It’s
beginning to look a little like fall, as we departed Crossett Harbor RV Park
and headed into the town of Crossett. It was named after Edward S. Crossett, a
leading entrepreneur in the lumber industry's emergence in Arkansas. In May
1899, Crossett joined with three partners to form the Crossett Lumber Company,
which then sought to build a lumber mill in the town of Hamburg. Displeased
with the reception the proposed mill was receiving there, the company selected
a site in the forest about 12 miles southeast of Hamburg, where Crossett was
born as a tent city constructing the company's mill.
Lumber
from initial milling operations was used to build a permanent mill, company
offices and employee housing. Crossett remained a classic "mill town"
into the mid-1940s with Crossett Lumber owning all the town's homes and
businesses until 1946. Though some early lumber towns were abandoned when the
supply of harvestable trees was exhausted, Crossett's future was secured
through improved forest management practices and through the manufacture of
diverse forest-related products, including wood alcohol, turpentine, chemicals
needed by soap and paint manufacturers, charcoal, food board and flakeboard.
Felsenthal
Wildlife Refuge was established in 1975. It is located in southeast Arkansas.
Named for a small community located at its southwest corner, this 65,000 acre
refuge contains an abundance of water resources dominated by the Ouachita and
Saline Rivers and the Felsenthal Pool. The low lying area is dissected by an
intricate system of rivers, creeks, sloughs, buttonbush swamps and lakes
throughout a vast bottomland hardwood forest that gradually rises to an upland
forest community. Historically, periodic flooding of the "bottoms"
during winter and spring provided excellent wintering waterfowl habitat. These
wetlands, in combination with the pine and upland hardwood forest on the higher
ridges, support a wide diversity of native plants and animals.
We saw
the Georgia Pacific Softwoods Lumber Division, Stud Mill. Georgia-Pacific
bought the mill and plywood plant in 1962 and shortly afterward began producing
tissue paper at the site. Later that decade, it added a chemicals plant.
Georgia-Pacific eventually closed the plywood plant, which burned down last
year, and sold its chemicals division. Koch Industries bought Georgia-Pacific
for more than $13 billion in 2005 and took the public company private. Today,
the Crossett facility is the company's second-largest paper mill, King said. The
Crossett mill sits along a stretch of Arkansas 82, known locally as First
Avenue. A parallel rail line separates the complex and its smokestacks from the
heart of town, but the mill looms over a nearby grid of homes, businesses,
schools and public buildings. More than a dozen residential streets spill onto
First Avenue. The mill employs about 1,200 people from Crossett, other Arkansas
towns and Louisiana.
We went
by what used to be a gas station? A car wash? But … now it is an RV park? I
guess if you own it, you can park whatever you want on it??
We came
into Hamburg, it was laid out in October 1849. Two months after Ashley County
was formed from part of Drew County in the area earlier known as the Great
Wilderness. With the town’s designation as the county seat, two of the first
public buildings were the courthouse and the county jail, erected in 1850.
During the Civil War, Hamburg helped provide troops to the Confederacy, with
several companies of the Third Arkansas Infantry that fought with the Army of
Northern Virginia, commanded by Hamburg lawyer Van H. Manning. The town escaped
military action during the war, though state militia briefly occupied it during
Reconstruction under Governor Powell Clayton’s proclamation that several
counties, including Ashley, were in rebellion. Though there were instances of
violence throughout Reconstruction, the proclamation was most likely in
opposition to the conservatives who remained in control of the county and its
government. The current city’s economy is divided among agriculture and
forestry due to the town’s geographic location. Immediately east and west are
prairie regions dedicated to rice and soybean culture.
There
are many Cat Fish Farms on Hwy 82, between Crossett and Lake Village. I learned
they feed the fish a soybean grain mixture to stop them from seeking food
elsewhere in the ponds. Many politicians and entrepreneurs hoped catfish in the
Mississippi Delta could become what chicken is in the Ozarks. That was before
Vietnamese and Chinese fish flooded the American market. Today there are about
a third the number of catfish farms there were in 2000, and they are making
about half as much money.
While
Lake Village was not incorporated as a town until 1898, the history of the area
starts much earlier, beginning with the arrival of the Spanish in 1541. One
local story claims that Hernando de Soto and his men came upon a friendly
Native American tribe ruled by Chief Chicot, who had their village on the banks
of the Mississippi River at the present-day site of Lake Village and who gave
de Soto and his men food and skins for clothing. Though Hernando de Soto did
die in 1542 at an Indian village likely near what is now Lake Village, there is
no evidence of a Chief Chicot in the chronicles of the expedition. The names of
Chicot County and Lake Chicot likely derive from a French word meaning “stump,”
in reference to the many cypress knees in the area.
Lake
Village is located along the Great River Road National Scenic Byway and lies on
the "C" shaped curving shore of picturesque Lake Chicot, a 20-mile
long abandoned channel of the Mississippi River that is the largest natural
lake in Arkansas and the largest oxbow lake in North America. Lake Chicot is nationally
known for its ability to produce record largemouth bass, Lake Chicot also
offers an abundance of crappie, bream and catfish for the avid angler.
We
crossed into Mississippi, does everyone become a little sing-song like when you
say Mississippi? Like you are a little kid in school learning how to spell it?
Arkansas borders Mississippi to the east, with the Mississippi River forming
the boundary between the two states. Like most rivers, the Mississippi River
keeps shifting the border between the two states.
Greenville
was named after its founder, General Nathaniel Green, who was a friend of
George Washington. It was mostly destroyed in the Civil War, but was later
reconstructed. It is in Washington County, which was founded in 1827.
Greenville suffered its first flood in 1890. After four decades, the Federal
Government established flood control in the area and rescued the river towns. I
love this welcome center, it’s a one of a kind location.
This
bridge over Deer Creek was named after the infamous song from 1979 film, The
Muppet Movie in honor of Jim Henson who was the mastermind behind The Muppets
franchise. It was marked by a brightly colored sign with a waving Kermit. I had
expected the Rainbow Connection Bridge to be colorful, like Fozzie’s Studebaker
after Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem got their paint cans all over it.
Instead, only the guardrails were painted and only a solid green, but less
Kermit green and more army men green. It ain’t easy bein’, green!
The
bridge is located just down the road from The Birthplace of Kermit The Frog
Museum in Henson’s boyhood town of Leland, Mississippi, which hosts the annual
event. The annual event celebrating Jim Henson and the Muppets is held at The
Rainbow Connection Bridge in honor of Jim Henson. 2021 marks the 10th
Anniversary of the Frog Fest Festival, this October. There is food, drinks,
music, and of course a nice stroll around Deer Creek!! Attendees tend to dress
as their favorite Muppet, all in honor of Kermit the Frog!
The
climax of all things Muppet was the first three minutes of the 1979 The Muppet
Movie. Kermit, sitting on a log by himself in his home swamp, playing the
banjo, and singing wistfully about rainbows and lovers and dreamers while
carefully separating himself from them. That was it, it summed up everything
that was right about the Muppets and the life work of Jim Henson. Actually,
Kermit the marionette-puppet was born in Maryland, when Jim Henson was
attending college and putting his home economics degree to good use. However,
in the Muppet-verse, the character of Kermit hails from a small town called
Leland, Mississippi, on the winding western edge of the state, a town which is
more or less the childhood home of Henson himself. Henson was born next door in
Greenville, and his family lived at an agricultural experiment station where
his father worked, in nearby Stoneville. He went to elementary school in Leland
with a friend of his named Kermit Scott.
“Leland,
Mississippi: Birthplace of the Frog.” It is next to a small, weathered,
wood-paneled building with another bright-green Kermit waving from a window. Most
of the items on display were donated by the Henson family. In one case was a
replica of Kermit himself, sitting in a swamp diorama, holding a banjo. In the
other were the original puppets used in the “The Song of the Cloud Forest” bit
in the “Fitness” episode of The Jim Henson Hour from 1989.
Indianola,
Mississippi has had a number of names. It was first called Indian Bayou and
then in quick succession became Eureka, Belengate, and then Indianola. Some
people think that the name was from an Indian princess named Ola. But no matter
how many names this town has had, Indianola is known around the world as one of
the most important stops on Mississippi’s famous Blues Trail. In the 1880s,
Indianola was a sawmill town, but it soon developed as a farming community.
The
story of Indianola, Mississippi, is a veritable tale of two cities. On its
surface, Indianola is rich with history and seems like an opportune place to
live. It’s the home of blues legends Albert and B. B. King and of the first
black female Postmaster, Minnie Cox; and it’s the seat of power for Sunflower
County. Yet times have been tough in Indianola. Many of the agricultural and
manufacturing jobs that long buoyed the city’s economy are now obsolete, and
other jobs moved overseas. Delta Pride, a large catfish processing plant,
closed its doors in 2011, and a lot of people are now out of work. It is
located almost in the center of the Delta, midway between the Mississippi River
and the rolling hill country, and is intersected by Highways 82 and 49, making
it an important crossroads town.
The
first settlement on the banks of the Yazoo River was a trading post founded by
John Williams in 1830, and known as Williams Landing. The settlement quickly
blossomed, and in 1844, was incorporated as Greenwood, named after Chief
Greenwood Leflore. Growing into a strong cotton market, the key to the city's
success was based on its strategic location in the heart of the Delta. The city
prospered as a shipping point to New Orleans, Memphis, and St. Louis, Missouri
until the latter part of the Civil War.
Yazoo
River, river formed by the confluence of the Tallahatchie and Yalobusha rivers
north of Greenwood, Mississippi, U.S. It meanders about 190 miles generally
south and southwest, much of the way paralleling the Mississippi River, which
it joins at Vicksburg. The Yazoo flows with only a slight gradient.
Mississippi
sure does like their large crosses! And they are proud to fly a flag of faith! This flag was at a business, not at a church!
We arrived at
Starkville KOA. We have been here before, but it’s a great overnight stop. Easy
in and easy out.
I’ll tell you more about the lake in the morning, but this
afternoon we enjoyed sitting out and watching the birds!
We ventured
out to dinner at Applebee. They had a table set and dedicated to the 13 servicemembers killed in Afghanistan. Tetrena was the bartender and she was our waitress
too. She was so friendly and full of life! We enjoyed our meal there and her
company! You can tell it has been a while, since we have eaten out ... I forgot to take a picture of my food!
It was a pretty sky, when we got back to the rig!
#TwoLaneAdventures
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