Trek North --- Day 2 -- Texarkana to Fort Smith.

It's Tuesday, Aug 30, and I'm starting to feel almost human again.  The joints are no longer frozen in the driving position and the lungs are grateful that I'm not loading and unloading each evening and morning.  There are some advantages to pulling your home behind you -- just get out of the truck and walk into the 'house!'  It isn't quite that easy when you do the motel-thing.

I wasn't intentionally neglecting the blog and failing to report my adventures -- just too 'pooped' to do anything but crash when I pulled off of the road for the night.  AND...I have now had a REAL meal -- something other than peanut butter sandwiches, fast food and pizza -- I'm able to set, stand and walk like a real human again.

So....going back to last week - the travel week...

MONDAY AUG 22nd 

I bid farewell to my friends in central Texas, left my cat in Brenda's care, and headed north. First stop, Texarkana.  Not much to see or do along that route -- I drove thru rain, drizzle and some winds and decided not to stop at Russell Stovers or the Collin Street Bakery in Corsicana. 

It was raining when I pulled into the motel so put off sight-seeing until the AM as I pulled out of town.  Not a good plan -- foggy, hazy, drizzling in the AM.  I did drive down to see the federal building built in two states.  Earlier I posted some info on the building and on Texarkana on the blog. 

TUESDAY AUG 23rd 
  
Once the rain and drizzle cleared, it was an easy trip from Texarkana to my next stop - Fort Smith Arkansas. 

Enroute to Fort Smith, two towns caught my "fancy."  DeQueen, part of the old Butterfield stage route and the Trail of Tears, and Mena. Short stops in both towns gave my joints a rest from the 'driving' position. 

DE QUEEN was founded along a railroad begun in the late 1880s from Kansas City to Port Arthur, Texas. When an economic depression beginning in 1893 dried up sources of American capital needed for the railway's completion, Arthur Stillwell, who had conceived the idea for the rail line and who was then part owner of the Kansas City, Pittsburgh and Gulf Railroad, traveled to Holland in 1894 seeking investors for the project.

Stillwell contacted Jan DeGeoijen, a coffee broker he had met on a previous trip to Europe. He convinced DeGeoijen to support the project and in a few months the they managed to raise $3 million.

The town was named in honor of DeGeoijen, but due to pronunciation difficulties it was altered to "De Queen." The change subsequently made possible one of the most agreeably curious newspaper names. The De Queen Bee began publishing in 1897 and is still in operation.  

MENA is located in the Arkansas Ouachita Mountains and was founded in 1896 as a railroad town at the eastern foot of Arkansas's second highest peak, Rich Mountain. It sets on the eastern edge of the Talimena Scenic Drive, a 54-mile byway between Mena and Talihina, Oklahoma.

The Mena Depot Center is a restored 1920 railroad depot that serves as the visitor's center and art and local history exhibits and railroad memorabilia. An 1851 log cabin still on its original site in what is now Janssen Park. 

Mena was founded by Arthur Edward Stilwell during the building of the Kansas City, Pittsburg and Gulf Railroad (now the Kansas City Southern), which stretched from Kansas City, Missouri to Port Arthur, Texas. Train service to Mena began in 1896.

Stilwell named the town in honor of Folmina Margaretha Janssen-De Goeijen, the wife of his friend and financier Jan De Goeijen, whom Mr. De Goeijen affectionately called Mena. Janssen Park in the center of Mena is also named for her.

Mena was settled in 1896, and incorporated on September 18, 1896. The town's main industries were timber, agriculture and mineral extraction, though it was advertised as a spa city located within a healthy environment.

In 1910, the railroad moved its shop facilities from Mena to Heavener, Oklahoma, causing a loss of 800 jobs. In 1911, a damaging tornado struck the town.

A Sundown town
A black community called Little Africa developed on Board Camp Creek east of Mena. The community was small, with a population of 152 in 1900.  In 1901, a black man was lynched after an alleged altercation with a white girl. No one was arrested for the crime. Several other instances of racially motivated hate and violence towards Mena's black community occurred. This, combined with declining job prospects after the railway shops left town, led many blacks to leave Mena. By 1910, just 16 remained.

The Mena Star advertised the town as being "100% white" in its March 18, 1920 edition, and a local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan was organized in 1922. In 1927, the Mena Commercial Club created advertisements which stated that Mena, in addition to having "pure soft water" and "beautiful scenery", also had "no Negroes".  Like many other communities in America, Mena had become a sundown town. Many sundown towns displaying city signs "Whites only within the city limits after dark."

In the 1950s, a government program to stockpile manganese led to the reopening of local mines that had been closed since the 1890s. The program ended in 1959, and the mines again closed.

During the 1980s, drug smuggler Barry Seal moved his operations to the Mena Intermountain Municipal Airport, where he owned and operated many planes and helicopters, as well as advanced radar equipment.

On April 9, 2009, a large and violent, high end EF-3 tornado devastated the town, killing three and injuring 30; damages were estimated at $25 million.

Next stop, Fort Smith for the nite.

~~~~~

Adler Berriman "Barry" Seal (July 16, 1939 – February 19, 1986) was a drug smuggler, an aircraft pilot and dealer who flew flights for the Medellín Cartel. Born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, he began flying at the age of 15. In 1955, aged 16, he received his airman certificate and joined the Civil Air Patrol (CAP). He flew for TWA until 1974 when he was fired by the company.

Employed by the Medellín Cartel as a pilot and drug smuggler, he transported numerous shipments of cocaine from Colombia to the United States. After successful runs into his home base in Louisiana he moved operations to an airport facility in Mena, Arkansas. There he bought, sold, and operated many planes. This includes the C-123 transport plane, supplied to him by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), that was famously used in the Nicaragua sting operation.  He was eventually arrested and assassinated.