Historic Helena Receives Designation from National Park Service Freedom Park First Arkansas Site to Receive the Designation

Kimberly J. Williams, travel writer
Arkansas Tourism

“I had reasoned this out in my mind, there was one of two things I had a right to, liberty or death; if I could not have one, I would have the other.” Harriet Tubman

In January, the National Park Service designated Helena-West Helena’s Freedom Park for inclusion on the department’s National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom. Freedom Park, scheduled for completion in July 2011, is a part of the community’s on-going efforts to increase Civil War tourism throughout Helena-West Helena and Phillips County. It is the first site in Arkansas to receive the prestigious and historical designation.

The National Park Service National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom program “coordinates preservation and education efforts nationwide and integrates local historical places, museums, and interpretive programs associated with the Underground Railroad into a mosaic of community, regional, and national stories.”

Freedom Park will be one of 29 Civil War interpretive sites located throughout Phillips County. The park will include five major exhibits that will explore the African-American experience in Civil War Helena. The exhibits follow the journey of the African-Americans from fugitive slave to freedom; and for some, enlistment in the Union Army and participation in the Battle of Helena on July 4, 1863. The Emancipation Proclamation exhibit will be the centerpiece of the park.

Helena-West Helena’s Dedication to Interpreting the Civil War

In 2005, a long-term strategic plan for the county was introduced and outlined options for economic development. The Civil War was identified as one of the county’s most significant cultural heritage resources. Over the next three years, citizens and organizations came together, committed to formulating a plan focusing on the community’s heritage in an effort to make Helena and Phillips County a Civil War tourism destination.

In July 2009, the Helena-West Helena Advertising and Promotion Commission; the Delta Bridge Project Tourism, Recreation and Quality of Life Goal Team; Southern Bancorp Capital Partners; and the Delta Cultural Center, a museum of the Department of Arkansas Heritage, publicly introduced the Civil War Helena Interpretative Plan.

The plan, created by Mudpuppy and Waterdog, Inc., of Versailles, Ky., incorporates the interpretation of 29 historic Civil War sites located throughout Phillips County. The objective of the plan is to give a voice to those who were affected by the Civil War in Helena and Phillips County – Union and Confederate, black and white, soldier and civilian, and men and women.

The comprehensive plan details the development of a viable tourism industry that could emerge as a primary source of economic development. Data included in the plan estimates that the tourism generated by the development of the community’s Civil War resources “would generate $9 million in local revenue."