OPINION

A Delta pilot project

The weather is perfect as we sit on the deck of the old freight depot at Arkansas City in Desha County that Robert Moore Jr. affectionately refers to as Peck's Southeast. If there's a more peaceful place to be in the Arkansas Delta on this September afternoon, I'm not aware of it.

Moore, a former speaker of the Arkansas House of Representatives, is now one of five members of the powerful Arkansas Highway Commission. He's visiting with Kane Webb, the director of the state Department of Parks and Tourism. I'm just listening.

We all love the Arkansas Delta. But Webb and I were born in Southwest Arkansas and can't match the passion for the region exhibited by Moore, 72, who grew up here. His father, Robert Sr., was a Desha County sheriff. His mother, Dorothy, succeeded her husband as sheriff after he was killed in an automobile accident. She worked for then-Gov. Bill Clinton during legislative sessions. Known around the state Capitol simply as Miss Dorothy, she became a legend. She graduated from high school when Arkansas City was inundated by the Great Flood of 1927 and showed up in a rowboat for her high school graduation. She was rowed to the second floor of the school building, and the superintendent handed her a diploma through the window.

The wooden depot, which has been decorated with old signs and other memorabilia through the years by Robert Jr.'s wife Beverly, has hosted governors, congressmen and legislators. It's a place where stories are told and deals are cut. The deck overlooks a lake--complete with resident alligators--that was formed when dirt was removed to improve the levees along the Mississippi River. The private gathering spot's name came along after Moore purchased the furnishings--bar, stools, chairs, etc.--of Peck's Drive-In, a beloved watering hole that once stood along Little Rock's Markham Street near War Memorial Stadium. Moore became friends with the establishment's longtime owner, Velva Walthall, and talked her into selling him the furnishings. The shuffleboard table was gone, but he later found it and moved it to Arkansas City.

Even though the county seat has remained at Arkansas City with a courthouse that was renovated in 2005, Moore has watched the population fall from 1,018 in the 1950 census when he was a boy to 366 in the 2010 census. Moore is outlining for Webb his latest idea: State entities should take properties they already own in the area and create a pilot project that will show what state government can do when agencies work together.

Because of the rich historic and natural assets in this far corner of Southeast Arkansas, I think he's onto something. Entities that would need to coordinate are the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, the Department of Parks and Tourism, the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff and the University of Arkansas at Monticello.

The Game and Fish Commission owns Choctaw Island, which has changed very little since a century ago when Arkansas City was a major port on the river. The commission purchased Choctaw Island in 2001 from a Monticello-based timber company for $4.5 million and operates it as a wildlife management area. Land is now being cleared for campsites along Kate Adams Lake. In 2012, the commission completed more than nine miles of nature trails. With Choctaw Island having been recognized by the National Audubon Society as an important birding area, Moore is hopeful the commission will do more to maintain and promote the trails. He's also hoping the commission will build an improved boat-launching ramp on land it owns a few miles to the north along the Mississippi River.

Parks and Tourism, meanwhile, began construction last month of a trailhead facility for the southern terminus of the Delta Heritage Trail. A former railroad right of way is being developed in phases into an 84.5-mile biking and hiking trail. When completed, the trail will stretch from six miles west of Helena all the way south to Arkansas City and is expected to attract people from across the country. Almost 21 miles have been developed from its northern terminus to Elaine. At Arkansas City, about 15 miles have been paved north along the Mississippi River levee. The trail eventually will cross the White and Arkansas rivers on abandoned railroad bridges.

UAPB owns the John H. Johnson Museum and Educational Center, the restored childhood home of the founder of Ebony and Jet magazines. Johnson, who was born at Arkansas City in 1918 and lived there through the eighth grade, founded the Johnson Publishing Co. in Chicago in 1942. Johnson died in 2005. In January 2012, the U.S. Postal Service released a stamp featuring Johnson's likeness as part of its Black Heritage series.

UAM owns the former law office of Xenaphon Overton Pindall, who served as the state's acting governor from May 1907 until January 1909 following the incapacity of Gov. John S. Little. Moore says he has been impressed by UAM Chancellor Karla Hughes' commitment to establishing programs (and perhaps even an academic major in Delta studies) that focus on the history and culture of the region.

For his part, Moore hopes to turn his mother's home, where she lived until her death at age 97, into a bed-and-breakfast inn to handle the hikers, bikers, birdwatchers, hunters, fishermen and history buffs he believes will flock to the area if the Game and Fish Commission, Department of Parks and Tourism, UAPB and UAM will work together.

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Senior Editor Rex Nelson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. He's also the author of the Southern Fried blog at rexnelsonsouthernfried.com.

Editorial on 09/23/2017

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