randolph county heritage museum

Got there at 3:45 and as the old lady was walking away she just yelled we are closed. Hours stated that they should be open till 4 pm. If you are planning on a visit make sure you are early.

The Randolph County Heritage Museum is located on the courthouse square in downtown Pocohontas, Arkansas. I was very surprised by the preservation of the area and glad to see that businesses are using the old buildings there. The museum is located across the street from the courthouse and displays the artifacts of the county which is mostly rural and farmland. Inside is a button factory from the turn of the last century when buttons were made from mussel shells and not plastic and mass produced. There is also a doctors office that is fully equipped and looks like it could be used today. The museum is a work in progress from what we were told. It is very interesting and worth a look.

This museum even has a small button factory rebuilt inside it, recreating how local people used to gather mussel shells from the Black River that flows by the town, and turn them into buttons before the days of modern plastic buttons.They have a little bit of everything, well displayed. The medical room has medical equipment used in the county a hundred years ago, including one of the first x-ray machines every produced.There's also a great computerized kiosk that presents lessons on the area's geology, the Indians who lived here before the white men came, and the following eras of the steamboat, the railroad, the civil war, and more.

We visited this museum to recieve our stamp for the Arkansas Civil War 150th passport. We did not spend much time looking around. It seemed like we were the first people who had visited in some time. Worth a quick stop, but not a great deal of time.