Jacksonport State Park preserves the old river town of Jacksonport at the meeting of the White and Black rivers. In the mid-19th century, Jacksonport prospered as a steamboat landing and trading center, and during the Civil War it also held military importance; in 1865, General M. Jeff Thompson surrendered the Confederate Army of Northern Arkansas there to Union forces. The town declined after the railroad bypassed it in the 1870s, and the county seat moved to Newport in 1891. Its 1872 courthouse, once the county seat and later restored, remains the clearest reminder of Jacksonport’s brief prominence and anchors the modern state park.