Visitor's Center
The town of Columbia was
located on the Mississippi River about two miles east of this point. In
1833, the Chicot County seat was moved to Columbia from Villemont due to
river bank erosion. Columbia became a thriving port and the location of
a branch of the Real Estate Bank of Arkansas. The town was the southern
terminus of the Military Road from Little Rock and the Little Rock, Pine
Bluff, and New Orleans Railroad, the first rail line in southeastern
Arkansas. In 1855, the county seat was moved to Masona and then to Lake
Village in 1857. Columbia was eventually destroyed by the river.
Inside the Visitor Center
Bayous are slow moving
rivers or streams. Because the Delta is so flat, water drains from the
land very slowly. These old waterways sometimes have hardly any current
as they sluggishly move water off the Delta and into lakes and rivers.
The longest Bayou in the
world, Bayou Bartholomew, is located just west of Chicot County. It
winds over the Delta for 333 miles from Pine Bluff to Bastrop, La.,
where it connects with the Ouachita River. Centuries ago the bayou was
the Arkansas River.
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