Clark County history subject of Ouachita Chapter’s October meeting
The Ouachita Chapter of the Arkansas Archeological Society will meet at 7 p.m. Tuesday in the Maurice Room at National Park Medical Center, 1910 Malvern Road.
The featured speaker will be Meeks Etchieson, who will present “Uncovering Clark County History,” a program about recent efforts to use historic records and digital technology to discover archeological sites, with examples drawn from Clark County.
Etchieson will describe how he looks at historic roads, deed records, probate records, and county court transcripts to identify, or help identify, historic places on the ground. He will also give tips on determining historic house size when the physical structure is gone.
Ouachita Chapter programs are free and open to the public.
Etchieson grew up in southwest Arkansas and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Anthropology from Memphis State University, now the University of Memphis, in 1973 and an MA in Anthropology from Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Ariz., in 1980. He worked as a project archeologist in the Contract Archeology program at West Texas State University from 1976-1979. He then became a staff archeologist within the Regional Office of the Southwest Region of the Bureau of Reclamation in Amarillo, Texas. He moved back to Arkansas in 1987 as forest archeologist for the Ouachita National Forest and retired as the Heritage Program manager for the ONF. He now serves as Ouachita Chapter vice president as well as president of the Clark County Historical Association.
At the Arkansas Archeological Society’s 2019 annual meeting in Hot Springs in September, Etchieson received the McGimsey Preservation Award, the society’s highest honor, which recognizes outstanding contributions to archeology in Arkansas.
Email OuachitaChapter@gmail.com for more information.