The Best Things to Do in Texarkana

This is the one thing in Texarkana that exists nowhere else. The building went up in 1932 and 1933 straddling the Texas and Arkansas line, which makes it the only federal building in the United States sitting in two states, and the only post office with two ZIP codes for the same front door, 75501 on the Texas half and 71854 on the Arkansas half. Even the stone splits the difference, with a base of pink Texas granite under walls of Arkansas limestone.

Out front, in the median of State Line Avenue, is Photographer's Island, a marked spot with a stand for your phone so you can take the two-states picture without handing your camera to a stranger. Tourism offices on both sides call the courthouse inside the second most photographed federal courthouse in the country after the Supreme Court, which is their claim rather than a countable fact, but the traffic on that median on a Saturday makes the point anyway.

Emile Weil designed it and the Saenger Amusement Company opened it in 1924 as the "Gateway to the Southwest," an Italian Renaissance house for silent films and stage shows. Paramount bought it in 1931, it slid into second run pictures, and it closed in 1977. The City of Texarkana restored it in 1979 and 1980, and H. Ross Perot and his sister Bette covered much of that cost in memory of their parents, which is why the city council put the family name on the building.

It is not a museum piece. The city owns it, the Texarkana Regional Arts and Humanities Council programs and manages it, and it runs a live season of touring music, theatre and dance. It is on the National Register of Historic Places.

The museum lives in the 1879 Offenhauser building, which is the oldest brick structure in Texarkana, so the container is part of the exhibit. Inside, the collection runs from Caddo pottery, tools and jewelry through the founding of the town in 1873 and the railroad, timber and farming years that built it.

The reason to make time for it is the music. Texarkana raised Scott Joplin, and the museum holds one of his pianos along with the local end of the ragtime story. See this before you go look at the mural on Main Street and the mural stops being wall art and starts being a hometown record.

This is the park locals actually use. It covers 145 acres around a spring fed lake, with two fishing piers, playgrounds, picnic ground and the 1.75 mile Phillip McDougal walking and biking trail looping the whole thing. The city keeps it up and charges nothing.

The disc golf is the draw for out of towners. The city describes an 18 hole course, while player directories map more baskets than that across the property, so expect overlapping layouts rather than one tidy round. Either way it is free to play and rarely crowded on a weekday.

Three octagonal wings and one rectangular wing come off a central octagonal stair hall, which gives the house 22 sides and the outline of the club on a playing card. Local lore says James Draughon, a Confederate veteran, lumberman and early Texarkana mayor, paid for it with $10,000 won on a poker hand holding the ace of clubs. Two families lived in it for a century, and the Moores gave it to the Texarkana Museums System in 1985. It is on the National Register and carries a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark marker.

Access is the catch, and it is the reason this sits fifth rather than second. The museums system has been running limited ticketed tours to fund restoration, including a spring 2026 series at 1 p.m., 2 p.m. and 3 p.m. covering the first floor, while it raises an estimated $125,000 or more to replace the electrical system. Older directory listings still advertise Tuesday to Saturday drop in hours, and those are out of date.

This is the rainy day answer, and the only hands on children's museum in the twin cities. The exhibits are science and history built to be touched, including a Tesla coil theater, a dress up area, live animals and a 12 foot sound wall sculpture that kids play rather than look at.

It runs under the Texarkana Museums System, which operates four downtown sites, so a single stop downtown can cover this, the regional history museum and, on the right date, the Ace of Clubs House. Admission is a few dollars and the youngest visitors are free.

The Texarkana Regional Arts and Humanities Council renovated the old federal and later Bowie County courthouse and reopened it as the Regional Arts Center in 1992. Sources date the building to 1909, 1910 and 1911, so treat the year loosely, but the interior is not in dispute. The former courtroom is now a hall under a 26 foot ceiling, with marble and a copper cage elevator still in place.

Admission is free and the schedule is real. The 38th Annual Adult Juried Exhibition ran from July into late August 2026, with a solo show by Anna Zusman and a regional juried exhibit both opening in September. That is a working gallery calendar, not a permanent hang.

Scott Joplin, 1868 to 1917, grew up in Texarkana and won a posthumous Pulitzer in 1976 for his opera Treemonisha. The mural on the south wall at 311 Main St, painted by Debra Moseley-Lord in 1984, puts his face and his work on the block beside the Perot Theatre.

It has been kept up rather than left to fade. C.D. Little and Janette Lantrip restored it in 1998, and Arthur Pletcher restored it again in 2015 in outdoor latex under a UV clear coat, because the wall faces south and takes the worst of the sun.

Bringle Lake is split into a west park and an east park with a boardwalk running between them along the water. The west side opened in 2014 next to the A&M-Texarkana campus with two piers, covered playground equipment, an exercise station, sand volleyball and a pavilion over the lake. The east side is smaller, about eight acres, with a floating fishing pier and ten single pavilions.

The riding is the part that pulls people from out of town. The mountain bike system starts at the east park with a 2.25 mile beginner loop and a 5.25 mile intermediate loop, with a longer advanced loop still being built out, plus a wide wilderness path running roughly two miles from the east park to the waterworks spillway.

This is the big water for Texarkana, a Corps of Engineers reservoir on the Sulphur River that sources place nine to eleven miles southwest of town. It started as the Texarkana Reservoir, with dam construction beginning in 1948 and finishing in 1957, and was later renamed for Wright Patman, the East Texas congressman. Published surface acreage varies a lot between sources depending on whether the figure is normal pool or flood pool, so do not plan around any single number you read.

What is consistent is the recreation. Corps parks ring the lake, Rocky Point has 124 sites with water and electricity including a set with sewer and 50 amp service, Clear Springs offers lakefront and wooded sites, and Atlanta State Park sits on the south shore if you want a state park instead.