The small clearing in front of you used to be the small hamlet of Leetown, likely founded in the 1830s by John W. Lee.

This small village housed a school, a blacksmith shop, a Masonic lodge, a church, a tannery and two stores. During the Battle of Pea Ridge, Federal surgeons used many of the Leetown buildings as field hospitals. The destruction and havoc caused by the Federals use of the town as a hospital center caused some families to leave the village permanently. It would not be until two weeks after the battle that the rest of the Leetown families were restored to their homes.

Some argue that the hamlet may have been burned down during the war, but most likely the buildings were just gradually taken down as more and more families decided to move to areas of greater possibilities, especially after the railroad made its way out to Arkansas in the 1880s.

The only physical evidence now remaining of this community is the gravestone of a two-year-old boy named Robert Braden that can be found along the trail east of the Leetown site.