Follow the green-and-white pilot wheel markers along the Great River Road in the heart of eastern Arkansas's Mississippi River Delta
country. The road, designated a national scenic byway, will lead you
from north to south through this rich agricultural kingdom where cotton,
rice, soybeans and wheat flourish in some of Arkansas's richest soils.
Crowley's Ridge Parkway, another national scenic byway, also winds through
this region, providing excellent views of the productive land from atop
a geologic oddity rising from the Delta. Learn more about Crowley's Ridge State Park.
This is the land where Europeans first crossed the Mississippi in
1541, where you can experience a taste of the civilizations they found
here at the Hampson Museum State Park at Wilson and at Parkin Archeological State Park
at Parkin. You can relive the early days of more recent settlement at
countless museums throughout the region, including the Arkansas State
University Museum at Jonesboro and the Museum of the Arkansas Grand
Prairie at Stuttgart.
Highpoints include the Hemingway-Pfeiffer Museum & Education
Center at Piggott, where "papa" penned portions of "A Farewell to Arms,"
the historic riverport of Helena, where the Delta Cultural Center
interprets the land, the people and the music of the river country; Arkansas Post National Memorial, which preserves the site of the earliest settlement in the lower Mississippi River Valley; Southland Park Gaming and Racing, one of the largest dog tracks in the country with games of skill; and Lake Chicot State Park, where fishing is exceptional and bird watching second to none. And don't miss the Louisiana Purchase State Park, where a monument marks the initial point for surveys of the 1803 Louisiana Purchase.
