Roots Tourism in Northeast Arkansas

By Jeanne Rollberg, American Dream Genealogy and Research

As you attend the 50th annual Governor's Conference on Tourism, you'll be celebrating a half century of "community, collaboration, and celebration" with experienced Arkansas industry professionals. 

Did you know? It’s easy and fascinating to explore your personal family community plus musical and political roots in and near historic Jonesboro, too:

Think Red Wolves. Arkansas State University is an influential part of our roots experience - developing from an agricultural school founded in 1909 by the 37th Arkansas General Assembly. It offers the Dean B. Ellis Library and the ASU Archives plus a history museum for research. If you love preserving history, Heritage Studies at A State await you, too. 

Political history. Jonesboro political roots include the contributions of Senator Hattie Caraway, famously the first woman to preside over the U.S. Senate. 

Not far away in Dyess, have fun with music roots tourism at the Johnny Cash Heritage Festival events, and investigate more about Arkansas’ farming history and agricultural resettlement at the museum there after seeing Johnny Cash’s boyhood home. 

And if you yearn to go waaaaay back in Native American cultural heritage, visit the Hampson Archeological Museum State Park. It contains a collection of artifacts from the Nodena Site, a former Native American village on the Mississippi River between 1400 and 1650. 

Family Focus. The Craighead County/ Jonesboro Public Library is a great resource to learn about your roots. It has genealogy lock-ins to encourage intense family history work. Check out the genealogy society that hosts them at www.gscca.net.

For discovering more of your personal heritage, the Northeast Arkansas Regional Archives at Powhatan also contains critical northeast Arkansas historic resources. Learn meaningful details about your ancestral family there.