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Arkansas is one of those places that is appreciated by the initiated – and misunderstood by those who have never set foot here.
The wild land that is now called Arkansas was acquired by the United States with the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 and officially became the Arkansas Territory in 1819.
Then – just as now – brave souls set out to explore this place and discovered that it was something special. Arkansas became a state in 1836, thrived briefly and then fell apart economically following the Civil War and finally began to recover in the 1940s.
However, there’s an intriguing place – and piece – in Arkansas history that is often overlooked by textbooks: a town called Paraclifta in western Arkansas sprang up in the late 1820s and virtually disappeared a few decades later. During its prime, it was a society hub that served as the Sevier County seat, boasting four newspapers (all formed 1857 – 1861) and a seminary that trained up proper Southern Belles.
Today, most Arkansans have probably never heard of Paraclifta.
The township fell off the map just forty years after its glory days, and today all that remain of the formerly flourishing and fashionable example of the antebellum South are a single home and a strange monument in the woods at the end of a dirt road.
Sevier County itself was formed in 1828 on the eastern border of the Choctaw Nation – a full eight years before Arkansas acquired statehood. The area sits near present day Lockesburg and DeQueen, a little west off historic Highway 71.
The county seat was located at what would eventually become Paraclifta, and its first courthouse – built of logs – was replaced in 1841 by a new, two-story version built by “the undertaker and contractor” Ira Smoot, who was paid $319 for his time and materials. A post office was established in 1830, and the square boasted a large hotel called the National House “featuring many well-furnished rooms, delightful cuisine and also an up to the minute livery stable.”
Cotton crops were hauled from the area by mule or ox and shipped to New Orleans by way of the Little River, and the return trip brought supplies (and a little whiskey). A courtroom story is told of Paraclifta related to an attorney who struggled to present his motion. He apologized to the judge:
“I find it difficult, your honor, to keep my glasses on my nose this morning.”The judge replied, “Your trouble, sir, is that last evening, you had too many glasses under your nose.”
Around the same time that civilized banter unfolded in the courtrooms of Paraclifta, more wild pursuits were taking place: the region was home to many trappers and hunters, and their triumphs and challenges on the Arkansas frontier were a little less predictable than a judge’s verdict.
A band of adventurers passing through the region told a harrowing and fairly plausible tale of an 1865 encounter with The Wild Man – aka Bigfoot – in the area, which was subsequently published in The Weekly Standard in Raleigh, NC (it’s worth a read).
Despite its acclaim near and far, Paraclifta was not centrally-located in Sevier County, so the county lines were being adjusted and new counties were being established. By 1865, Lockesburg was designated the new county seat… and by 1872, nearly every family had relocated. The Gilliam-Norwood House on the west side of the square is the only remaining structure standing in Paraclifta today.
Paraclifta was in essence very similar to the gold rush towns that sprang up and rapidly deteriorated in California during the same years. Just forty years after its heyday, Paraclifta began to fade quietly back into the Arkansas landscape… almost as though it had never existed.
While abandoned or deserted ghost towns falling into ruins stimulate our imaginations, there’s something far more captivating about a thriving place that simply disappears completely, leaving us to stand in the quiet woods picturing it in our mind’s eye.
These days, you better be looking hard for Paraclifta to find it: the old Gilliam-Norwood house, the modern caretaker’s home and an odd but noticeable monument are all that remain of this formerly thriving Arkansas stronghold.
It seems worth a few moments of our attention, doesn’t it?
While many facts about Paraclifta are available from the Encyclopedia of Arkansas, much of the more entertaining fodder for this piece was gleaned from two articles which were – interestingly – written 100 years apart: an 1865 tale of a Bigfoot encounter from The Weekly Standard of Raleigh, NC and a 1965 article in the DeQueen Bee by Harold Mabry. Please note: the former Paraclifta area is private property and not open to the public. Please call ahead and/or at least be incredibly respectful if you visit this special Arkansas place.
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6 responses to “An Arkansas Cliffhanger: What Happened to Paraclifta?”
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[…] more about this particular trip down memory land in another post, but in the interim you can find my story about the forgotten town of Paraclifta over on the Only In Arkansas website. Let me know what you […]
Did you know that Paraclifta by happenstance was briefly the war time capital of the state? I wonder if by chance that building is the “White House”
Will Steel, “Out of the Dust of Old Paraclifta,” Arkansas Gazette, July 28, 1946 (part 2)
Part 1 was published on July 21 which talks about the history of the town.
Any info on slaves? Henry Williamson owned by Thomas Williamson. Richard, Mary Ann, and Emaline owned by the Gilliamson family.
One of the rooms upstairs, of the white house, was the jail. There are signatures of some of the inmates still on the walls.
[…] the center of Sevier County was Lockesburg, with historical connections to a nearby community, Paraclifta. The Locke brothers and other community leaders voted against the railroad. So, Stilwell chose the […]
I think that my great grandfather was interned into the confederate army there. The copies I have of muster rolls are hard to read. It may have been Dawson’s regiment.