In all of Arkansas, there must be a hundred pioneer museums,each one pretty much like the next, each with similar collections of artifacts. Even so, most of those museums will have one exhibit that will raise the eyebrows. The Arkansas Post County museum has this. It's that little white building next to the pioneer cabin and it's a playhouse, hand-built in 1933 for a little girl named Harriet Jane Carnes by her loving mom and dad. Her dad, incidentally, was state rep Grover Carnes. This pre-war playhouse goes on my list of Arkansas Wonders.

Not impressed? Okay, how about this... It's about twelve feet square, has three rooms completely furnished to scale for a ten-year-old girl, including baby furniture scaled for her dolls, a screened-in porch with swing, electric lights, a wood-burning fireplace with a brick chimney, detail work like metal gutters and rainspouts, and a front portico supported by columns.

And the more observant reader will notice just off the back porch to the right of the house under the utility pole, a gallows. Yes, it really is a reconstruction of a gallows, another museum exhibit. It's not intended to be connected with the playhouse, but it's so close you just about can't help but get them both in the same snapshot.

RTJ--10/21/97

In the neighborhood: Arkansas Post National Monument