Petit Jean State Park is a park in

Conway County, Arkansas Conway County is a county located in the U.S. state of Arkansas. Created as Arkansas's 11th county on October 20, 1825, Conway County has four incorporated municipalities, including Morrilton, the county seat and most populous city. The county ...

managed by the Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism. It is located atop Petit Jean Mountain adjacent to the

Arkansas River The Arkansas River is a major tributary of the Mississippi River. It generally flows to the east and southeast as it traverses the U.S. states of Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. The river's source basin lies in the western United Stat ...

in the area between the

Ouachita Mountains The Ouachita Mountains (), simply referred to as the Ouachitas, are a mountain range in western Arkansas and southeastern Oklahoma. They are formed by a thick succession of highly deformed Paleozoic strata constituting the Ouachita Fold and Thru ...

and Ozark Plateaus.

Legend and naming

According to legend Petit Jean was actually a young 18th century French woman. When she discovered that her fiancé planned to explore the Louisiana Territory, she cut her hair, disguised herself as a boy and managed to find a position as a cabin boy. She survived the voyage and the expedition began their exploration. Once they had reached the area of the mountain, the young woman became ill, on her deathbed she revealed herself to her fiancé, and was buried on the mountain, not under her own name, but under the name she had been known by on the ship, "Little John". Locals pronounce the name "PET-ih jeen" or "petty jeen".

The park

Buildings of log and stone construction built by the

Civilian Conservation Corps The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a voluntary government work relief program that ran from 1933 to 1942 in the United States for unemployed, unmarried men ages 18–25 and eventually expanded to ages 17–28. The CCC was a major part of ...

during the 1930s are scattered throughout the park giving it a rustic feel. A 24-room historic lodge called Mather Lodge sits on the edge of a bluff of a deep forested canyon. In addition to the lodge there are 32 cabins and 127 campsites available for park visitors. The canyon and bluffs were created by Cedar Creek, which cascades into the canyon in an impressive waterfall. Above the falls, Cedar Creek has been dammed to create the Lake Bailey which is used for pedal-boating and fishing. Petit Jean has a visitor center and gift shop in the center of the park and a boathouse at Lake Bailey that provides boat rentals, fishing supplies, and a snack bar. Tennis and basketball courts, a swimming pool, and picnic areas are available for the use of park guests. The Museum of Automobiles is less than a mile from the main camping areas. The park also has several geological and archaeological features such as Bear Cave, Rock House Cave, the Grotto, Turtle Rocks, Carpet Rocks, and Natural Bridge. The scenic overlook at Petit Jean's grave provides a view of the Arkansas River Valley. In 2017, Petit Jean was rated as the best campsite in Arkansas in a 50-state survey conducted by

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Buildings and infrastructure

A significant portion of the park's infrastructure was developed in the 1930s by work crews of the

(CCC), and many of those elements remain in good condition, forming an important element of the park's appearance. The CCC crews built roads, buildings, trails, and the dams which impound Lake Bailey and Roosevelt Lake. These features are described in further detail below. Many of them have been listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

Buildings

The CCC built a number of significant buildings in the park, including administrative and public-use facilities. The most prominent of these is probably

Mather Lodge Mather Lodge is a historic park facility at Petit Jean State Park in Conway County, Arkansas. It is the centerpiece of the park's developed infrastructure, providing lodging, a meeting and function space, and a restaurant for park visitors. The l ...

, a large Rustic stone building built in 1935, enlarged in 1940 (also by the CCC), and again about 1960, when its restaurant wing was added. The main administration building, now partly converted to a gift shop, was also built about 1935. One of the more unusual buildings the CCC erected in the park is its original water treatment building (now abandoned), a roughly square stone structure, which, despite its remote location away from the tourist facilities, is still in the Rustic style of its public buildings. It was in the park's early years a critical element of its infrastructure, housing equipment that filtered and sanitized water for park visitors. The park's facilities also include a series of cabins available for rent by visitors. Four of these were built by the CCC, and exhibit its classic Rustic style. All four (cabin numbers 1, 6, 9, and 16) were built about 1935, and are roughly T-shaped stone structures, with gabled or hipped roofs and projecting central porches. Cabin #1 has a stone patio to one side. Cabin #6 has a shed-roof porch with views of the canyon. Cabin #9 is partially finished with weatherboard siding, and has an original stone masonry cooking pit nearby. Cabin #16 is rectangular, with its porch supported by log columns.

Roads, bridges, and trails

The CCC built several roads and trails through the park. The Blue Hole Road, which now forms part of the Boy Scout Trail, originally provided vehicular access from the Red Bluff loop road down to the Blue Hole swimming area. Surviving features include culverts, a retaining wall, and some guard rail. A well-preserved section of trail built by the CCC is the Cedar Falls Trail, which provides access from Mather Lodge into the canyon, and includes a bridge across Cedar Creek. Two CCC-built road-related structures are still in active use for vehicular traffic. A box

culvert A culvert is a structure that channels water past an obstacle or to a subterranean waterway. Typically embedded so as to be surrounded by soil, a culvert may be made from a pipe, reinforced concrete or other material. In the United Kingdom ...

built out of stone underlies Highway 154, the main access road through the park, and the Cedar Creek Bridge carries Red Bluff Drive over Cedar Creek, just below the outlet of Lake Roosevelt. There is also a now-disused pedestrian bridge, built of concrete to resemble logs (in a cruder version of works done by

Dionicio Rodriguez Dionicio Rodriguez (1891–1955) was a Mexican-born artist and architect whose work can be seen in Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, New Mexico, Tennessee, and Texas, as well as Washington, D.C. and Mexico City. Dionicio Rodrígue ...

elsewhere in Arkansas) in one of the park's grassy areas.

References

External links

Official site

Petit Jean Mountain entry, Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture

Petit Jean State Park: History of Petit Jean Mountain

Winrock Farms Inc., Petit Jean Mountain

Petit Jean Mountain Museum of Automobiles website

The Winthrop Rockefeller Institute

"Petit Jean State Park"
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Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture The Central Arkansas Library System (CALS) ''Encyclopedia of Arkansas'' is a web-based encyclopedia of the U.S. state of Arkansas, described by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) as "a free, authoritative source of information abo ...

'' {{authority control 1923 establishments in Arkansas Archaeological sites on the National Register of Historic Places in Arkansas Arkansas Heritage Trails System Civilian Conservation Corps in Arkansas Natural history of Arkansas Protected areas established in 1923 Protected areas of Conway County, Arkansas Rustic architecture in Arkansas State parks of Arkansas State parks of the U.S. Interior Highlands