Central Delta Depot Museum

The Central Delta Depot Museum in Brinkley (Monroe County) is an initiative of the Central Delta Historical Society, which was organized in the 1990s to preserve the history and heritage of the central Delta area. The museum’s scope covers all of Monroe and parts of Woodruff, St. Francis, Prairie, Lee, Phillips, and Arkansas counties. he Central Delta Depot Museum is a museum of general history, with an emphasis on the stories of the Rock Island and Cotton Belt rail lines that crossed at Brinkley. The museum gets some support from the city of Brinkley but otherwise depends on admission charges, donations, fundraisers, and grants to finance its operation. On the museum grounds is the approximately 100-year-old frame depot that at one time was located at Monroe (Monroe County) on the Missouri Pacific rail line that connected Brinkley to Helena (Phillips County). Still another rail line, the White and Black River Railroad (owned in later years by Rock Island), provided service from Brinkley to Jacksonport (Jackson County). Other features of the museum are the furnished tenant farm house and the Southern Pacific caboose built in the 1980s, one of seventy-five ordered by the company, the last purchase they made of that car. The museum also features photographs and exhibits on Brinkley native and blues musician Louis Jordan, as well as a collection of his early 78 r.p.m. records. The museum serves as the visitors’ center for the Louisiana Purchase Historic State Park, located just off Highway 49, about twenty miles south of Brinkley. The Choo Choo Ch’Boogie Delta Music Festival is held on the grounds of the museum each spring.