Thursday, October 27, 2016

Railroads, Printing Presses, and Calico Rock


My husband and I are on a brief vacation, staying in a cabin near Norfork, Arkansas; the cabin we're renting is a stone's throw from the White River. While the river is streaming, the internet isn't, so we drove to Calico Rock and ate lunch at the Printing Press Cafe & Ice Cream Parlor. The cafe has free internet--when we arrived a big group of bikers was in line to order their lunches. Service was really pretty quick and the food was delicious.

As you might surmise from the name of the cafe, it is located in a building used by the previous newspapers of Calico Rock. This was one of those towns that had been built up for the railroad and declined when the railroad stopped stopping there.


There was a historical museum next door to the cafe filled with displays about the old "Jot 'Em Down" stores, when people bought groceries on credit and the clerk jotted down their purchases; the former school houses; how the Calico Rock High School girls' basketball teams won year after year; the hunting and fishing in the area, etc. The community is trying to maintain its history. We'd highly recommend the Printing Press Cafe and Ice Cream Parlor if you're near Calico Rock, Arkansas.

Photos copyright Mark and Stephanie Mann, 2016.

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