Parkin Spur-Great River Road

This is an official side trip off the Great River Road from Marion.  The route takes you to the Crittenden County Museum at Earle and on to the Parkin Archeological State Park just over the county line in Cross County. 

The Crittenden County Museum is housed in a renovated 1922 Missouri Pacific depot listed in the National Register of Historic Places.  Collections include a tribute to Earle's native son, nationally renowned 20th century artist Carroll Cloar. Cloar's paintings capture the Arkansas Delta in a manner that is both regional and universal.

The George Berry Washington Memorial, also in Earle, is a ca. 1928 sculpted angel funerary monument atop the grave of a prominent African American landowner and preacher.  The "Angel in the Field" is listed in the National Register of Historic Places and was the subject of several Cloar paintings and drawings.

Further west from Earle, the mound at Parkin was the largest fortified ceremonial mound and population center in the St. Francis River Basin during the Late Mississippian and early protohistoric period (1350-1650).  It is believed to be the Province of Casqui, visited by Hernando de Soto in 1541.  The site also includes the restored historic school that served children of African American workers at the Northern Ohio Cooperage and Lumber Company.  Parkin Archeological Museum State Park is an official Interpretive Center for the Great River Road National Scenic Byway.

(Click on "Visit Website" for Map)