Drennen-Scott House Museum

The Drennen-Scott House is a pre-Civil War Greek Revival house that survives in good condition on North 3rd Street, a few blocks from the Main Street commercial district. The house dates from the 1850s and is furnished with period pieces that reflect the appearance of a prosperous Arkansas River town household of the era. Guided tours cover the history of the building and the families who lived in it.

The museum is operated by the Crawford County Historical Society and is open on limited days — check hours before visiting. The house is the best surviving example of antebellum domestic architecture in Van Buren and gives a concrete sense of the town's position as an important commercial and administrative centre before the Civil War.

things to do museum sight
A story
John Drennen was a major figure in the administration of Indian Territory in the 1840s, serving as US superintendent of Indian Affairs for western Arkansas. His house was a centre of political life on the Arkansas frontier; his papers, now in the museum collection, provide a detailed picture of federal Indian policy at the height of the removal era. The house passed to the Scott family in the 1870s and remained in private hands until the 1990s.