Historic Washington State Park preserves the original 1824 town of Washington in southwestern Arkansas along the old Southwest Trail, where it grew from a pioneer settlement into a major market town and county seat. In the 1820s and 1830s it served travelers bound for Texas, including William B. Travis, Sam Houston, and Davy Crockett. After the fall of Little Rock during the Civil War, Washington became the Confederate capital of Arkansas from 1863 to 1865 and was linked to the Camden Expedition. Today its preserved buildings, archives, and extensive archaeological finds make it one of Arkansas’s most important sites for studying and interpreting 19th-century small-town life.