Park license plates

The 52 state parks of Arkansas comprise one of the finest systems of parks and museums in the nation. Display your pride in this park system that you own as a citizen of this great state, and help provide college scholarships for the next generation of park professionals, by purchasing a specialty license plate featuring Arkansas State Parks. The new license plate just premiered and is available for Arkansans to purchase at the Office of Motor Vehicles.

According to State Parks Director Greg Butts, “This is the first in what will be a series of specialty license plates depicting settings and experiences that can be enjoyed in Arkansas’s state parks.” He noted that this initial license plate features a twilight outdoor scene by historic Mather Lodge at Petit Jean State Park, the native log and stone lodge built in the 1930s when the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) constructed Arkansas’s first state park. Each plate includes the two-letter prefix “PK” that is the designation for a park on a topographical map.

Butts noted that depicting a scene from Arkansas’s first state park and including a CCC-built work seemed the right—the natural—choice for this first Arkansas State Parks license plate. In 1923, the area around Cedar Falls on Petit Jean Mountain was acquired by the state as the first land for state park purposes. However, the actual development of Arkansas's state park system began in 1933 with the Great Depression-era work projects of the CCC, the civilian “Tree Army” of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. CCC camps were established at Arkansas's first six state parks. The CCC/Rustic-style facilities constructed at these parks formed the backbone for all future development within Arkansas’s state park system. Here in Arkansas, as in states across the U.S., the significant public works projects of the CCC endure as a legacy to their craftsmanship and conservation achievements.

Butts emphasized, “Arkansas’s state parks are about making special memories in special places. We hope the new Arkansas State Parks license plate will bring memories made in the state parks back to mind, and encourage you to visit these state natural and historic treasures and make new ones.”

The Arkansas State Parks specialty license plate is available from the Office of Motor Vehicles, Special License Unit, of the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration (ADF&A). Butts noted that proceeds from the sale of the plates will support scholarships to college students in conservation, recreation, and park management programs. The plates cost $35 each, with $25 going towards the scholarship fund and $10 for administration fees to the ADF&A. Details about the Arkansas State Parks specialty license plate and a listing of the Revenue Special License Offices around Arkansas where the plate can be purchased are featured on the ADF&A website at: Specialty Plates.