Places You Can Visit
Historic Sites in Arkansas
Explore 18 historic places in Arkansas, from museums and landmarks to destinations connected with defining events and eras in American history.
Historic Destinations in Arkansas
Arkansas State Capitol
Little Rock, AR
Arkansas's working statehouse is a grand early-20th-century neoclassical landmark where visitors can explore the architecture, history, and ongoing work of state government.
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Fort Smith National Historic Site
Fort Smith, AR
A frontier-era National Park Service site where a military post, federal court, jail, and gallows illuminate U.S. expansion, Indian Territory, and Judge Isaac C. Parker's court.
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Hampson Archeological Museum State Park
Wilson, AR
A museum in Wilson preserving an exceptional collection of artifacts from the nearby Nodena site, a major Late Mississippian-era Indigenous village.
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Historic Arkansas Museum
Little Rock, AR
A preserved downtown Little Rock city block where restored frontier-era buildings, living history, and Arkansas-made art reveal the state's early history and creative traditions.
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Historic Washington State Park
Washington, AR
A remarkably preserved Arkansas town where historic buildings, museums, and living-history programs bring the state's nineteenth-century story to life.
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Jenkins Ferry Battleground State Park
Leola, AR
A Saline River battlefield park preserving the site of the April 30, 1864 engagement that enabled Frederick Steele's Union army to continue its retreat toward Little Rock.
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Jerome Japanese American Relocation Center
Jerome, AR
The rural site of a World War II incarceration camp where more than 8,000 Japanese Americans were confined in southeastern Arkansas.
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Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site
Little Rock, AR
A nationally significant civil rights landmark where the Little Rock Nine challenged school segregation in 1957 and tested the federal government's commitment to enforce desegregation.
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Marks' Mills Battleground State Park
Fordyce, AR
A compact Civil War battlefield park marking the April 25, 1864 Confederate victory that shattered a Union supply convoy and helped force the abandonment of Camden.
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Mosaic Templars Cultural Center
Little Rock, AR
An immersive museum on Little Rock's historic West Ninth Street preserving and celebrating African American history, culture, entrepreneurship, and achievement in Arkansas.
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Old State House Museum
Little Rock, AR
Arkansas's original state capitol preserves a landmark Greek Revival building that witnessed statehood, secession, political conflict, and generations of public life.
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Parkin Archeological State Park
Parkin, AR
A preserved Mississippian village on the St. Francis River where archaeology reveals Indigenous life, possible contact with Hernando de Soto's expedition, and later Delta history.
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Pea Ridge National Military Park
Garfield, AR
A remarkably preserved Civil War battlefield where the Union victory at Pea Ridge helped secure Missouri and reshape the war west of the Mississippi.
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Plum Bayou Mounds Archeological State Park
Scott, AR
Arkansas's largest and most complex prehistoric mound site, preserving the ceremonial center created by the Plum Bayou culture centuries before European contact.
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Poison Springs Battleground State Park
Chidester, AR
A wooded Civil War battlefield park preserving the site of the April 18, 1864 Battle of Poison Spring, a pivotal and especially violent engagement of the Camden Expedition.
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Prairie Grove Battlefield State Park
Prairie Grove, AR
One of the nation's best-preserved Civil War battlefields, protecting the ground of the fierce December 7, 1862 Battle of Prairie Grove.
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Rohwer Relocation Center Memorial Cemetery
Rohwer, AR
A National Historic Landmark cemetery preserving one of the most tangible surviving places associated with the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans at Rohwer.
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World War II Japanese American Internment Museum
McGehee, AR
A museum in McGehee's historic railroad depot interpreting the Rohwer and Jerome incarceration camps and the experiences of Japanese Americans held there during World War II.
View DetailsCities to Explore in Arkansas
Historical Eras Represented
Historical Events
Road Trips Through Arkansas
Arkansas Statehood & the Making of Little Rock
Follow Arkansas from territorial-era Little Rock through statehood and into the construction of its modern seat of government.
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Little Rock: From Segregation to Civil Rights
Trace Little Rock’s Black history and the 1957 school-integration crisis through three nationally and statewide significant sites.
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Arkansas Statehood & the Making of Little Rock
Connect the pivotal 1862 battles at Pea Ridge and Prairie Grove with Fort Smith’s Civil War and frontier history.
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Mounds & Mississippian Worlds of Eastern Arkansas
Travel from the monumental Plum Bayou mound center to late-precontact communities preserved at Parkin and interpreted through the Nodena collection at Hampson.
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The Camden Expedition: Arkansas’s Red River Campaign
Follow the 1864 Camden Expedition from Arkansas’s Confederate capital through the battlefield sequence that ended the Union advance.
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Rohwer & Jerome: Japanese American Incarceration in Arkansas
Visit the surviving landscapes, memorials, and museum that interpret Arkansas’s two World War II Japanese American incarceration centers.
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