Batesville Creek Overlook Traditional Cache

This cache has been archived.

Max Cacher: Greetings from Geocaching.com

It looks like your cache has been under the weather for some time. While we feel that Geocaching.com should hold the location for you and block other cachers from entering the area around this cache for a reasonable amount of time, we can't do so forever. So that someone else can place a cache in the area, and geocachers can once again enjoy visiting this location. Also, if you haven’t done so already, please pick up any remaining cache bits as soon as possible.

If you are in the process of replacing or repairing your cache please e-mail me in response to this archival, and I will unarchive your cache.

After we posted a note to you cache requesting a response from you to post what you were planning to do with the cache on the page and sending us a note. We have no record of a response, and no response tells us that you are not planning on replacing, or repairing this cache if we are wrong with that assumption please let me know.

I want to thank you for the time that you have taken to contribute to geocaching in the past and am looking forward to seeing your cache up and running in the future.

Max Cacher
Geocaching.com Volunteer Cache Reviewer // Moderator
Reply to: MaxCacher@aol.com
Please send the name of the cache and the GC# , the state , and the name of your cache with your reply

More
Hidden : 6/21/2003
Difficulty:
1 out of 5
Terrain:
1.5 out of 5

Size: Size: regular (regular)

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Geocache Description:

This GeoCache lies in the Cadron Creek watershed above Batesville Creek in the community of Twin Groves. The GeoCache lies just off of Highway 65 and offers a wonderful depot for travel bugs. For the best view drive a couple of hundred yards further. There is a small park here with ample parking that makes finding this GeoCache even easier. And if you really seek more adventure there are several other GeoCaches in the Cadron Creek watershed you may wish to visit.

The GeoCache lies near the crest of the ridge at a small park offering ample parking and a couple of picnic tables. You'll be looking for a green ammo box with assorted treasures.

But there is more to this site than just a GeoCache or a pleasant view or a depot for Travel Bugs. This area also has a rich history for African-Americans seeking a new life after the civil war.

Twin Groves was founded in 1991 by consolidating the communities of Zion Grove and Solomon Grove which were first settled by African-American families following the civil war. The Solomon Grove community quickly grew as it attracted African- American families from as far away as North Carolina who viewed the area as a promised land offering a better life. They built a small church and a one-room log schoolhouse for their children and enjoyed life on Batesville Mountain.

However, the arrival of large numbers of black settlers in Faulkner County transformed the racial and political situation in the county as the black population more than doubled between 1880 and 1890. By the mid-1880s the larger black population had become a threat to the rule of post-Reconstruction white Democratic authorities who ran the county. Moreover, the political power of African Americans had been magnified as they cast their votes in coalition with those of poor white farmers. By 1890 Democratic leaders throughout Arkansas were determined to remove the black vote, and by so doing, to destroy the opposition alliance of the poor. The next session of the state legislature passed legislation instituting the secret ballot and poll tax, measures designed specifically to curb or remove the votes belonging to the illiterate or poor. While they were at it, the legislature went on to pass the separate train coach law which forcibly segregated train cars, the beginning of Jim Crow in Arkansas.

This political tension formed the context within which many African-Americans sought a return to Africa--the Liberia emigration movement. But African-Americans had even more compelling reasons to wish to leave the area as the situation for blacks in Arkansas quickly worsened in the early 1890s. While only three lynchings occurred in Arkansas in 1890, by 1891 the number had risen to eight. In 1892 nineteen black men and women were lynched in the state. Race relations became more tense in the area in fall 1890 when white and black residents quarrelled over title to some government homestead land near today's GeoCache. A white man named James Cook had filed an ejection suit to remove a black man named Jackson from some property both men claimed. After a deputy sheriff removed Jackson and Cook took possession of the homestead, eleven black men and one woman showed up at his doorstep and shot Cook, though not fatally. Authorities promptly arrested the offending blacks, but the neighborhood was much astir over the incident.

Thereafter, many African Americans began to migrate to the northern industrial cities and the population in area gradually declined, leaving only the names of the early families in the cemetery near site of the original church. Today only a couple of hundred of people--primarily African-Americans--still live in the area. However, since its incorporation, Twin Groves has seen exponential growth that has included the paving of almost all of the city's streets, the establishment of a fire department, the construction of a community center that is home to the city council, a senior citizen center and a day care center; and most recently, a new library.

And for those interested in National Historical sites you'll have to take the time to visit the nearby Solomon Grove Smith-Hughes Building. The Solomon Grove Smith-Hughes building was built by the National Youth Administration with funding assistance from the Smith-Hughes Act in 1938-1939. Local African-American youths were employed as labor for the project, which was directed by local stonemason Silas Owens, Sr. The new school, which included a main school building and a "shop" were built in 1938-1939. The main school building was lost in a fire in the 1960's. The "shop" was a multi-use facility that held regular classrooms when school attendance was high, as well as being a center for vocational education including agriculture and brickmasonry. Many of the men currently living in the Solomon Grove vicinity still earn their living as brickmasons and practice the agricultural skills taught to them and their fathers in the "shop".

The Solomon Grove Hughes-Smith building is the only building of such artistic stone construction that remains unaltered in Faulkner County. Its association with the local African- American community, representation of Depression-era public work construction, and distinctive artistic stone construction make this building a very special place to visit.

Thank-you for visiting our GeoCache and the wonderful community of Twin Groves.

Additional Hints (Decrypt)

N yvggyr fubr yrnirf n fznyy sbbgcevag.

Decryption Key

A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M
-------------------------
N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z

(letter above equals below, and vice versa)


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