Things to Do in Hope, Arkansas

Things to Do in Hope, Arkansas

People call the chamber every week to ask what to do in Hope, AR. The honest answer surprises them. Two museums here trace one president’s childhood. A loudspeaker pioneer earned a third museum of his own. The biggest watermelons on record grew in the fields outside town, and the town that served as Arkansas’s Confederate capital is fifteen minutes up the road.

Most people who visit Hope, Arkansas arrive off Interstate 30. A few step down from the Texas Eagle instead; Amtrak still stops at the old depot downtown, and the city’s visitor center and museum share the building. The best things to do in Hope, Arkansas begin within four blocks of the tracks.

Begin on Hervey Street

We send first-time visitors straight to 117 South Hervey Street. Bill Clinton lived his first four years in the white foursquare there, in his grandparents’ care; a memorial garden out back honors his mother. A ranger will walk you through in 25 minutes or so, free. The house only joined the National Park System in 2011. A local foundation looked after it for the years before. The birth itself happened at Julia Chester Hospital in 1946; that building is long gone, and a marker on South Main stands in for it.

Downtown at the depot, the exhibits amount to a Clinton museum and a railroad museum in one building. The depot itself appeared in “The Man from Hope,” the film that introduced him at the 1992 convention. The state later built a road trip around him. Hope stamps the first page of the Billgrimage passport; the trail continues through Hot Springs and Little Rock and ends in Fayetteville.

A museum you can hear

The Army sent Paul Klipsch here during the Second World War, to the Southwestern Proving Ground. The war ended; Klipsch never went home. His Klipschorn hit the market in 1946. Bill Clinton was born across town that same year. Of the two, only the Klipschorn is still in production. A museum grew out of all this, the Klipsch Museum of Audio History. Its downtown visitor center doubles as a listening room; ask, and somebody will put a record through the big horns. Tours of the full collection go by appointment, and the center posts short weekday hours, so check ahead.

Old Washington

Washington predates Hope by fifty years. The Southwest Trail reached it in the 1820s, and anyone with a wagon and Texas plans came through on that road. Sam Houston stopped here. So did Davy Crockett. The blacksmith shop claims the first Bowie knife, and the legend has held up for close to two hundred years. Little Rock fell to the Union in 1863, so the state’s Confederate government moved down here and stayed through the surrender. The 1836 courthouse it used still faces the square.

Arkansas made the whole town a state park in 1973. Historic Washington State Park now opens more than a dozen original buildings for tours, a weapons museum among them. Costumed interpreters do the talking. Williams Tavern cooks lunch on the grounds, and surrey rides cross the town site. The park closes on Mondays, and the third weekend of March belongs to the Jonquil Festival. Thousands of the flowers bloom across the empty town lots, a tradition older than the park itself.

Millwood Lake and the outdoors

Millwood Lake never looked like other reservoirs. The Corps dammed the Little River in 1966. Nobody cleared the timber first. What flooded stayed flooded, all 29,000 acres of it; marked lanes guide boats around the stumps. Bass keep to the trunks in shallow water; a jon boat reaches most of it.

  • Fishing. The Game and Fish Commission stocks Florida-strain bass here, and recent tournament seasons back the investment. Crappie and catfish feed everyone else. Eleven Corps recreation areas give bank access to anyone without a boat.
  • Birding. Audubon put the lake on its Important Bird Area list, and the local count passed 300 species some time ago; the whole state has only ever seen about 400.
  • Boats and camping. The state park marina will rent you a fishing boat or a kayak; bait and gas too. The campground behind it holds 45 sites.
  • Getting there. Count on forty minutes from Hope, west through Saratoga.

Family activities in town center on Fair Park and Northside Park; the city maintains both, and neither charges admission.

Day trips and timing

One day covers the Hope, AR attractions in town; the county takes a weekend. Antique shops and restaurants fill the blocks around the depot, so nothing downtown requires a car. Hempstead Hall, the theater out on the college campus, books touring acts through the year. Hempstead County attractions split the rest of the time: Old Washington needs half a day, and Millwood deserves a full one.

Hope, Arkansas tourism peaks twice. The Watermelon Festival takes over the fairgrounds each August and carries an Arkansas Food Hall of Fame listing. Jonquil weekend follows every March at Old Washington. Texarkana is thirty-five minutes away; Little Rock, just under two hours. One motel room in Hope serves the whole southwest Arkansas circuit. Festival dates and park hours drift year to year, so check with us first: (870) 777-3640.