From Cotton Fields to Battlefields

Carden Bottoms was a community at the west base of Petit Jean Mountain and east of Holla Bend, near the Arkansas River.

Now the foundation of the once popular school is the only evidence to be found that it ever existed. The structure and its gym no longer mark the community as a proud structure. The gym collapsed and the school building was destroyed by an arsonist.

What used to be a bustling little community is now full of ghosts and memories, with some of those memories being mine? My family and I were born and grew up in Carden Bottoms. We attended school in the structure that was once an active school, alive with students, teachers, and the home of the Carden Bottoms Boll Weevils.

I remember the first time I entered the school as a young student, walking up to the school's massive double doors, looking down the hall at the classrooms full of kids.

The structure stood abandoned and vacant for many years after the students got moved to Dardanelle. Now only the foundation remains. The fire cured bricks and the scorched earth that was once the school's crawlspace. An arsonist destroyed the landmark of the community, which served Carden Bottoms for many decades.

Now the ghosts, stories, and memories lay in the ashes and the bricks of the foundation.

The last time I visited the Carden Bottoms School, the structure was intact and waiting for the children that once filled the halls with laughter, happiness, and smiles. But now the halls and structure were the victims of fire, along with the ghost and memorabilia once present in the old school. However, the memories remain in the minds of the individuals who began their education at this Carden Bottoms School.

On that last visit, the school looked as if people had just vanished and dropped things where they were working. Papers litter the floors, and pieces of furniture sit torn. So, it seems appropriate to begin the story of my life, my military adventures, and my post-military adventures at the place my life began in Carden Bottoms, Arkansas, the place of my birth.