[ArkansasSlim]

After posting all those mine adits, I got to wondering how many we looked at so I pulled my file. We worked from 10 July to 16 September (didn't want to get frost bite!) and we looked at 27 mines in Garland, Montgomery, Pike, and Perry Counties on the Ouachita National Forest. That within itself doesn't sound like a big deal except for the distance we had to drive (we were working out of Hot Springs) and miles we had to walk. Except for the cluster of adits we found at the Stinger Mine complex we could do only one or two each day. We would know there was a mine adit "up yonder" on the side of a mountain so we would drive from H.S. to as close as we could get, then get out and start humping it looking for a six foot (more or less) diameter hole in the side of the mountain. Some times it would actually take hours of crashing through the brush up and down the mountain to find that hole. Of all we looked for, we were unable to find only four, and decided they were covered with tree tops from the 2000 - 2001 ice storm.

Anyway - this is my favorite one of the whole bunch. I can't tell you where it is because descendants are still living in the area. The face of the adit was fixed up with concreted rock, like a door jamb. On one side were heavy blacksmith made hinges set into the jamb, and on the other a heavy U-bolt for a hasp. Obviously it was for a heavy door but there was no way to know if the door was heavy wood, or steel. The mine was obviously a prospect hole because it went back only about 10 meters. One local informant said "old man XXX" used it as a fruit cellar. Another informant upon being told that story said " that's where that old kept his bootleg whiskey!" It was common knowledge he was a bootlegger. For obvious reasons I call this mine "The Whiskey Locker".

[ArkansasSlim]

Yesterday my archeologist friend and I went to Clark and Nevada Counties. In Clark County near the Benjamin Crow monument a land owner had clear cut about 40 acres and after a good rain (as we have had lately) that is a good place to look for pioneer home sites and Indian sites. The soil is sandy clay with novaculite gravel with most the size of lemons to oranges. The Ouachita Mountains are the only source of novaculite in Arkansas and the experts say this gravel washed down from the Ouachita's millions of years ago. I'll take their word for it. In the mountains the Indians quarried novaculite bedrock for their tool material, but in Clark and surrounding Counties they used the larger size gravel. We found no pioneer site but found one Indian site which contained flakes from their tool making, and gravel from which they had knocked off parts. The site was GPS located and entered into the data base.

About 30+ years ago, in Nevada County near Prescott, I was shown the site and remains of a Civil War fort which originally had palisade walls around it, and an artillery position, which I wanted to show my friend. The two sited had originally been connected by a trench. When I was shown the sites they were in a heavily wooded area near the road that goes to Elkins Ferry and the Little Missouri River. When we got there yesterday we found that someone had built a house, dug a pond, bulldozed the trees and brush, and built a six strand high dollar barbed wire fence around the property. We found the owner and got permission to walk the property to see if we could find the sites.

With the landmarks gone nothing looked right, but I thought I found where the fort had been but never could locate the artillery position. As we were driving off I noticed a narrow road through some woods that looked familiar, so we walked down it and found the artillery position which was outside the fence. There is a problem there too. About 15/20 years a pine plantation had been planted there and the position was so heavily damaged I would not have recognized it for what it was if I had not seen it years ago. Unfortunately there was nothing to photo at either site.

For those of you who are interested in Civil War stuff; These positions were occupied by Confederate troop and when the Union crossed the Little Missouri River and continued to move south, the Confederates vacated the site and moved back to set up the ambush which became known as the Battle of Gum Grove, or Battle of Prairie deAnn, (or however you spell it) depending on which side you were on.

[ArkansasSlim]

After our disappointment in what we found at the Civil War fort we drove down to see the Elkin's Ferry Site where Union General Steele crossed the Little Missouri River with over 8,000 troops and Confederate General Marmaduke made a feeble effort to stop him. After seeing that place and the wet, water logged bottoms, it's hard to imagine those troops getting through. But they did. From there we drove on down river to look at an old unused steel bridge still spanning the river. After navigating through and around three king size mud holes we finally made it. We talked to one of the locals who was there and he said the bridge got in such dangerous condition the county closed it to vehicle traffic which caused a problem because there was a very busy bootlegger on the north side of the river. So, people south of the river would drive to the bridge and walk across to buy their booze. The county had no heart and no sympathy, so they took the deck from the south half of the bridge and left only steel beams. The customers were afraid to walk the beams so they had to drive many miles, or find another bootlegger. I suspect there were plenty available.

Well, the gremlins were not through with me. Because of a vision condition I have a problem seeing the screen of my digital camera in bright sunlight. I set it on auto and point-and-shoot and take lots of exposures and sort them out when I download them at home. Some way I had screwed up my exposure settings and what you see below is the end result. At least it's different. The bridge is at UTM (NAD-53) 471356 3751445.

[ArkansasSlim]

Of course the above UTM should have been NAD-83! Well , I can't get anything right on this Trek!!

[ArkansasSlim]

This is back on the Ouachita National Forest in the Ouachita Mountains of Montgomery County. It is from our archeology project of walking the "No Mans Land Wildfire" bulldozed fire lines. I am a great believer of controlled burn on the forest. When we started this project in the early spring, everything looked like the ground at my feet, but by early summer everything had greened up and was once again preparing to provide food for the wildlife. After the fire the heavy brush the deer couldn't eat was gone, so now new tender plants could grow and with the canopy gone the low growing berry vines and shrubs could once again provid fruit for the bears and birds. You can see behind me that the young underbrush is already greening up.

Anyway, the fire line ran down the crest of this mountain and we had to go up there two times to get it mapped. The white stuff you can see on the burned ground is white novaculite from the Indian quarry that extended a couple hundred meters down the crest. Each time while there, a serious thunderstorm moved in. As it approached we found the clearest, no tall trees, place we could and hunkered down until it passed. Once, the lightning got a tree about 50 meters from us. This photo is the second trip, the storm is over, and I'm telling the others "O.K., it's over, we need to move on".

[ArkansasSlim]

Still on the Ouachita National Forest in the Ouachita Mountains of south Pike County. This Indian quarry is on the south side of Leader Mountain, west of Albert Pike Recreation Area, and north of the Winding Stair Trail-head parking lot. This is all that's left of an outcrop near the crest of this mountain and they had quarried a tunnel through it which is behind me on my right. The quarry debris is scattered for about 100 meters down the side of the mountain.

[ArkansasSlim]

This is the Wardsville-Bagby Pioneer Cemetery on Grant County Road 53 north of Sheridan. There are unmarked graves, but the oldest tombstone death date is 1863 and the latest is 1925. It was in a wooded area and few people knew it was there until a man who thought he owned the property came in, cleaned up the area and used a road grader to level everything except where the markers were, and was planning to open a new cemetery there. (The property was actually owned by a church across the road, but they didn't know it, or that the cemetery was there) My informant, who was one of the few who knew about the cemetery, is certain several unmarked graves were leveled. Long story short; the activity was stopped, a cemetery association was organized and obtained Deed to the property. My informant is now in the process of applying for National Register recognition, and that family is maintaining the cemetery as you can see in the photo.

[ArkansasSlim]

This is a "no photo" post. Have you ever been out and about and later think, "oh , why didn't I take a photo of that?" That happened to me today. I was out in central Clark County with my archeologist friend looking for some pioneer home sites that he had gotten leads on. We were driving along those roads and trails when, in the middle of no-where, on a ridge top, we came up on a prepared landing strip at least a quarter mile long and about 75 feet wide! We discussed it and several miles later I had that "oh " moment. Too late - too far back.

[Dr. Foosball]

If Slim never posts again, we know what happened to him. It sounds like you may have come across something better left unknown.

[ArkansasSlim]

Originally Posted by Dr. Foosball

If Slim never posts again, we know what happened to him. It sounds like you may have come across something better left unknown.

Dad and I got into a situation like that in AZ. We liked to run the back trails on the Sonora Desert looking for old mines and ghost towns. One day near the Mexican Border we came up on a well used road that turned up the side of a plateau. We decided to go see what was up there and what we found was a landing strip. Smugglers would fly in their stuff and vehicles would pick it up at that point and move out across the US to their distribution points. When we saw what we had bound, Dad said; "Let's get the hell out of here!" And we back-tracked much faster than we came in! Thankfully, there was no one there transferring cargo or I probably wouldn't be writing this. We had many adventures out there.