Natchitoches, Louisiana

Four days from Arkansas to Texas

We left Hot Springs and Arkansas on Friday, first stopping in Hope, AR on our way to and over-night only in Texarkana, 0.3 miles over the border into Texas. Then back to Arkansas and on south to Natchitoches, Louisiana, for 3 nights. Natchitoches (NAK-a-tish) is the oldest European community in Louisiana / the Louisiana Purchase!

We are finally out of the freezing temperatures.

Camping in a Pecan Orchard, 60^o and sunny on arrival, wet and gray and 45-ish the next 3 days!

We stopped in Hope, AR and Natchitoches, LA to…

Visit 2 new National Park Sites:

President William Jefferson Clinton Birthplace Home National Historic Site (#273), where, in Hope, the experiences Bill Clinton shared with his mother and grandparents in rural Arkansas developed the broad views on race relations, social justice, and public service that defined his presidency and life after the White House. For Bill Clinton, “Hope was home.”
What we were surprised to learn, was that he was named William Jefferson Blythe III, for the father who died shortly before his birth. He changed his name to Clinton at 15, to have the same name as his then 5-year-old step-brother, although he was never adopted by his step-father.
Cane River Creole National Historical Park (#274), where the Cane River region is home to a unique culture; the Creoles. Generations of the same families of workers, enslaved and tenant, and owners lived on these lands for over 200 years. The park tells their stories and preserves the cultural landscape of Oakland and Magnolia Plantations, two of the most intact Creole cotton plantations in the United States, each of which remained in the same families for over 200 years. Fascinating.
We visited all 3 sites…Texas and Pacific Railway Depot in Natchitoches, the Oakland Plantation and the Magnolia Plantation. Of note, is that furnishings on the sites represented the 1960s, about when the last of the share croppers/tenant farmers left. Really tells the story of the 200+ year history.

President William Jefferson Clinton Birthplace Home in Hope, AR
Texas and Pacific Railway Depot in Natchitoches, one of the last remaining segregated buildings in the State of Louisiana
Owners House at Oakland Plantation, cooled by the “wind tunnel” effect through those live oaks the the front door
The Company Store (and gas station) at Oakland Plantation, built during Reconstruction for the enslaved people turned sharecroppers/tenant farmers
The Overseers house before the Civil War, the Farm Managers house after the war, at Oakland Plantation
An example of a “Quarters House” at Oakland Plantation, which housed MANY enslaved people before the Civil War and one sharecropper/tenant farmer family afterwards
The Cooks House well into the 1900s, moved and converted to a “fisherman rental cabin” in the early 1900s, for income
The Company Store at Magnolia Plantation, built during Reconstruction for the enslaved people turned sharecroppers/tenant farmers
Three “classes” of people lived here at Magnolia Plantation: enslaved people when it was the Plantation Hospital before the Civil War, the owners for 30 years after the war (the main house burned down), and the Farm Manager after that.
An example of a BRICK “Quarters House” at Magnolia Plantation, which housed 2 enslaved families before the Civil War and one sharecropper/tenant farmer family afterwards
The last Cotton Presser that exists in place in the United States, in the Cotton Ginning Barn at Magnolia Plantation