What could be more exciting than stumbling upon the remains of a Zachary Taylor historic site? A lot of things.
| President | Zachary Taylor |
| Location | Fort Smith, AR |
| Operated By | National Parks Service (Fort Smith National Historic Site) |
| When Visited | August 3, 2018 |
| Who With | Solo visit |
| Presidential Significance | Zachary Taylor commanded troops at Fort Smith for a few years. During this time, he lived in a nearby house where only the chimney remains. |
| Pre-Visit Reading | None…this was an unplanned visit with no prep. |
| Websites | Fort Smith National Historic Site: https://www.nps.gov/fosm Zachary Taylor Chimney: https://www.fortsmith.org/zachary-taylor-chimney/ |
This post is going to be a two-fer, covering two sites related to Zachary Taylor. This is because 1) the sites are close together, 2) I visited them back-to-back 3) the sites are related, and 4) I’m honestly not sure I could find enough presidential content from either one to fill a blog post.
My visit to Fort Smith, Arkansas, was entirely spontaneous. I was on Day nine of a ten-day road trip planned around visiting sites related to half a dozen presidents. Zachary Taylor was not one of them.
That day, I was driving from Tulsa, OK, to Hot Springs, AR, and as I approached the state line, I started seeing signs for the Fort Smith National Historic Site. I really didn’t know anything about Fort Smith, but my schedule was flexible, so I figured “why not?” It was a chance to take a break, stretch my legs, maybe learn a little something. Plus, the day before was the day my National Parks Annual Pass had officially covered enough fees to pay for itself, so I was really jonesing to use it again to take things over the top (yes, that was something I was legitimately excited about).
When I stopped at Fort Smith National Historic Site, I didn’t know it was associated with Zachary Taylor. I just knew it was an NHS site with a fort. I moseyed into the visitor’s center in the main building and announced a park ranger that I was passing through, knew nothing about the fort, and had about an hour. I asked him to tell me what was significant about the fort and how best to spend my time. Without missing a beat, he gave me a high-level recap of the fort’s history and what there was to see and what things to focus on if I was short on time. He said the museum (which filled the rest of the main fort building) was good, but I might not want to pay the $10 admission if I could only stay a few minutes. Au contraire. “Oh!” he said a I brandished my park pass, “You have a pass! In that case you get in for free!” Damn right I do.
I won’t go into all the details about Fort Smith, but to summarize it was one of those forts that was around for a long time, was used for a variety of purposes. The main fort, built starting in 1838, was actually the second Fort Smith, replacing the first fort which was built in 1817 and abandoned in 1824. For a while, it served as a jail, which accounted for some of the more eye-catching exhibits in the museum. Besides the main building (shown in the picture at the top of this post), there was a small outbuilding, a reconstruction of the gallows, and, a short walk away, the remnants of the smaller, original fort, overlooking the Arkansas River.
As I was making my way through the museum, I wondered whether the fort had any presidential associations. I was not disappointed (OK, I kinda was a little). Eventually I came to a display that had a whole entire paragraph about the three years (1841-1844) when Taylor commanded the military troops there. At the time he arrived, the second fort was being constructed. From my research, it appears that Taylor’s main accomplishment during his tenure was pissing off the locals by arguing that construction of the new Fort Smith was too expensive and should be halted, and that another popular fort nearby should be closed. He didn’t exactly seem like the hero of Fort Smith, so it makes sense that his inclusion in the museum was essentially just as a footnote.
While walking the grounds, I took out my phone and Googled “Zachary Taylor Fort Smith” and saw a page about Zachary Taylor Chimney, which is literally just the chimney of the house he lived in while the served at Fort Smith. It was less than a mile away, so again I figured “why not?” After I was done with Fort Smith, I headed to the chimney, which was located in the parking lot of Immaculate Conception Church.
I was hoping the parking lot would be along side the road, and I could just pull over for a minute, but after circling the church property, it was clear that all the buildings lined the roads and the parking lot was in the middle, like a courtyard. I pulled in between two buildings, and saw a hearse and cars lined in a way suggesting that a funeral was underway inside. I was glad I didn’t encounter the mourners. I spotted the chimney and parked. Nearby, there were construction guys working on on of the buildings. Because of this, I felt little embarrassed to get out my car, but then I decided I didn’t care what they thought. I mean, I’m sure I wasn’t the first person that day to stop and take pictures of a crumbling chimney that used to be attached to a house that Zachary Taylor lived in for a short time. OK, never mind. I probably was.
The chimney was…a chimney (the house itself burned down in 1875). On the edge of the parking lot was a historic marker, and then the chimney itself sat in a small landscaped area a few feet away from a statue honoring the Virgin Mary. And..that was about it. I continued on my planned route deeper into Arkansas, and caught some Bill Clinton sites the next day before heading home.
