Excavations at Historic Jacksonport State Park (3JA53)

Author(s): C. Andrew Buchner

Year: 2015

Summary

 

The town of Jacksonport, Arkansas was established in the late 1830s near the confluence of the White and Black rivers, and rose to prominence during the 1850s to 1870s as a key steamboat town and as the Jackson County seat.  However, after being bypassed by the railroad the town declined and by 1892, it was largely deserted.   In 2009, the planned construction of a collection management facility lead to data recovery excavations within two town lots, as well as the recovery of detailed archival information regarding occupational history of the lots.  Importantly, a rich archaeological deposit was sampled that provides a glimpse into the life ways of Hampton Lewis, an African-American ("mulatto") carpenter who moved his family to Jacksonport from Tennessee after the Civil War, and who occupied one of the study lots from 1868-1882, during Jacksonport’s heyday.  

Cite this Record

Excavations at Historic Jacksonport State Park (3JA53). C. Andrew Buchner. Presented at Society for Historical Archaeology, Seattle, Washington. 2015 ( tDAR id: 433953)

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Keywords

Temporal Keywords
1860-1890

Spatial Coverage

min long: -129.199; min lat: 24.495 ; max long: -66.973; max lat: 49.359 ;

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 145