Historic Washington State Park — Attraction in Washington

My husband, Audie Waterson, said he wanted to "hide" this holiday season. When I asked him what he had in mind, of course he had no idea. SO... I went to work finding a place to hide, and found the perfect place: Old Washington Historic Park, now known as Historic Washington State Park. I made the reservations, then told Audie Waterson what I had done. I don't think he was too keen on the idea, but that changed quickly.

I made reservations for 3 nights in the Jailhouse Bed and Breakfast, the old county jail which had been modernized and turned into a B&B. The first night, there was only one other person staying there. We met her the next morning and discovered she was a history buff visiting from Oregon. The next two nights, we were the only ones in the jail. Except for the ghost, of course, but he/she didn't bother us. Breakfast each morning was absolutely wonderful.

We did the carriage ride the first afternoon then booked guided tours for the next two days. We were the ONLY people to take these tours because it was the slow season. Ashley helped us plan our visit. Our guides, Michael on Wednesday and Sheila on Thursday, personalized these tours and let us take as much time as we wanted and ask as many questions as we wanted at each house and exhibit (Audie had many more than I). We were able to go into each and every building, home, and business in the park, except the Presbyterian Church because the key wouldn't work. We are going back to see the Church.

I've lived in Arkansas my entire life, but I learned more about my state in the past three days than I ever knew was possible. I printed a page on an ancient printing press, watched a blacksmith fabricate dinner bells and ornaments, and toured a home where Albert Pike himself had been a guest many, many times. There was even a bust of Albert Pike in the 1836 Courthouse on the second floor. WOW! Just WOW!

We left Washington this morning and drove to Millwood State Park (never heard of that park until we saw the sign) and we were amazed at the size of the lake -- 29,000+ acres! -- then drove to the Crater of Diamonds State Park. I'd never been there before, either. We didn't dig, but we picked up souvenirs and decided we needed to return, and SOON.

This place needs to be on every Arkansan's bucket list. Take plenty of time so you can see everything Washington has to offer, or you'll just have to return. We completed this entire adventure on a single tank of gas, and we took a...

We stopped by on our way back home to Louisiana. The place was busy with a bunch of people setting up for a festival that was to take place the next day. It is a beautiful place with a ton of historical buildings, however no one told us any information about the place and we ran into many people who worked there. The courthouse was beautiful, we were able to tour on our own without a ticket. Everything else you have to have a ticket to go in and look, which we did not know until we got there, that was disappointing! (Nothing on website states this) Also we had lunch at the restaurant at the park, the waitress was awkward and seemed to not know much about her job or how to do it, we were also told "cash only" after we already ordered our food. My husband had to leave the restaurant to try to find an ATM, an employee told him the gift shop had one, he walked to it just to be told they never had an ATM in there ever! By that time the food was served to our table, he mentioned to the check out lady that there was no ATM in the gift shop, that he will have to leave the park and go to town 10 minutes or so away and find an ATM to be able to pay for our meal. We didn't have any cash which is what caused this whole debacle! The checkout lady seemed to get upset about it, then they start plugging up equipment to be able to take card payments! 🙄 The food was GREAT, the service not so much!! Anyways after all that, I would never go back to visit this park, but the stamp is in my State passport book so I'm good to go. By the way they do the stamps in the Gift Shop which is located in the courthouse. The lady in the gift shop was extremely nice, the only reason there is not...

We didn't have much time to spend here, and now I KNOW we have to come back! This is definitely a park to spend the entire day at. We weren't able to take advantage of the carriage ride nor the tour guide, but for the prices, we will definitely do these next visit! Because we didn't do the tour guides, we were only able to view the buildings from the outside, and I will say without a guide, I KNOW we missed several of the buildings. We were able to walk around inside the new courthouse which is now the gift store/museum. There was so much to see inside and read about! We started here and tried to follow the map we received inside. We drove by several of the places which my pictures are too blurry to post. The ones were stopped at, I'll include pictures below. The largest magnolia tree you'll ever see is here, and it was beyond words! It felt like you were walking into a secret garden entrance, I totally could've had a picnic lunch here! The blacksmith shop is where the bowie knife was first made. The guy in there was incredible to visit with and we enjoyed his demonstrations! The school and some of the other buildings were nice to see. We seen the "moon" tree and a couple other historic trees in the area! Everything is rather easy to get to once you know where you are going. We'd like to see the candle shop, print shop, and fire dept for sure next visit. We're looking into staying at the Jailhouse BnB and enjoying a meal...