Petit Jean State Park and Cedar Falls

The mountain takes its name from a French phrase meaning Little John, and a long-told legend explains it. In the story, a young Frenchwoman disguised herself as a boy named Jean to follow her betrothed, a sailor and explorer, on a voyage to the New World, unwilling to be left behind. Working aboard the ship as a cabin boy, she kept her identity hidden throughout the journey.

As the tale goes, the party explored the Arkansas River and camped on this mountain, and there the young woman fell gravely ill. Only then was her identity revealed, and she asked to be buried on the mountain that had come to feel like home. Her grave is said to lie near the mountain's eastern point, and the highland has carried her adopted name ever since. Like many such legends its historical truth is uncertain, but it has given the place its identity for generations.

The park's crown jewel is Cedar Falls, where Cedar Creek pours 95 feet off a sandstone ledge into a deep, shaded canyon strewn with massive boulders. Reaching it means hiking down into the canyon on a trail that descends steeply and then climbs back out, a genuine hike rather than a stroll, but the reward at the bottom is one of the most beautiful waterfall scenes in Arkansas.

The falls run their fullest after rain and spring snowmelt, when the creek surges and the canyon fills with sound and spray. In dry late-summer stretches the flow can thin considerably. The surrounding trails wind past other features too, including rock formations, a natural bridge, and caves, so the mountain rewards a full day of exploring on foot.

Much of Petit Jean as visitors know it was built during the Great Depression by the Civilian Conservation Corps, the federal work program that put young men to labor in parks and forests across the country. Here they cut trails, raised stone bridges, and constructed the buildings using native sandstone and timber, work of such quality that it still stands and still defines the park's look.

Their centerpiece is Mather Lodge, a rustic mountain lodge of stone and heavy timber perched near the canyon rim, named for the first director of the National Park Service. It remains the heart of the park, offering rooms, a dining room, and sweeping views, and it stands as a monument to Depression-era craftsmanship.

Petit Jean sits high above the Arkansas River, and its overlooks give long views across the valley, patchwork farmland, the winding river, and distant ridges. Stout's Point on the mountain's eastern end offers one of the best vantages, looking out over the river far below and, by legend, near the resting place of Petit Jean herself.

The mountain is one of several highlands rising along this reach of the Arkansas River Valley, together with nearby Mount Nebo and Mount Magazine to the west. The Museum of Automobiles, founded on the mountain by an Arkansas governor and collector, sits nearby and makes an easy companion stop to a day in the park.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.