John F Kennedy
- Right now
- Taking bookingsSites offered on 30 of the next 30 nights read 14:48 UTC
- A night
- $22–$28Across the site types the agency prices
- Sites
- 68All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 6 notices
In the agency’s own words
John F. Kennedy Park is located on the Little Red River just downstream of Greers Ferry Dam in the beautiful Ozark Mountains of north-central Arkansas. In his last major appearance before his death, President John F. Kennedy stood on a flag-draped platform overlooking the just-completed Greers Ferry Dam and spoke of the prosperity the lake would bring to the region. Today, a million visitors flock yearly to the scenic waters for family camping, fishing, boating and hiking. Keep reading
Recreation
Greers Ferry Lake is an outdoor enthusiasts' dream, with boating, sailing, water skiing, swimming, scuba diving and fishing opportunities. Hikers enjoy the area's three National Nature Trails and one multi-purpose, fitness trail. The William Carl Garner Visitor Center is just west of the dam, with exhibits, a children's touch table, and a replica of the world record 40 lb. 4 oz. brown trout caught in the Little Red River downstream of the center.
Facilities
This campground offers 68 sites with electrical hookups, 44 of which also have water hookups. Additional amenities include flush toilets, showers, a dump station, picnic shelter and a boat ramp.
Natural Features
A dense mix of red cedar, black gum, red oak, elm, pecan and sweet gum trees forest the area, providing shade in the summer months and beautiful fall colors in autumn. Wildlife is plentiful around Greers Ferry Lake. Visitors commonly see white-tailed deer, wild turkeys, rabbits, squirrels and a wide variety of birds. Contact Info For local information, please call (501) 250-0481 or call (501) 362-2416 for general information.
Nearby Attractions
With over 30,000 acres of water surface, the lake serves as a playground for all kinds of water sports. Eighteen parks around the shoreline provide modern campgrounds, boat ramps, swim areas and marinas. The Greers Ferry National Fish Hatchery, in Heber Springs, located below the dam, offers free tours. Built in 1965, the hatchery produces about one million rainbow trout a year for restocking the Little Red and other Arkansas streams.
What the agency tells you
Attendant is on duty during peak season.
One wheeled camping unit and two tents or four tents are allowed per site. Maximum of 8 occupants per site.
ATV's, golf carts or off-road vehicles are prohibited.
Everything else this campground posts · 3
Don't Move Firewood: Protect your forests from tree-killing pests by buying your firewood locally and burning it on-site. Visit Dontmovefirewood.org for further information.
For more information on Greers Ferry Lake, click HERE .
STOP THE SPREAD OF INVASIVE SPECIES. Remove plants, seeds, animals, and mud from boots, gear, pets, and vehicles. Clean your gear before entering and leaving the recreation site. Stay on designated roads and trails, and follow local guidelines for firewood. CLEAN, DRAIN, DRY boats and any other recreational equipment that contacts water. Dispose of unwanted bait, worms, fish parts, or other organisms into the trash and not into the environment. For more information visit https://www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/rec.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 68
- Hookups
- 67 electric, 56 water
- Longest rig
- 80 ft
- Paved pads
- 64 of 68
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Flush Toilets
- “…hookups. Additional amenities include flush toilets, showers, a dump station, picnic shelter and a boat…”
- Showers
- Yes, the record doesn’t say what kind
- “Additional amenities include flush toilets, showers, a dump station, picnic shelter and a boat ramp.”
- Dump station
- Yes
- recreation.gov lists “Dump Station”
- Boat ramp
- Yes
- Playground
- Yes
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, River, Creek, Beach
- Wildlife viewing
- Night sky · 136th darkest of 158 in AR
- Bortle 4
2 of 66 sites open on Sat, Oct 17read 14:48 UTC
Every site here is reservable, and the record lists none held back for anyone who drives up.
OpenBooked
Watch for a cancellation
Full? Watch it.
One email when a night opens, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We read recreation.gov once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time a site in your window is free for the nights you asked for.
Scanners that check every few minutes exist, and most of them charge. This one is free, it reads the same calendar, and it won’t always be first.
We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.
Every line of the receipt · 15
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rates for this season, $22–$28 a night, plus one $8 recreation.gov reservation fee for the booking. A weekend here means Friday and Saturday night, booked once. Optional charges (an extra vehicle, a second tent, a dump-station fee) are listed separately and aren’t in this total.
Who keeps the booking fee
The agency’s own policy text says the reservation fee and the cancellation processing fee are “retained by the reservation service contractor”, and that a campground concessionaire will decline to refund them because “they did not receive these fees”. Recreation.gov is run under contract by Booz Allen Hamilton. What share of your booking fee the contractor keeps isn’t published in any federal dataset we can read, so we print no number for it. Our reporting on the contract →
How we know this receipt · 5
recreation.gov availability, read 14:48 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
70 records · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 67 mapped sitesAll 70 records
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 68 of the 70 sites listed. A site with no reading is unknown, never far.
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 67 of the 70 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
Measured shade is NLCD Tree Canopy Cover 2024 (USDA Forest Service / MRLC) read at the site’s own coordinate, 27% canopy or more, and only for the sites the agency gave no Shade value. It never changes the agency’s own shaded count beside it.
| A | A01 | type not stated | 32 ft | 30 amp | 106 ft | 1,167 ft | ||
| A | A02 | standard electric | 55 ft | 30 amp | 95 ft | 85 ft | 1,121 ft | $22–$28 |
| A | A03 | standard electric | 53 ft | 30 amp | 90 ft | 51 ft | 1,068 ft | $22–$28 |
| A | A04 | standard electric | 31 ft | 30 amp | 90 ft | 42 ft | 999 ft | $22–$28 |
| A | A05 | standard electric | 40 ft | 30 amp | 104 ft | 104 ft | 890 ft | $22–$28 |
| A | A06 | standard electric | 47 ft | 30 amp | 104 ft | 154 ft | 786 ft | $22–$28 |
| A | A07 | standard electric | 43 ft | 30 amp | 104 ft | 141 ft | 663 ft | $22–$28 |
| A | A08 | standard electric | 72 ft | 30 amp | 104 ft | 142 ft | 561 ft | $22–$28 |
| A | A09 | standard electric | 68 ft | 30 amp | 105 ft | 69 ft | 491 ft | $22–$28 |
| A | A10 | standard electric | 70 ft | 30 amp | 105 ft | 145 ft | 413 ft | $22–$28 |
| A | A11 | standard electric | 60 ft | 30 amp | 112 ft | 135 ft | 301 ft | $22–$28 |
| A | A12 | standard electric | 37 ft | 30 amp | 149 ft | 126 ft | 158 ft | $22–$28 |
| B | B01 | standard electric | 73 ft | 50/30 amp | 104 ft | 98 ft | 496 ft | $22–$28 |
| B | B02 | standard electric | 64 ft | 50/30 amp | 48 ft | 122 ft | 589 ft | $22–$28 |
| B | B03 | standard electric | 67 ft | 50/30 amp | 48 ft | 137 ft | 631 ft | $22–$28 |
| B | B04 | standard electric | 68 ft | 50/30 amp | 69 ft | 141 ft | 591 ft | $22–$28 |
| B | B05 | standard electric | 73 ft | 50/30 amp | 81 ft | 152 ft | 519 ft | $22–$28 |
| B | B06 | standard electric | 64 ft | 50/30 amp | 75 ft | 152 ft | 452 ft | $22–$28 |
| B | B07 | standard electric | 73 ft | 50/30 amp | 75 ft | 177 ft | 382 ft | $22–$28 |
| B | B08 | standard electric | 66 ft | 50/30 amp | 57 ft | 156 ft | 320 ft | $22–$28 |
| B | B09 | standard electric | 73 ft | 50/30 amp | 57 ft | 210 ft | 299 ft | $22–$28 |
| B | B10 | standard electric | 66 ft | 50/30 amp | 91 ft | 172 ft | 248 ft | $22–$28 |
| B | B11 | standard electric | 67 ft | 50/30 amp | 59 ft | 253 ft | 230 ft | $22–$28 |
| B | B12 | standard electric | 57 ft | 50/30 amp | 59 ft | 263 ft | 178 ft | $22–$28 |
| B | B13 | standard electric | 51 ft | 50/30 amp | 63 ft | 255 ft | 115 ft | $22–$28 |
| B | B14 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50/30 amp | 63 ft | 224 ft | 90 ft | $22–$28 |
| B | B15 | standard electric | 80 ft | 50/30 amp | 65 ft | 194 ft | 171 ft | $22–$28 |
| B | B16 | standard electric | 73 ft | 50/30 amp | 65 ft | 139 ft | 229 ft | $22–$28 |
| B | B17 | standard electric | 70 ft | 50/30 amp | 95 ft | 64 ft | 472 ft | $22–$28 |
| B | B18 | standard electric | 70 ft | 50/30 amp | 67 ft | 62 ft | 537 ft | $22–$28 |
| B | B19 | standard electric | 70 ft | 50/30 amp | 60 ft | 47 ft | 594 ft | $22–$28 |
| B | B20 | standard electric | 70 ft | 50/30 amp | 60 ft | 54 ft | 634 ft | $22–$28 |
| C | C01 | standard electric | 55 ft | 30 amp | 72 ft | 153 ft | 155 ft | $22–$28 |
| C | C02 | standard electric | 52 ft | 30 amp | 84 ft | 124 ft | 211 ft | $22–$28 |
| C | C03 | standard electric | 65 ft | 30 amp | 57 ft | 262 ft | 90 ft | $22–$28 |
| C | C04 | standard electric | 63 ft | 30 amp | 84 ft | 173 ft | 198 ft | $22–$28 |
| C | C05 | standard electric | 70 ft | 30 amp | 57 ft | 270 ft | 138 ft | $22–$28 |
| C | C06 | standard electric | 69 ft | 30 amp | 78 ft | 271 ft | 208 ft | $22–$28 |
| C | C07 | standard electric | 56 ft | 30 amp | 78 ft | 178 ft | 257 ft | $22–$28 |
| C | C08 | standard electric | 51 ft | 30 amp | 78 ft | 171 ft | 324 ft | $22–$28 |
| C | C09 | standard electric | 60 ft | 30 amp | 99 ft | 246 ft | 353 ft | $22–$28 |
| C | C10 | standard electric | 54 ft | 30 amp | 68 ft | 216 ft | 457 ft | $22–$28 |
| C | C11 | standard electric | 66 ft | 30 amp | 68 ft | 150 ft | 464 ft | $22–$28 |
| D | D01 | standard electric | 58 ft | 30 amp | 85 ft | 408 ft | 423 ft | $22–$28 |
| D | D02 | standard electric | 62 ft | 30 amp | 64 ft | 454 ft | 503 ft | $22–$28 |
| D | D03 | standard electric | 64 ft | 30 amp | 64 ft | 392 ft | 504 ft | $22–$28 |
| D | D04 | standard electric | 43 ft | 30 amp | 61 ft | 427 ft | 603 ft | $22–$28 |
| D | D05 | standard electric | 57 ft | 30 amp | 61 ft | 369 ft | 616 ft | $22–$28 |
| D | D06 | standard electric | 51 ft | 30 amp | 55 ft | 395 ft | 732 ft | $22–$28 |
| D | D07 | standard electric | 61 ft | 30 amp | 55 ft | 342 ft | 718 ft | $22–$28 |
| D | D08 | standard electric | 58 ft | 30 amp | 69 ft | 372 ft | 834 ft | $22–$28 |
| D | D09 | standard electric | 51 ft | 30 amp | 69 ft | 313 ft | 801 ft | $22–$28 |
| D | D10 | standard electric | 50 ft | 30 amp | 63 ft | 280 ft | 916 ft | $22–$28 |
| D | D11 | standard electric | 49 ft | 30 amp | 63 ft | 273 ft | 979 ft | $22–$28 |
| D | D12 | standard electric | 53 ft | 30 amp | 84 ft | 242 ft | 1,062 ft | $22–$28 |
| D | D13 | standard electric | 48 ft | 30 amp | 97 ft | 234 ft | 1,159 ft | $22–$28 |
| D | D14 | standard electric | 55 ft | 30 amp | 135 ft | 215 ft | 1,306 ft | $22–$28 |
| D | D15 | standard electric | 52 ft | 30 amp | 80 ft | 210 ft | 1,437 ft | $22–$28 |
| D | D16 | standard electric | 56 ft | 30 amp | 80 ft | 184 ft | 1,516 ft | $22–$28 |
| D | D17 | standard electric | 66 ft | 30 amp | 65 ft | 220 ft | 1,572 ft | $22–$28 |
| D | D18 | standard electric | 68 ft | 30 amp | 65 ft | 284 ft | 1,557 ft | $22–$28 |
| D | D19 | standard electric | 49 ft | 30 amp | 52 ft | 333 ft | 1,492 ft | $22–$28 |
| D | D20 | standard electric | 50 ft | 30 amp | 52 ft | 368 ft | 1,442 ft | $22–$28 |
| D | D21 | standard electric | 45 ft | 30 amp | 88 ft | 423 ft | 1,352 ft | $22–$28 |
| D | D22 | standard electric | 53 ft | 30 amp | 88 ft | 437 ft | 1,264 ft | $22–$28 |
| D | D23 | standard electric | 52 ft | 30 amp | 90 ft | 445 ft | 1,098 ft | $22–$28 |
| D | D24 | standard electric | 52 ft | 30 amp | 90 ft | 404 ft | 1,016 ft | $22–$28 |
| D | D25 | standard electric | 46 ft | 30 amp | 70 ft | 350 ft | 917 ft | $22–$28 |
| John F Kennedy | John F Kennedy Shelter AM | day use | 30 amp | $50 | ||||
| John F Kennedy | John F Kennedy Shelter PM | day use | 30 amp | $50 |
The agency files 2 more records here that aren’t sites for the night. It files them as day use. They’re in the table above, marked for what they are, and none of them is counted as a site.
25 of 70 listed
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Dam Site(Greers Ferry)0.4 miDam Site Campground0.8 mi
Old Highway 251.9 mi
Heber Springs4.0 mi
Shiloh8.5 mi
Cherokee Campground (AR)9.9 miFrom Heber Springs, AR, take SR-25 north 4 miles, cross the dam, and turn right on the second road.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Heber Springs, AR
Typical weather
Typical October night 49°F, day 73°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 28°F, below freezing. Bring a bag rated colder than that, and expect ice in the water bottle.
Daily high and lowDays with 0.10 in or more
A normal is the 1991-2020 average for the month, not a forecast: about half of all Julys are colder than the July line. The seven-day forecast above answers the other question.
The land, and who answers for it
who answers for it
Who answers for this land
John F Kennedy is in Arkansas’s 2nd congressional district. Its representative, J. French Hill (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →