Beginning in the 1920’s and ending in the early 1950’s, three dams were built on the Garland County section of the Ouachita River. These dams, initially proposed for flood control and power generation, created three lakes that have for over 50 years drawn tourists to the area around Hot Springs, Arkansas. However, the creation of these three lakes displaced many farming families from the rich bottomlands that they had occupied since well before the Civil War. Among these displaced families were my mother’s parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. They all lived near the town of Buckville, which, along with other communities such as Cedar Glades and White Plains, now lies under Lake Ouachita, the last and largest of the three bodies of water.

Lake Ouachita is enveloped by the wild and beautiful Ouachita National Forest. It is the only of the three lakes to have little commercial or residential development surrounding it. Instead, its shores and waters have been reserved for campers, hikers, fishers, water skiers, and other outdoors enthusiasts; there are few structures near the lake besides those that service these visitors. However, one small white building on the northern shore does not belong to this category. This is the Buckville Baptist Church, the only remaining structure from those communities that were covered over by the flooded river. The church was moved to higher ground during the summer of 1951. And though the church membership itself had been dissolved, a cemetery association was formed to maintain the building and graves and to hold a yearly reunion of the former area residents on the church grounds. This event is Homecoming.

What is the meaning of Homecoming? It is a gathering together of a disbanded township, a time for distant cousins and old neighbors to catch each other up on their far-flung lives. It is a huge communal picnic with almost-ritualized food and table placements. It is gospel music, plastic flowers, and Deep Woods OFF!. It is also a time of remembrance and memorial, as we decorate the graves of ancestors and listen to the reading of the ever-longer list of those who will join us no longer.  Many of the people who actually lived in the communities under the lake have passed away, and fewer of them are with us every summer. What does it mean for those who are left, as well as their descendants who never inhabited this place, to make the trip every year to commemorate what no longer exists in the only remnant of it? How is place created and recreated on this now-sacred ground?

I hope to investigate these questions through an examination of the Buckville Homecoming and its history. I also hope that this website can become another place that memorializes what has been destroyed and what still remains by being available to the entire Buckville community, wherever it may be.