“Where you headed today?” a friend asked me one recent Saturday morning.

“Arkansas City,” I replied.

Then he asked, “Where’s that?”

The obvious answer, of course, was “Arkansas,” though that doesn’t necessarily hold true — Virginia City is in Montana and Kansas City, at least one of them, is in Missouri.

But this one is in Arkansas, upriver on the west bank of the Mississippi above Greenville. It’s the seat of government for Desha County — but the 589 people who live there hardly qualify it as city status.

I’d heard the late Marion Bragg, journalist, historian and lover of all things connected to the Mississippi River, talk about the town, so for years I figured that someday I’d pay it a visit and made a mental note to check it out.

And that day came recently. I don’t know why I waited so long.

Had it been longer, it wouldn’t have mattered — especially with high gasoline prices. Every time I traveled up Highway 65, through McGehee, the largest town in the county, and on to Dumas, which is second biggest — and also home of a grand Catfish Kitchen restaurant, as well as being the home of the “Ding Dong Daddy” of 1920s musical fame — I would see the signs pointing to Highway 4, a poorly paved road with a stripe down the middle that strikes out for about a dozen miles to Arkansas City.

The town looks old, but it isn’t, as far as river settlements go. It wasn’t established until the 1870s and became the county seat in 1874. Before then the seat of government was Napoleon, but the river ate away its foundations, the waters rushing over the town on their way to the Gulf, and it is said when a passenger once asked Mark Twain where Napoleon was, the famed steamboat pilot replied, “You’re passing over it right now.”

The only other river town in the county, and river commerce was vital in the 1800s, was Eunice. Its importance was that it was the terminal for a railroad which brought goods to the river for shipment.

In the 1870s, however, Eunice no longer existed, the victim of enemy ships and fire, literally, in June 1863. A Yankee ship, the Marmora, was fired on by some Confederates and the northerners replied by lobbing a few shells into the town. The next morning the USS Nebraska was also fired upon, so it and the Marmora shelled Eunice, then sent a party ashore which set fire to homes, stores and the railroad depot, and the commander of the Marmora reported, “Not a single vestige of the town remains.” Neither side lost a man. The only casualty was Eunice.

So what to do? Select a site and build a new town, but the place chosen was an unfortunate one as it was subject to flooding. A levee crevasse in 1903 badly damaged the town, and in 1927, with floodwaters over 10 feet deep, the 2,000 residents had to be rescued from roofs and the second floors of buildings.

You would think the mainline levee system constructed following the great floods would have protected it, but as Marion Bragg wrote, “The river had some new dirty tricks in store for it.” Choctaw Island began to grow — and it attached itself to the west bank of the river, which would have been the Arkansas City landing.

Today there’s only one store in Arkansas City. It’s a concrete block convenience-type structure. A few blocks away several two-story buildings, reminiscent of the old general mercantile businesses, line one side of the street, their porches extending over the sidewalk. They appear to have been vacant a long, long time.

There used to be an old opera house in town, but some friends at Paul Michael’s in Lake Village told me it had been moved, claimed by another city that is into restoration and preservation. I heard there were plans for a museum, and I wondered if it had been slated for a fine, small brick structure, vacant, but used to store some steamboat parts and memorabilia. I could see through the window that any such plans were obviously scuttled, or on hold.

As I was there on a Saturday the courthouse was closed, and I saw only one local resident, a man sitting on his front porch. He waved. A friendly town, I thought.

There’s a library, and there are a few churches. One, St. John’s M.B., had a rather clever sign out front: “Be an organ donor — Give your heart to Jesus.” St. Clement’s Episcopal, its red door standing out in the surrounding drabness, seemed to be seldom used, but the grass had been recently cut. Even though a sign said, “Welcome,” I doubted its sincerity because of the red wasps who made up an honor guard.

Not far away was the remnant of a fire engine. There wasn’t enough for restoration of the ancient machine. I couldn’t find a maker’s name on it, but a right-hand steering wheel indicated British origin. Fortunately the town has a modern fire department. I noticed the wheels on the old machine were wooden — not very resistant to a fire.

There are a few nice homes in Arkansas City, but for the most part the town obviously saw its better days long ago. Yet there is a certain charm. For instance, some of the streets are named for steamboats — the Robert E. Lee and the Natchez, the Capitol and the Sprague and the Kate Adams.

I speculated there is probably an advantage to having the seat of government so far removed from the mainstream. Only citizens with real problems or gripes are likely to visit the courthouse and interrupt the functions of local government.

Surely, no one would just drop in. They’d have to strike out with real grievances or ideas and cold determination.

I picked up a brochure at the state welcome center, and the very knowledgeable and polite attendant looked a bit quizzical when I said I wanted to go to Arkansas City. The leaflet had a picture of the town’s graveyard, said it was old and historic, but I never could find it.

A visit to the graveyard would have been a significant conclusion to my trip, for Arkansas City is one dead town!

Now I can strike it off my bucket list.

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Gordon Cotton is an author and historian who lives in Vicksburg.