Ghost towns are generally places where it is evident that a town was located at the spot, but in parts of the Arkansas Delta, there are towns that have completely disappeared without a trace. Places like Amanca, Wimef, Wyanoke and Simsboro have disappeared without a trace. Similarly, the Black town of Claybrook, owned by one of the South’s first Black millionaires also seems to have completely vanished. But just across the county line in St. Francis County, a little bit of Chatfield still remains.
I imagined that Chatfield must have once been significant, as there were newspaper articles of arguments and shootings in its cafés. And sure enough, off of Highway 79 and near the right-of-way of the old railroad, now gone, I found a collection of houses and what was clearly a former store. While presumably there might have once been much more to Chatfield, the discovery of the former store was worth the detour off the highway. Of note was an old rusted gas pump out front, and a payphone sign still attached to the front wall.
When i was a teenager in the seventies we would go to the horse show there every weekend people came from several counties we had some fun times there
When I was a girl my family lived there!