Oct 22 - Drive from Oklahoma City to Arkansas - Sequoyah's cabin

We left Oklahoma City and headed toward Russellville, Arkansas, where we had reservations for the night. We had slept late after watching the Phillies win the league championship. This was to be a gloomy day – a driving day. There was no sunshine and it was supposed to rain all day. Really didn’t expect much. We stopped at a truck stop to get gas and James spotted “Elvis and his girl friend sitting in a red 50’s Mercury.” He couldn’t resist taking a picture. Before we got to the Arkansas line there was a historic sign about Sequoyah’s cabin. We took a 12 mile country road drive and it was WORTH it! The park is maintained by the Oklahoma Historical Society. The visitor’s center is in a one room log cabin and we thought that was Sequoyah’s cabin. NO. The original cabin, built by Sequoyah’s hand, is INSIDE a rock building. The WPA (Works Project Administration) built the rock building AROUND the cabin in the immediate years following the depression. This was a “government make-work” program that has preserved a very important part of history and helped put food on the table for men that wanted to work at a time when jobs were not available. The cabin has some of the original items used by Sequoyah, including a spinning wheel. Outside there is a huge black pot used to make salt. Salt was very valuable in the 1800s since it was used as a seasoning, in food preservation, and in leather tanning. Salt was obtained by boiling water from salt springs in this huge pot and as the water evaporated the salt was ladled out of the kettle. When Sequoyah was removed from Arkansas to this farm in Oklahoma, in exchange for salt works he owned in Arkansas, he was given a salt spring near the site of his cabin that he operated until his death in the early 1840s. Sequoyah was the Indian that developed the Cherokee alphabet. As we were leaving, James found Sequoyah’s statue where he was contemplating the letters to use to describe a bird. James wanted to help him but Sequoyah just didn’t listen. As we rode through the little town of Sallisaw, Oklahoma, on the way back to the interstate we saw log cabins representing the general store and depot. We also saw the “final filling station.” This was not the real thing but we had seen plenty of those REAL “last gas stations” in the Dakotas and Montana. As we crossed the state line into Arkansas at Fort Smith I really wanted a STARBUCKS. We drove about 7 miles out of the way in order to get to a Starbucks and we were so lucky. We went through the historical part of Fort Smith. We got several neat pictures, including one of a trolley. James talked to the trolley driver for several minutes and learned that the city has bought the “West End” facilities and plans to reopen them next spring. At the Arkansas visitor’s center we got some good information about things in Little Rock and we got some great pictures of fall color. Although there was not sunshine today, we were “behind” the rain. Everywhere we went we could tell it had been raining but we didn’t have to drive in any rain. A really good day that we thought would be a “gloomy, driving day.”