On Monday, May 29, 2023 we left Willow Beach in Scott, Arkansas and drove about 230 miles to the Greenville Campground and Recreation Area in Greenville, Missouri. When she originally booked this stay Cindy wasn’t looking at a calendar and didn’t realize it was Memorial Day. That’s usually a heavy-traffic day that we try to avoid, but we were fortunate that our route was not overly busy or crowded.
We arrived in the afternoon and got set-up. The pad was asphalt and level, which is always nice. Plus as a bonus we had a concrete area as a “deck” of sorts that gave us a lot of room for not only the picnic table but also for our chairs and side table that Cindy likes to use. It didn’t rain during our stay, but if it had the concrete would have been preferable to soggy dirt and grass.
This stop was a very interesting one owing to its location AND its history.
For almost 150 years a small town named Greenville existed and even thrived here on the banks of the St. Francis River. As a frontier town, county seat of Wayne County and later as a lumber and railroad town, the community that grew here was a commercial and political center for the region. Then, in 1941, a flood control project for the St. Francis River known as the Wappapello Dam was completed by the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers. The anticipated rising of the lake level meant that the town of Greenville would be flooded. Town leaders and the community voted to move the town of Greenville to its present site, which is two miles northeast of its original position.
Buildings that housed government services, businesses and residences were moved as well, leaving behind foundations and stone steps. Had the town flooded as expected, there would have been some tantalizing foundational ruins for divers to explore beneath the water. The local cemetery would have been covered as well. Fortunately, the water levels did not rise as much as predicted.
Greenville Campground and Recreational Area was built on the original site of the historical Old Greenville town and is located on the northern end of the Wappapello Lake project, still nestled on the banks of the St. Francis River. As you can see on the accompanying photos, the original streets and layout of the town remain intact and it was a lot of fun to walk around looking at old foundations that indicated where buildings had once stood and their purpose. A courthouse, school, businesses and homes are all listed showing their locations on the town grid. Some places were nothing more than overgrown plots of grass in open fields while others now had RV sites occupying them.
Due to its archeological and historic significance, the old town of Greenville is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is commonly referred to as “Old Greenville”.
On Tuesday we drove 28 miles back south to Poplar Bluff (the closest larger city) to treat ourselves to lunch out, get a new outdoor chair for Cindy, get each of us new windbreakers we found on sale, fueled up Voyager, stopped at Harbor Freight and found the Torx screwdriver I needed for the Ryobi fans (turned out it WASN’T the specific type I needed), got our 4th COVID-19 booster shots and bought groceries for the rest of our 10-day stay here. Whew!
Wednesday we sat around recuperating from our vaccines and watched Superman: The Movie (the best of them all, to me). In anticipation of our next stop, Metropolis, IL and the Annual Superman Celebration, we decided to re-watch (or in CIndy’s case, watch) all the Superman movies.
Thursday we took a nice, long hike around part of the remains of Old Greenville, did our laundry and sat outside watching fireflies from twilight until dark. Sometimes the simplest things can make a day feel so complete.
Friday we spent most of the morning hiking around more of the Old Greenville streets and taking photos of the foundations and signage identifying those areas. In the afternoon we watched more Superman movies.
Saturday morning, while Cindy was sitting outside in her new chair that she really likes because it gives her lower back more support and rocks so that she stretches her hip and back muscles, a lady came by handing out flyers for a place in the nearby relocated town of Greenville for a place called “Frankie-Mart”. Since we had intended to check out the “new” town anyway, we decided after breakfast to drive the less than 3 miles over to see what the town was like and look around the Frankie-mart.
Frankie-mart had just about everything you might need for camping, boating, biking and any other outdoor activity. We walked around the entire store, which was maybe one quarter the size of your typical Walmart Supercenter, but didn’t really find anything we needed. It was fun though. Then we drove around the town, seeing some of the old houses that were moved from Old Greenville in 1941 still standing or in some cases almost standing.
Sunday morning we hiked 2.2 miles on part of the trail around the campground and down by the river. Then it was time for something I had been dreading; fixing Cindy’s recliner. A few months back the pulling mechanism you use to make it recline had come unhooked. I bought the necessary parts to repair it, but kept putting it off because it is NOT a fun job. However Cindy really wanted to recline while in the recliner (I don’t know why, lol) so today was the day to fix it.
Here’s the thing, it’s not just her recliner I have to deal with when working on it. The recliners are join together with a nice drink holder/remote control thing that holds lots of stuff in the middle. I have to unhook both the chairs from the middle thingy, separate them out and then turn hers over to get underneath. While I had them apart and turned over I put her new recliner mechanism in and then tightened everything up on both chairs as a little proactive action. Altogether it only took me about an hour, but afterward my back felt like Andre the Giant had bodyslammed me at least 10 times. I was toast the remainder of that day and into Monday. Getting older sucks!
Monday we hiked 2.6 miles in the morning before it got hot. Cindy got one tick on her leg, but Bella and I escaped unscathed. Bella has a little extra help as she gets flea and tick treatment every month. Maybe Cindy and I should try some since tick season is ramping up and we DO like our hikes.
Tuesday was another hike in the morning, relaxing in the afternoon and then fun in the late afternoon. This was my day to sanitize the fresh water tank and lines. It’s not an especially hard task, just time consuming. But it’s well worth it to avoid any issues. We do it late in the afternoon or early evening so that the solution can sit in the tank and lines overnight, getting everything nice and clean.
Wednesday was another hike in the morning. Then when we got back I flushed the tank and lines twice to make sure all the solution was out and filled the holding tank with 50 gallons of nice, clean water. The timing on doing this whole sanitizing/filling thing was important. It was time, we had full hookups so I could flush the solution water down the sewer, and we weren’t going to have water hook-ups at our next several stops. I wanted to be sure the water we were drinking, brushing our teeth, showering and washing dishes with from our holding tank was clean and healthy. Mission accomplished.
Next up, a stop I’ve been looking forward to for a long time. It’s the Superman Celebration in Metropolis, IL!
Thanks for following the Wandering Wetheringtons.
I love the tree faces!!
They ARE pretty cool, aren’t they?