Visitors Guide to Parkin, Arkansas
Parkin Archeological State Park
Parkin is located on the east side of the St. Francis River in eastern Cross County. Parkin’s recorded history starts in the sixteenth century when in 1541, Hernando de Soto’s expedition came through northeast Arkansas and camped with a tribe known as the Casqui. One of the tribe’s villages was located in what is now Parkin. Today, Parkin’s main attraction is the preservation and interpretation of a Casqui mound at Parkin Archeological State Park. The first European settlers came in 1852 establishing a frontier town known as Smithdale, about two and half miles east of present-day Parkin. St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern Railroad laid tracks through Parkin connecting Memphis, Tennessee with Bald Knob, Arkansas. William Parkin of Memphis was in charge of laying the tracks in the Parkin area, and the settlement that grew up near the tracks was named after him. The railroad attracted people from Smithdale who abandoned that community to move to Parkin.
Lumber companies and sawmills became important parts of Parkin by the turn of the 20th century. Some of the first schools in Parkin were built by these companies. In 1903, a school for white children was established by the Lansing Company. The Lansing Wheelbarrow Company and Northern Ohio Cooperage and Lumber Company established the Northern Ohio School in 1910. This was a school for African-American children of the two companies’ workers and served the students up to the eighth grade. This school is now part of Parkin Archeological State Park.
Parkin was finally incorporated as a town in 1912. Throughout the first thirty years of the 20th century, Parkin faced many natural disasters that would cause its residents to rebuild and start over. With the St. Francis River on the west side and the Mississippi River less than forty miles to the east, Parkin was unfortunate to be in the center of the 1912, 1913, 1927, and 1937 floods. The Great Depression and the droughts of this time also took a major toll on Parkin, and it took years for the town to completely recover from all of these disasters.
By the onset of World War Islands the economy was changing from lumbering to agriculture. During the war Parkin farmers took advantage of German prisoners of war being held in nearby Wynne. By the end of the decade the lumber related businesses had closed their doors. At the turn of the 20th century, Parkin was one of the richest and most flourishing towns in this region. Gradually, through the 20th century, the town has slowly diminished as industry has left it and currently has a population of approximately 1,600.
