Stout's Point: Your Legacy

Stout's Point: Your Legacy. . , William Cummings Stout , (1824-1886), In 1849, William Cummings Stout was the first Arkansan ordained as a priest of the Episcopal Church. , In 1855, he and his wife purchased 5000 acres spanning both sides of the Arkansas River beginning at the east end of Petit Jean Mountain. Stout built Hawkstone Plantation on the river's south bank using slave labor. The plantation was ruined during the Civil War by Union forces who camped there. After the war the Stouts turned Hawkstone into a busy river port. , Stout's Point, a rugged peak on the easternmost tip of Petit Jean Mountain, has withstood the ages, seen characters of Arkansas's history pass, and remains one of the most picturesque features of Petit Jean State Park., Known since the 1850s as Stout's Point, this area was once called Nelson Point. Daniel Nelson, a Hawkstone Plantation foreman and apple orchard farmer, built a large home here in the early 1890s. He received a homestead patent for this land in 1897., In 1920, the point was acquired by a Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) camp. The Episcopal Diocese of Arkansas bought the YMCA camp in 1946 and renamed it Camp Mitchell, in honor of Bishop R. Bland Mitchell., Today, the name Stout's Point is most often used. This area is managed by Arkansas State Parks through a long-term agreement with the Episcopal Diocese of Arkansas and is a popular part of Petit Jean State Park. , Photo caption: 1920s postcard of the Arkansas River from Nelson Point, courtesy of the Pearl Newkirk Jones Collection. , At the south east end I found the ascent very steep, and which, like most considerable chains, was at this extremity the highest and most precipitous. From the summit a vast wilderness presented itself covered with trees, and chequered with ranges of mountains, which appeared to augment and converge towards the north west. Thomas Nuttall, English Naturalist, journal entry, April 4, 1819