st. charles museum and battle monument

St. Charles is the site of the bloodiest single shot of the Civil War. I assume the gentleman who showed us around is the mayor. He was very optimistic about St Charles' past, very positive. Very informative as to the history of the area. Strangely silent as we read the article about the 9 black men murdered in 1905.All in all, a must-see for Civil War buffs, in conjunction with Arkansas Post (just down the road). Also stop in at Crockett's Bluff and look at the tractors. You'll be glad you did.

This is a nice little museum. I loved the diorama. The fellow running the place was friendly and informative.

When we first walked in, it seemed pretty small and we wondered if there was going to be much worth seeing. As it turned out, there is a lot of history packed in here and we ended up spending much longer than we thought we would. St. Charles is one of those small towns that has shrunk so much, it’s hard to imagine what a thriving town it once was. This museum helps with that.The exhibits aren’t as well-organized as in more “professional” museums, and it takes some browsing to find things. It’s like going through your grandparents’ attic and finding long-forgotten treasures. There are artifacts, photos, and news clippings from several important periods in the town’s history. A naval Civil War battle was fought here on the Arkansas River. There are weapons and other artifacts from that time, along with a diorama of the battle. There is a lot of material from the time when people lived in house boats along the river and made their living fishing, logging, and collecting mussel shells to sell to button factories. There is information about the CCC camp that once existed here, which was later used as a POW camp for a short time during World War II. The building that the museum is housed in used to be the CCC camp’s hospital. The lady who was working there the day we visited was very nice and was quite knowledgeable about local history. She answered our questions and guided us to information we were interested in. This is worth a stop if you are interested in knowing about the history of the places you visit, as long as you go with the right expectations. This isn’t a slick modern museum with interactive exhibits. It’s a place that the community has set aside to preserve and share its history with the resources that it has available. I wish more small communities had places like this.

We visited this as part of the Arkansas 150 passport program. This museum is housed in city hall. The mayor was grumpy the day we visited, but the museum has a very neat Civil War display amoungst other displays. Make sure to see the animals and duck decoys in the back. Ask, and they can direct you to an authentic Civil War cannon that was removed from the river. You can also see the monument to the deadliest shot of the Civil War in front of the museum. Not much to see in St. Charles, but this is worth a stop.