Here we are at Davidsonville Historic State Park, near Pocahontas, Arkansas. I am here on my “daycation,” which is like a vacation with day trips. And I decided to come all the way out to Davidsonville. It’s a historic town, what used to be a town. It was donated back in 1957 by a man named Davis, and there was another person who owned part of the town, but Davis owned most of it.

It was a thriving village back in the early 1800s. “Nestled on the banks of the black river between the Arkansas delta and the Ozark foothills, Davidsonville Historic State Park is one of Arkansas’s treasures. Although it seemed to fail, the dream for the town of Davidsonville was to lay the foundation for prosperity for future Arkansans. From 1815 to 1830, it was the first seat of Laurence County. It had Arkansas’s first post office, land office, and brick courthouse. Davidsonville was Arkansas’s first planned community. The abundant lumber here, paired with its location near the junction of the black spring and Eleven Point rivers, made this site a perfect place for settlement and commerce. By the end of the 1820s, the movement of settlers, roads, politics, and natural forces caused the county seat to move to Jackson. Subsequently, Davidsonville fell into the pages of history. In the 1970s and again in the early 2000s, … excavations here unearthed structural foundations and numerous historic artifacts. Buildings, buttons, coins, cups, and other artifacts reveal the same desire for quality of life then as now. Today, the state parks of Arkansas preserve, protect, and interpret the story and artifacts of Davidsonville as well as the natural surroundings that brought people here so long ago.”

There are some official trails here. I’m just kind of wandering around at this point. I see these structures, and I’m going to head over to them to see what we can see. It’s a beautiful day for taking a walk and being outside. It was in the 30s when I left home, but that was several hours ago. Now I’m walking through the town. So I won’t know how far I’m walking. I have just been to the museum, which is very nice. It’s tiny, but they have some of the archeological artifacts I just mentioned that have been found here. They also have an audio tour. These neat little handheld devices are similar to phones but not smartphones. Around the museum, there are numbers that you can dial into your phone and hold to your ear to listen to a description, reenactment, or other similar content. It’s pretty good; I heard a story about a bear fighting a man. Whether it’s true or not, I don’t know. These are purported to come from historical accounts. I heard about strange foods. One is the beaver tail. Beaver tail was a delicacy that tasted like a combination of bone marrow and some fish. I heard about riverboats. They had a mock-up of a riverboat and a bunch of animal skins in there.

And here we are at the courthouse. “Research indicates it was built on a plan commonly used in the Missouri Ozarks, a brick building two stories high on a stone foundation, with a … cupola and central entry.” There, we have a two-story structure, a cupola. This is meant to be a frame representation. Of course, it was the county seat, so they have the courthouse. That’s where all the legal things took place. County elections, jury trials, and auctions brought people from outlying communities to the county seat. George Caleb Bingham, there’s a picture there. “Old Davidsonville State Park … oldest town site in Arkansas. The first post office in Arkansas was established here on June 28, 1817, with Adam Ritchie as postmaster. Old Davidsonville was also the site of the first courthouse in Arkansas, built in 1815. The first United States land office in Arkansas was built here in 1820. John Davidson, for whom this town was named, represented this county in the Missouri territorial legislature in 1816. Stephen F. Austin, the father of Texas, held the first territorial court here in 1820, and the land for this park was donated to the state by Mr. and Mrs. Newt Davis and Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Sloan.” My name, of course, is Davis. I don’t think there’s any relation. There are many Davises in the United States, England, Ireland, and other places.

And this is the courthouse. A clerk’s office, jury room. They have a 3d sort of tour of the town in the museum, which is pretty cool. That was evidently created by the Center for Advanced Spatial Technology at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. So we’re leaving the courthouse, and you’ll get some good exercise here, walking around. Just relating this back to fitness, diet, and medicine. By the way, welcome to Running: A FEVER. My name is Michael Davis. This is a show about fitness, diet, and medicine. My goal is to live a long, healthy, active life right up to the very end and do it by loving my life enough to make it last as long as possible. Today, I’m loving my life and exploring happiness by getting out in nature and enjoying the rustic settings of the oldest town in Arkansas.

I got a feeling that over there is the tavern. I don’t have to rush to get there. I’m just walking and checking out the town here. It was very interesting getting here. It was a four-and-a-half-hour drive. The watch says I’ve been walking for 10 minutes, so half a mile. Let’s take a look at what this says right here. “Transportation was a river highway and the Southwest Trail. Travelers by land used a matrix of primitive roads that made up the Southwest Trail.” Speaking of primitive roads, I had two sections of gravel road on the way here. Which was a little scary. I’ve an outdated navigation system in my 8-year-old Ford F-150. And it was telling me to go offroad on this gravel road, then back on another road, then back on a gravel road. “Davidsonville is located on a wedge-shaped piece of land formed by the confluence of Black Spring and Eleven Point Rivers, placing it in the midst of the transportation trade superhighways of the era. Boats traveled up and down the Black River en route to the Mississippi River and, from there, had access to world markets. Goods were shipped on flatboats, keel boats.” And I saw a model of a keelboat in the museum, by the way, “…and open cargo rowboats. As a river port, the town offered landing areas for freight and passengers, as well as a range of support services. Near the water were warehouses to store and ship goods and both storage and repair facilities.” They have pictures here of both water transportation and land transportation, including covered wagons.

Somewhere around here, close to the town, is the river landing. Here is the Black River Trail. It is closed when the Black River floods. That’s nice! I’m doing the historic town site trail. I’m not going to get too crazy today. I’ve had some trouble with my foot. I’ve had this on and off for a long time. I get a pain on the right side of my foot. No, that doesn’t look like the tavern. The post office and the tavern were combined in one building, according to the virtual tour in the museum. I just opened my walking app, and it started a walk. I don’t know what triggered the notification ten minutes ago, but I’m unsure what that was. But now I’m in the walking app. It started me over. So, sixteen seconds. I’m just going to go straight over to this other building with various stops along the way.

I went along Highway 412 heading east, but it’s not just a straight shot. It goes through towns, making 90-degree turns, 100-degree turns, and 90-degree turns in both directions. However, the signage was quite good, so I was able to arrive without too much trouble. But this week, it’s my daycation. I’m talking day trips, and this is my first one.

House lots. “48 lots around the public square. Only a few lots have been examined by archeologists so far. Lots held houses, businesses, and outbuildings, and archaeologists know of at least ten primary structures. By 1829, ninety families lived in or near Davidsonville, with probably close to that many houses. Houses sat on large lots with gardens and livestock areas, as well as multiple outbuildings, including kitchens, smokehouses, privies, wells, barns, chicken houses, animal pens, coal frames, and wagon sheds. Lots functioned as miniature farmsteads to support the household.” So, not surprisingly, it was a farming community, even though it was a town; even in the city, people continued to farm. In my time showing or telling you, at least, about the Lake Fayetteville trail, I’ve come across adjoining private property, marked as private property, that had hay bales or rolls of hay. And in the towns of Rogers and Springdale, I have seen cattle in the town. So, I guess Arkansas hasn’t changed much in that respect.

First postal stop. “U.S. Congress established post roads in the late 1700s, which were the routes that carried mail throughout the country and into the distant territories. Having a postal stop in one’s town was highly desirable, as it attracted people from surrounding communities. It was delivered in a leather bag to the postmaster’s house. The postmaster sorted letters into the desk’s mail slots for pickup by the county’s residence.” So maybe it was just a postmaster living in a house with a desk like this. The bag was for the mail carriers. However, the postmaster actually received the mail, and then people came to his house to pick it up. “Mail went regularly back and forth from the territorial capital of St. Louis to Washington, D.C. Davidsonville became the first postal stop in Arkansas on Postal Route 407 on which mail travelled from St. Louis to Davidsonville and on to Arkansas post. Davidsonville’s first postmaster was Adam Richley, who was appointed in 1817. Rather than have a separate post office as we do today, the mail was delivered to Richley’s home or business,” like we said. “People came to Richley’s location to pick up their mail, and the postage was paid at that time. Mail ran about once a month. Riders carried the mail in portmanteaus (leather cases) or saddle bags. Riders were hired on contract and sometimes faced difficulties such as floods and bad roads in getting the mail delivered.” Then there’s a quote from Alex de Tocqueville.

And here it says “Postal Stop”. It’s a private residence, and it looks pretty big. It probably wouldn’t look as big if it was closed off. They’ve got a picture here. This was like a dual–there were two wings of it. And I think one part of the museum mentions that it was also a tavern. So, two stories, I guess, with rooms upstairs. “The steel beams you are standing under form a ghost structure to provide an outline of the original home’s dimensions. Situated on the corner of the town square and next to the main road, this house was prominent in the hustle and bustle of the town. The ghost structure demonstrates the home’s large size and its important location in Davidsonville. Archaeological excavations in Lot Nine revealed a massive, continuous limestone foundation that would have supported a two-story log building, similar to the Jacob Wolfe house in Norfolk, Arkansas. Like that house, it is believed the house was built in a dogtrot style with an open breezeway on the first floor. It’s been often speculated that this could have been the house of Arkansas’s first postmaster.”

So here I am, walking around the house of the first postmaster in Arkansas. And now there must be hundreds if not thousands of postmasters in Arkansas. I know I’ve been to at least four post offices in this area. It looks like this is the only structure here. That was a chimney I suppose, another chimney at the other end because the rooms were separated by a breezeway in the dogtrot style so they had to have a fireplace on each side.

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned my physical to you yet. I just had it last week, I guess. It’s amazing. You take your blood test and go to the doctor an hour later, and they’ve already got the results. And everything looks great. My blood pressure was normal. No liver problems whatsoever, which is great news. I’ve lost about 60 pounds since I had my diagnosis of fatty liver disease, or non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). So that was good news. Overall, pretty good news. The only thing I didn’t get, and I need to follow up on this, is A1C. In my previous physical, I was diagnosed pre-diabetic. I would like to know if that is still the case, or if it has progressed or regressed. So I need to find that out. However, everything looks pretty good so far.

“Within a short span of fifteen years, Davidsonville rose in size and importance and just as quickly returned into oblivion. The quick demise of Davidsonville led to local myths about its fall. A yellow fever epidemic, a mass exodus, or a town destroyed by fire. Although colorful, there is no evidence supporting these myths. Historical and archaeological evidence suggests the demise of Davidsonville came from environmental and political influences. Despite the logic in sitting Davidsonville near three rivers, springtime flooding disrupted transportation routes and isolated the town. Eventually, the Black River crossing was moved where flooding was less severe. In addition, Davidsonville’s location on a spur, rather than directly on the Southwest Trail, contributed to the town’s decline as this route gained in importance. The county seat was moved. With the access in the spring limited by flooding, the town became unsuitable for a county seat. New settlers moved further west to better land and town residence, eventually abandoned flood-prone lands for drier options. Following the population, the federal land office was moved west to Batesville after only two years. In 1829, the Laurence County seat was moved to Jackson, a town on the Southwest Trail. Businesses would have quickly followed. As people moved, buildings and materials were reused. Small buildings may have been physically moved to new locations, and bricks and stones from larger buildings were recycled. Eventually, nothing much was left, and nature covered the remains. Although not as intriguing as yellow fever or fire, these environmental and political factors are believed to be the reasons Davidsonville disappeared.”

And then, at some point, apparently, someone bought the town. They owned the whole town, even though there were no buildings, just like today. You have ghost structures for two of the buildings, the post office and the courthouse. Anyway, it’s a good place to walk around and read some interesting facts. I wonder if there will be future archeological excavation here.

“Although there are surviving documents that tell us about Davidsonville, the town existed for such a short period that many parts of the story were not written down. Day-to-day activities were considered too common to be considered important to note. After buildings were torn down, little remained to indicate how the town was laid out or what activities occurred on the lots. Artifacts left behind indicate that Davidsonville, although a frontier town, was not isolated from the rest of the world.” They have some pictures of archaeologists here, digging for artifacts, measuring their exact locations, cataloging them, and cleaning and mending them. “The purpose of archeology is not to recover artifacts but rather to study all the evidence left behind, including building remnants, activity areas, and trash deposits, in order to retell the story of life at an earlier time. Using a research plan, chosen areas are carefully excavated. Changes in soil colors, the arrangement of bricks and debris, and the location of artifacts are mapped and recorded. In the lab, broken artifacts are pieced back together and studied….documents are studied, and the historical context is considered. These are pieces of the puzzle that together reveal a fuller picture of Davidsonville.”

Davidsonville, Arkansas. No longer a thing. Like I said, it’s a perfect day, although I’m a little overdressed. It was in the 30’s when I left home. I am in what have become my hiking jeans. They’re really loose, so they are good for hiking. I’ve lost a lot of weight, and I don’t fit well into them, but there’s good I can get out of them if I cinch my belt tight enough. And I’ve got the good old green hoodie on, and it’s getting warm. So, I’m going to try to find Renee’s restaurant. Of course, I don’t know. Basically, I’m going to go one way or the other. I can’t remember. I got directions, but I can’t remember which way to go. I suppose there are two towns nearby: Pocahontas and Black Rock.

The only other thing is that while I was there, I was reading that one of the historical personages of Davidsonville was a man named David Lister. And it just so happens that David Lister is a character in one of my favorite TV shows, Red Dwarf, a science fiction comedy about a man who was left on a spaceship. He was left in suspended animation for three million years. With friends, of course, but they are strange friends. A robot. A, how shall I say it, felix sapiens, a humanoid creature evolved from a cat, and then a hologram. Anyway, David Lister, of Davidsonville and of Red Dwarf. Trivia! Running: A FEVER trivia.

Anyway, that’s the news from Davidsonville, Arkansas. Signing off. Remember, if you’ve got the fever, keep it burning, and if you don’t, catch the fever, and I will see you next time on Running: A FEVER.