A state doesn’t have to boast an Alamo, or a Gettysburg
Battlefield to have an interesting history. Micro-events can intrigue and inform
the curious, as can postage-stamp places. I realized that this week as a friend
and I took a trip east from Little Rock to West Memphis. Since driving the
Interstate has become almost as insufferable as flying, we chose to proceed via
the old two-lane highway, U.S. 70.
I call it the “Highway of Dreams” because of the countless peoples
who have traveled it seeking fame and fortune. There was probably no famous
popular musician from the eastern half of the country that didn’t travel this
byway prior to the opening of Interstate 40, now known as “America’s Main
Street,” famous more for “truck chains” and frustration than anything.
Oh, but the history of “Old 70.” There’s the abandoned 11/70
Club at eastern edge of Hazen. There is no telling how many famous and not-yet
famous musicians performed there. Someone claimed that Bob Dylan stopped in
there one night to see his friends in The Band. I don’t know. Rumor also has it
that it was the model for the famous “redneck” bar scene in the Blues Brothers movie. It is for sure
that the club featured legendary Arkansas bands such as The Pacers and Tuesday Blues.
Farther outside Hazen somewhere, (I’ve found no one willing
to spot the exact location) is the site of a legendary “shoot and stab” club known only as “Bunker Hill.” Before they all passed on, old-timers would speak
of it with the kind of awe attributed to the site of the St. Valentine’s Day
massacre in Chicago.
I know a faint bit about the history of the highway, nothing
like the knowledge that a true Arkansas historian like Mark K. Christ
maintains. But I was able to amaze my traveling companion with a few details.
There’s a strip of abandoned railroad right-of-way that contains a replication
of the original prairie vegetation that covered “The Grand Prairie.”
Unfortunately, most of it had burned, either by accident or on purpose. We can
hope it will grow back next spring.
Then there was the farm where, after crops are finished,
they convert a large farm building to an eating place on weekends, drawing a
large local crowd.
It competes with the “new” Murray’s Catfish and the story of
the original Murray’s in DeVall’s Bluff, at one time the best catfish place in
America, would require its own story.
Ah, DeVall’s Bluff. Now just a bend in the highway and home
to Lena’s, the best pie place in
America, and Craig’s the best
barbeque place in America. It housed thousands of federal troops during the
Civil War. The legendary Confederate guerilla, “Doc” Rayburn once dressed as a
woman and attended an officers’ ball there, danced with some of the officers, and
escaped on one of their horses. (An aside: federal troops later accused the
owner of our farm in Lonoke County of harboring Rayburn and wreaked appropriate
vengeance, including confiscating his slaves).
Find more about these places and people at the Encyclopedia of Arkansas.
I’ve included a phot below of the landing at DeVall’s Bluff
showing how it looked in the town’s past. Credit goes to the site Civil War Talk. Don’t know the date, but
it must have been during the Civil War era. There’s a marvelous little museum
in DeVall’s Bluff if you ever get the chance.
Well, we’ve just started and we’ve run out of space. I was
just thinking, though, how neat it would be for some genius to design an “app”
that could be loaded onto a cell phone and linked to a database that could
contain tidbits of info on sites that could be identified by markers along
these old highways. As the interstates become less and less passable, traffic
will pick up and travel become more enjoyable. Maybe it could help us slow down
and chill out.
Just a thought. As for now, we seem more intent on keeping
our state’s treasures hidden from public knowledge.
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| DeVall's Bluff, sometime during the past. |
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