Treasure time for Historic Washington
WASHINGTON, Ark. — With March as Arkansas Archeology Month, Historic Washington State Park will celebrate with archeological treasures showcased via a free Zoom discussion on Saturday.
From 1:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m., tune in to see Dr. Carl Drexler, the station archeologist at Southern Arkansas University, as he talks about the state park’s archeological treasures discovered on their digs. Register by Friday to watch.
In particular, the town’s former commercial district downtown on what’s called Block 6 and both the Block and Sanders homes have been studied, yielding interesting finds.
Historic Washington State Park Curator Josh Williams said Drexler will show samples of what archeologists discovered during many of the different digs at the state park, noting the Abraham Block house was home for the first Jewish settlers in the region.
“Another dig that he recently was involved with was over by our Morrison Tavern at the main intersection in town. He was trying to find where the old tavern foundation was,” Williams said. Morrison was built as a reconstruction in the 1960s, but Drexler found some remnants of the old one.
“It wasn’t a tavern for long. It later became the home of the newspaper office, Washington Telegraph,” Williams said. “The newspaper gentleman that owned it, that’s where all his family lived, too.” He said several pieces of type were found at the dig.
Williams said the discussion will focus on such things found in town, dating from the 19th century.
“Like in the Block House, a good example of the finds they found was — and we have some of them on display at the visitor’s center for people to see — is several different pieces of dishware that were made in England and were shipped over,” Williams said. “They found them in the trash dump in the back of the house. They were the plates that they didn’t want anymore.”
The find gives insight into what was being sold by the proprietor of a store there in Washington and the type of goods brought to town.
“It demonstrates, too, that this wasn’t a backward area that couldn’t get some of the nicer things of life. They were able to get a lot of nice plates from Europe, shipped through New Orleans up the Red River to Fulton and then to the area,” Williams said. They were the type of goods Block would have sold and also used at home.
Drexler, said Williams, is a historical archeologist by training who works for the Arkansas Archeological Survey, covering the Southwest Arkansas region to advise people with anything related to archeology.
“His main interest is doing more 19th century, more recent types of archeology history,” Williams said. “He’s done digs up at the Battle of Pea Ridge, coordinated archeological digs up there in Northern Arkansas, but he’s also helped on many of the digs here at Historic Washington.”
This talk with be live, not a recorded event. Registration is required.
“This is part of Archeology Month. There are many other events happening around the state of Arkansas as part of Archeology Month,” Williams said.
Check out the website for the Arkansas Archeological Survey for a calender of events across the state at archeology.uark.edu.
(Admission is free. Call Historic Washington State Park at 870-9832684 by Friday to register and receive instructions on how to attend this online lecture.)