Bayou Meto in Arkansas County, Arkansas — The American South (West South Central)
Bayou Meto Schoolhouse
Photographed by Ashley Sides, July 25, 2021
1. Bayou Meto Schoolhouse Marker
Front of marker
Listed in the Arkansas Register of Historic Places in 2003, the Bayou Meto Schoolhouse is one of the last remaining historic school buildings in the area. The first Bayou Meto school was established in 1875, within the Pampas School District. It was held in a log corncrib before moving to a private home and then to the Mount Zion Methodist Episcopal Church once located in a corner of the Bayou Meto Cemetery. In 1915, a separate one-room school was built less than a mile south of Bayou Meto. The Flood of 1927 forced the community to relocate the school to higher ground.
O.C. and John Etta Smith Lumsden donated one acre of land for this purpose and the one-room schoolhouse was moved to the present site. The Bayou Meto School District #26, created that year, served local white children in grades 1-8. In 1932, the one-room structure was replaced with the current two-room building. Between 1948 and 1960, the district slowly consolidated with DeWitt; with the structure no longer used as a school, the property returned to the Lumsden family. In 2001, the building was converted to The Schoolhouse Lodge.
Erected 2021 by Grand Prairie Historical Society. (Marker Number 17.)
Topics and series. This historical marker is listed in these topic lists: Disasters
this page online
Location. 34° 13.368′ N, 91° 30.692′ W. Marker is in Bayou Meto, Arkansas, in Arkansas County. It is on State Highway 276 just east of Lumsden Road, on the left when traveling east. Pull into the Schoolhouse Lodge parking lot to safely view the marker. Touch for map. Marker is at or near this postal address: 1178 Hwy 276, Stuttgart AR 72160, United States of America. Touch for directions.
Regionally, this marker is in the Arkansas Delta, in the Mississippi Alluvial Plain, and in the Quapaw Homeland. It is also in the American South, specifically in the Upper South, and in the Mississippi Delta. Globally, it is in North America, the Western Hemisphere, the Western World, and the Anglosphere. Historically, it finds itself in what was once the Viceroyalty of New France, the territory of the Mississippian Culture, the Louisiana Purchase, one of the Confederate States of America, and the Antebellum South.
Other nearby markers. At least 8 other markers are within 17 miles of this marker, measured as the crow flies: Bayou Meto Cemetery (approx. 0.4 miles away); Bayou Meto United Methodist Church (approx. 0.4 miles away); South Bend Plantation (approx. 11.9 miles away); A.M. Bohnert Rice Plantation Pump No. 2 Engine (approx. 14.7 miles away); Battle of Arkansas Post (approx. 15.3 miles away); Arkansas Post (approx. 15.4 miles away); Immanuel High School (approx. 16.4 miles away); 38,000 Reasons to Fight (approx. 16.8 miles away). Touch for a list and map of all markers in Bayou Meto.
Photographed by Ashley Sides, July 25, 2021
2. Bayou Meto Schoolhouse Marker
Back side of marker
Photographed by Ashley Sides, July 25, 2021
3. Bayou Meto Schoolhouse Marker at the Schoolhouse Lodge
Credits. This page was last revised on July 27, 2021. It was originally submitted on July 26, 2021, by Ashley Sides of Little Rock, Arkansas. This page has been viewed 481 times since then and 25 times this year. Photos: 1. submitted on July 26, 2021, by Ashley Sides of Little Rock, Arkansas. 2, 3. submitted on July 27, 2021, by Ashley Sides of Little Rock, Arkansas. • Devry Becker Jones was the editor who published this page.
