rock.
    • Bill Clinton Behind Bars [RA] – Bust of Bill Clinton behind the bars of the fence surrounding the Arkansas Governor’s Mansion, where William Jefferson Clinton lived (as governor) for 12 years, according to a difficult-to-read engraved granite slab at its base
    • Billy Bass Adoption Center [RA] – Once ubiquitous novelty gift, the motion-activated singing fish trophies have been abandoned by the hundreds to Billy Bass Adoption Centers. This restaurant claims to be the first.
    • Esse Purse Museum [RA] – America’s only purse museum, with 3,500 examples amassed by Anita Davis, who’s been collecting purses for over 25 years.
    • Walkway of Wellness to Big Indian Head [RA] – In Riverfront Park. One of many giant Indian Heads carved by artist Peter Wolf. What makes this one special is the adjacent Wellness Walkway monument, commemorating a sidewalk sponsored by a health insurance company.
  • Lockesburg: Desert Southwest Fantasy Home [RA] – It’s a private home, gawk-accessible from the street, resembling a cartoon Spanish ranch and mission with cement cacti in the yard.
  • Magnolia: World’s Longest Barbecue on Wheels [RA] – Resembles a missile that escaped from a May Day parade in Red Square. At last report it was 90 feet long, but the owner keeps lengthening it. It has room for nearly 30 cooks.
  • Mammoth Spring: Big Junk Store in the Woods [RA] – Roadside amalgamation of old bottles, vehicles, and pop culture junk, plus a selection of highway road signs — all apparently for sale.
  • Marble Falls: Mystic Caverns [RA] – This is a combo two-cave attraction — Mystic Cavern and Crystal Dome Cavern.
  • Marvell: Boyhood Home of Levon Helm [RA] – Historical plaque recounts Levon’s musical accomplishments, including his performance at Woodstock. The building was moved from his hometown four miles down the road in Turkey Scratch.
  • Mena: Old Railroad Depot Museum – Lum n’ Abner [RA] – 1920 railroad depot building serves as the town’s museum and gallery for local art and history. Small Lum & Abner show/early radio exhibit.
  • Morrilton: Bill Clinton’s Mustang [RA] – Museum of Automobiles. When Clinton was governor of Arkansas he would often drive around Little Rock (the state capital) in his 1967 “Clearwater Aqua” Mustang convertible.
  • Mountain View:
    • Annual Beanfest and Outhouse Races [RA] – 3rd weekend in Oct. The outhouses are first paraded next to the courthouse. Pots of beans cooked up in the morning.
    • Swinging Bridge for Cars [RA] – Built in the 1910s, a single-lane wire-cable suspension bridge stretches over 200 feet across South Sylamore Creek. Now a popular attraction, it was restored in 2018.
  • Mountainburg: Climb-Thru Concrete Dinosaurs [RA] – Mountainburg City Park. Triceratops, Brontosaurus, and T-rex — designed with hollow sections for kids to climb through. Home-built by Douglas W. Birchfield in 1980. T-rex is 14 feet tall, Brontosaurus is 20 feet long.
  • Murfreesboro:
    • Crater of Diamonds State Park [RA] – Be sure to bring mud boots, a bucket, small shovel and gloves. Thousands of real diamonds have been dug up in these regularly plowed fields of dirt. This is the only place in the world where the public can search for diamonds and keep what they find.
    • Diamond John’s – Sleep in a Teepee [RA] – Across the river from Crater of Diamonds State Park, Diamond John offers poshly equipped teepees for your overnight stay.
    • Plastic Bones of Ka-Do-Ha Indian Village [RA] – Features an excavated Indian burial pit, dimly lit by a light bulb. At the bottom lies a partly-excavated plastic skeleton. Look for the World’s Largest Diamond.
  • Norphlet: Norphlet Crater – Well Explosion [RA] – On May 14, 1922, the J.T. Murphy No. 1 well did something unpleasant: it collapsed, and the oil and natural gas deposit beneath it exploded. The fenced-off 100-foot-deep, 600-foot-wide crater is still visible.
  • North Little Rock:
    • ☆ Old Mill Park – Concrete Wood [RA] – T.R. Pugh Memorial Park. Every wooden thing in this park and around Pugh’s Mill — except for the vegetation — is actually fake wood made of cement by a secretive Mexican artist. 
    • ☆ USS Razorback Submarine [RA] – Arkansas Inland Maritime Museum. The USS Razorback was launched in 1944, and acquired in 2004 from the Turkish navy (who’d had it since 1970) for one dollar.
  • Oden: Lum and Abner Jot ‘Em Down Store and Museum [RA] – Local boys who made good, Lum and Abner had a popular radio comedy program from 1931 to 1955.
  • Old Joe: Old Naked Joe Mountain [RA] – Town once named “Old Naked Joe” after a mountain called Naked Joe Knob. No commercial center or town to see, but you can drive through Old Joe naked if you like.
  • Ozark: Sonic Seen on TV’s “The Simple Life” [RA] – Fans of Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie may still plan pilgrimages to the Sonic where they worked in season 1 on the reality TV show “The Simple Life” (2003-2007).
  • Paragould: Oldest American Statue Of Liberty Outside Of New York [RA] – Only seven feet tall, this replica Lady Liberty got drafted as a war memorial for Arkansas World War I vets. Downtown, outside the courthouse
  • Paris:
    • 60 Bells at a Winery [RA] – Cowie Wine Cellars and Vineyards. Over 60 bells are collected on the property of a small winery. You can pull ropes to ring the huge bells.
    • Arkansas Runestone #1 [RA] – Logan County Museum. Cryptic symbols chiseled in stone.
    • Eiffel Tower Replica [RA] – A small, spindly replica, built in 2014. Straddles a fountain, which makes it look more like an oil derrick with a gusher.
    • Mountaintop Flagstone Map of Arkansas [RA] – Mount Magazine State Park. A large map of Arkansas made of flagstone marks the highest point in the state. The map looks somewhat topographical (it’s a pretty flat state) and includes the Arkansas River.
  • Parthenon: Sleep in a Cave [RA] – Beckham Creek Cave Lodge. Home built into a natural cavern features five bedrooms, a large main room, kitchen, and rec room.
  • Pine Bluff:
    • Arkansas Entertainers Hall of Fame [RA] – Pine Bluff Convention Center. It’s been in the auditorium lobby of the Pine Bluff Convention Center.
    • Tugboat in the Air [RA] – Safely above any flood, a full size tugboat sits atop 30-foot-tall concrete pilings and serves as a welcome sign for the Port of Pine Bluff.
  • Pocahontas: The Pocahontas Meteor [RA] – In 1859, a local farmer found this huge [1,000 lb] rock in the Black River and told everybody it was a meteorite. It was placed on the front lawn of the Randolph County Courthouse in Pocahontas, AR where it proudly remains today. University of Arkansas geologists informed the locals that the rock is definitely NOT a meteorite decades ago, but the locals refuse to retract their tourist attraction!
  • Powhatan: Arkansas Runestone #2 [RA] – Powhatan Courthouse Museum.
  • Prairie Grove: Working Outdoor Phone Booth [RA] – This rare working public phone booth, installed in 1959, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2015.
  • Ravenden:
  • Redfield: Mammoth Orange Drink Stand [RA] – Originally named “The Big Orange,” which was later upgraded to “Mammoth Orange.” Built in 1966.
  • Rison: Elegant Railroad Car in the Woods [RA] – The custom-built 1905 railroad car was the private conveyance of the president of the Cotton Belt Railroad line. Open for tours by appointment.
  • Rogers:
    • Aircraft on Sticks – Vietnam Memorial [RA] – A memorial to Vietnam veterans is at the entrance road to the local airport, and displays a fighter jet on a curved pedestal and a helicopter on a pole in an action tilt.
    • ★ Daisy Airgun Museum [RA] – One of the world’s largest collections of non-powder firearms from the 1700s to the present. Has an exhibit devoted to the air rifle featured in the film “A Christmas Story,” as well as a Lady Leg Lamp.
      • World’s Largest BB Gun [RA] – 25 feet long, stands muzzle-up outside the Daisy Airgun Museum. Weighted inside its stock with almost 200,000 BBs. Erected in Jan. 2021.
    • Trippy Horse Barn Mural [RA] – Trippy mural on the side of an old barn, painted in October 2021 by Fayetteville artist Jason Jones.
    • War Eagle Cavern [RA] – Open to the public for tours since 1978, War Eagle Caverns stresses that the cave has been left as much as possible in its natural state. At various times it’s been home to Indians, robbers, moonshiners, squatters, and draft-dodgers. Current residents include 75,000 bats (a landmark on the tour is a huge pile of bat guano). A dramatic entrance hole, horizontal passages, and wide pathways add to the appeal for visitors who want an E-Z access cave.
  • Rohwer: Sulu was Here: Japanese-American Internment Camp [RA] – Out in the middle of nowhere, a few ruins of the Rohwer Japanese Internment Camp, including the camp cemetery. Star Trek’s Sulu (George Takei) was here as a kid. The only remaining structures in Rohwer are the smokestack and the cemetery, which also has some monuments.
  • Salem: Dead Linemen Statue [RA] – It’s dedicated to eight linemen who have lost their lives on the job while working for NAEC, three of them in a substation explosion in 2004.
  • Sheridan: Fake B-17 Bomber Marks Crash Site [RA] – A B-17 Flying Fortress bomber crashed in 1943, killing its crew. In 2015, after years of work, the American Legion erected a full-size replica of the plane on the spot, the centerpiece of an acre-size memorial carved out of the woods.
  • Sherwood:
    • Mini Statue of Liberty [RA] – Small version of Lady Liberty holds aloft a glass torch and appears to be made of greenish copper, mimicking the original.
    • Roundtop Gas Station [RA] – Recently restored 1936 filling station along old US Hwy 67 (Roundtop Road). Operated until 1972 by W.D. “Happy” Williford, who said that Johnny Cash, Conway Twitty, and Elvis all stopped by for gas.
  • Smackover: Big Tire Guy [RA] – Taylor Tire & Auto Services. A figure made out of old rubber truck and car tires demands your attention at an auto service shop.
  • Stuttgart: Coat of Many Feathers [RA] – Museum of the Arkansas Grand Prairie. Ruby took 450 duck heads, yanked off all of their iridescent green feathers, and sewed them into a coat — later called the Coat of Many Feathers after the Old Testament “Coat of Many Colors.”
  • Sulphur Springs: Burger Baths for Health Sign [RA] – Sulphur Springs Community Museum. The sign, erected outside the town museum in April 2019, is an exact copy of one that stood on the spot from the 1930s to the 1960s, when the museum was a bathhouse run by a guy named Frank Burger.
  • Texarkana: Half-n-Half Post Office Photo Op [RA] – The border between Texas and Arkansas runs along the yellow center line of State Line Avenue in Texarkana. For reasons of civic unity (and since Texarkana is the Incredible Two-Headed Transplant of town names), the city’s Federal Building/Courthouse/Post Office was built in the middle of this street, supposedly the only government building in the U.S. that straddles a state line
  • Van Buren:
    • Grave of a Viking, Maybe [RA] – Fairview Cemetery. The cemetery itself was built around the mystery grave in 1846. A plaque says local legend holds this to be the grave of one of DeSoto’s men, but in the 1970’s runestone enthusiasts declared it to be a Viking grave.
    • Modern Doctor Statue [RA] – According the plaque behind this small bronze statue, “Douglas W. Parker, Jr. M.D. (1949-1995) was an orthopedic surgeon who dreamed of creating the medical clinic now on this site.”
  • Walnut Ridge:
    • Beatles Abbey Road in Arkansas [RA] – The Beatles changed planes at Walnut Ridge airport September 1964. The milestone was noted in 2011 with a 10-foot-tall Abbey Road album cover, fronted by silhouettes of the Fab Four, by local artist Danny West .
    • Parachute Inn: Boeing 737 [RA] – A wheel-less jetliner, resting on the ground, was for a time transformed into a place where travelers could eat real food instead of airline food. The eatery is gone; the empty, grounded 737 remains.
    • The Guitar Walk [RA] – A 115-foot-long concrete guitar that’s actually a pathway, along which you can listen to stories and songs from local legends such as Elvis, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, etc.
  • West Fork: Shirtless Guy Statue [RA] – Statue of a Civil Conservation Corps worker depicted as a shirtless hunk.