CW- hanging gallows, historical prison cell
We decided to drive to Fort Smith to both break up the drive to Oklahoma City from Buffalo River, and also to get a campsite with electrical hookups during the rain (since our solar wasn’t producing anything). This turned out to be a very good decision as where we were staying in Buffalo River was under Tornado Watch and Fort Smith wasn’t. We had some significant thunder storms a mile away or so but it never got closer. We heard a siren at one point overnight but no further info was available.
We knew nothing about Fort Smith NHS before going there. It turns out this was the first Fort that was built purely to keep the peace while hundreds of Native Americans were being forced to move away from their ancestral lands in Florida by Andrew Jackson on the Trail of Tears. The original Fort was turned into a prison over time and a gallows was erected (and still stands preserved). The Fort movie and placards did a good job of talking about the atrocities that happened while not glorifying its history. The Junior Ranger book did a great job of getting the kids to actually learn about the history, prison conditions, etc.
In addition, the museum has a temporary exhibit of student art (theme: justice vs injustices) that absolutely took my breath away. We ended up spending quite a bit of time in here looking at each poster.
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