Area less than one acre Architectural style Rustic Resort Opened 1935 Nearest city Winrock, Arkansas | Built 1935 (1935) NRHP Reference # 92000520 Added to NRHP 28 May 1992 | |
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MPS Facilities Constructed by the CCC in Arkansas MPS | ||
Petit Jean State Park was the first state park of Arkansas, established in 1923 when the United States government decided against the establishment of a national park in the area. A significant portion of its infrastructure was developed in the 1930s by work crews of the Civilian Conservation Corps (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.
Contents
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, 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 built out of stone underlies Highway 154, the main access road through the park, and the Cedar Creek Bridge carries Red Bluff Road 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 elsewhere in Arkansas) in one of the park's grassy areas.