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You can understand Arkansas, its people and its settlements, by studying the landscape and geography. About 400 million years ago, Arkansas was under the ocean during the Paleozoic Era. Rock, known as limestone, was created when the creatures living in the water died and accumulated on the bottom of the oceans.Limestone is found in northern Arkansas. In western Arkansas, sandstone and shale were laid down, also remnants of the Paleozoic Era. Also during this era, the plateaus of the Ozark Mountains were formed, as well as the long ridges of the Ouachita Mountains.
At the time dinosaurs roamed the earth during the Mesozoic Era, eastern and south Arkansas were under the waters of what would be the Gulf of Mexico. This was 130 million years ago. The Gulf of Mexico withdrew from Arkansas about 50 million years ago during the Cenozoic Era and left behind sand and gravel that is common in south Arkansas today.
Today, the geography of Arkansas can be divided into the uplands and the lowlands. The uplands have mountains and are rocky while the lowlands are hilly in some places and low, flat and wet in other places. The soil is sandy and there are many rivers. Each supports many different plants and animals, farming, scenery and recreational opportunities.
From the uplands to the lowlands, Arkansas can be subdivided into six natural divisions, each with its own unique geographical features.
Regions:
Ozark Mountains
Covering the northwestern and north central part of Arkansas, the Ozarks are known for their rugged topography. Rivers have carved deep valleys into the high, flat plateaus here. A common rock known as limestone has formed brilliant caves like those found at Blanchard Springs in Mountain View. Rivers, such as the Buffalo, cut through the deep valleys. Lakes like Beaver and Norfork are popular recreational sites.
The forests of the Ozarks are mostly upland hardwood. Oak and hickory trees are numerous. The first people to live in the area were American Indians who were nicknamed "bluff dwellers" because they lived under the shelter of the mountains. The settlers who arrived in the 1800s practiced subsistence lifestyles, which meant they grew their own food, hunted, and raised free-range animals, such as hogs. Many settlers to this area originally came from Tennessee and were fairly isolated by the mountains in their new home.
In the late 1800s, the railroad broke the isolation of the Ozark region. Timber was a leading industry in communities like Leslie and Shirley in Stone County. Today, major industries like Tyson and Wal-Mart have made the Ozarks their home. Emigration to the northwestern corner of the state is very high and the region is one of the most popular vacation areas in the state.
Arkansas River Valley
Running between the Ozarks and the Ouachitas is the Arkansas River Valley. This area is a combination of flat-topped mountains like those found in the Ozarks, and ridges like the Ouachitas, with the great Arkansas River flowing through its valley. The tallest mountain in the state, Magazine, can be found in this region (Logan County), as well as Petit Jean and Nebo.
Wide bottomlands with fertile soil are found along the river and produce many different crops. Pines and hardwoods, prairie grasses, bottomland forests and swamps mark the landscape. In the 1700s and early 1800s, bison and elk were common sites as the area became a migration corridor for many animals. Today, migrating birds still follow the Arkansas River through the valley.
The Caddo and war-like Osage inhabited the area before European settlement. Henri de Tonti, a French explorer, visited the valley in the early 1700s. The army built a western military post, Fort Smith, at the western edge of the valley. It was the last outpost before traveling into the western plains. In the late 1850s, the Butterfield Stage Line ran through the Arkansas River Valley before heading to California. Fort Smith (Arkansas's second largest city), Pottsville, Paris, Booneville, Atkins, Ozark, Clarksville, Van Buren, Russellville, Morrilton, and Dardanelle are the largest communities found in the river valley.
One of the most important events to occur in this area was during the 1960s when the U.S. Corps of Engineers completed the McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System that made the Arkansas River navigable to Tulsa, Oklahoma. River, rail and highway travel have helped to populate this area and contributed to its growth. Today, it possesses beautiful mountains and scenic waterways and is considered one of the most attractive places to live.
Ouachita Mountains
The Ouachitas are located in the western part of the state. Long, narrow ridges that run from east to west characterize this region. Within its boundaries lie the communities of Hot Springs, part of Little Rock and Mena. Sandy soil allows pine trees to grow on the south slopes of the Ouachitas and hardwoods grow on the north faces. Why? Because the sun shines on the southern slope and creates a warm, dry place for pines to grow. Hardwoods need cool, moist ground. The valleys of the Ouachitas often support mixed forests of hardwood and pine.
Like the Ozarks, the first settlers in the Ouachitas were American Indians. The Caddo tribe had one of the largest villages in the area, where they grew gardens in the fertile soils of the Ouachitas. They used novaculite, a local rock to make arrowheads and tools. The region is one of the most productive crystal-producing areas on the continent.
Settlers to this area built railroads in order to haul pine logs for the timber industry and used the wide valleys for farming. Known for their healing effects, the thermal springs at Hot Springs drew large numbers of visitors to their bath houses in the late 1800s. The springs were visited first by American Indians thousands of years earlier.
Today, the Ouachita forest is used for the timber production and recreation. The Ouachita National Forest hosts hundreds of visitors each year. Tourists flock to visit Hot Springs National Park and to watch horse racing at Oaklawn.
Gulf Coastal Plain
In the lowlands of Arkansas lies the Gulf Coastal Plain. Covering south Arkansas, major communities are Texarkana, Arkadelphia, El Dorado, Monticello, parts of Pine Bluff and Little Rock. Sandy, rolling hills harbor pine trees and hardwood bottoms are found along rivers. Wildlife such as deer, beaver and wading birds are abundant.
Like the Ouachitas, the Coastal Plain's first inhabitants were the Caddo Indians. They lived in large villages in the river bottoms, where they had large fields to plant corn and gardens. The French were the first white settlers to arrive in the area. Place names such as Smackover and Cossatot are their legacies. Washington, an important town during the early 1800s, was settled on the Southwest Trail, a road that started at St. Louis, Missouri, and cut down in a southwesterly pattern until it reached Texas. Washington was a major center of trade and information until the 1870s. Today, it is a state park as well as a town.
The railroads of the late 1800s made a large impact on the Coastal Plain. Timber companies stripped the land but saw that the forests could be reproduced. This is called sustained-yield production. Oil and gas booms brought wealth to communities like Smackover and El Dorado. Gravel and bauxite were mined, as well as diamonds near Murfreesboro. Because of changes in the forest, some species of animals that were native to the region such as the red-cockaded woodpecker are now endangered species.
Visitors to the Gulf Coastal Plain can enjoy beautiful scenery, historic sites like Old Washington and the Oil and Brine Museum at Smackover, quaint communities like Hope and Magnolia, and dig for precious stones at the Crater of Diamonds State Park. The Gulf Coastal Plain is also home to some major corporations of the forest products industry.
Delta
A land of rivers, the Delta covers the eastern third of Arkansas. Major cities include Helena, Blytheville, West Memphis, Brinkley, Clarendon, Stuttgart and Lake Village. When the Gulf of Mexico receded from the Delta millions of years ago its geological deposits were removed by rivers and replaced by deep layers of sand, silt and clay. Flat bottomlands characterize the area and today, it is a major agricultural region. Powerful rivers, the Arkansas, White and Mississippi, flow through the area and often cause floods.
Natural vegetation includes cypress and tupelo trees that live in lakes and swamps that are permanently flooded. Oaks, hickory and pecan trees grow well in the Delta. The pecan trees are often grown in orchards and provide a marketable good.
The Delta is a wildlife paradise (migratory birds like ducks and geese winter somewhere in the Delta of Arkansas, Mississippi or Louisiana). For this reason, Arkansas is considered a favorite place to hunt ducks during season.
Many people that live in the Delta rely on farming. The first white settlers of the Delta farmed, as did the Quapaw Indian tribe that predated European settlement. The explorer, Hernando DeSoto, toured the Delta with his army in the winter of 1541 and examined the crops of the American Indian. One of the first European settlements settled west of the Mississippi River was Arkansas Post along the Arkansas River in the Delta (near present-day Gillett). It was maintained by both French and Spanish until the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 gave it to the United States.
Cotton was considered a main cash crop of the Delta during the 1800s. African-American slaves were brought in to work on farms and plantations. The largest percentage of slaveholders lived in the Delta prior to the Civil War. After the Civil War decimated the state, black and white alike turned to tenant farming and sharecropping. Hardy souls along the river lived in houseboats and were called "river rats." In the late 1800s, immigrants arrived in the Delta. Chinese, Italians, Swiss and Poles were among the groups to work in the Delta. Many of their descendants are found in the area today.
One of the most noticeable sounds associated with the Delta is the "blues." This form of music is often soulful and tells a melancholy story. The King Biscuit Blues Festival occurs every October in Helena and draws thousands of people to hear blues musicians. Duck hunters converge on Stuttgart to compete in duck-calling contests, and Riceland Foods has one of its branch offices in the Delta.
''Crowley's Ridge''
Crowley's Ridge is the smallest geographical region in the lowlands. It is in the eastern part of Arkansas and completely surrounded by the Delta, but it differs from the Delta in many ways. It is rises up to 200 feet higher than the Delta and can be seen for miles around in the flat fields of eastern Arkansas. During the Pleistocene Era, the rivers did not remove all of the ocean-bottom material left behind when the Gulf of Mexico withdrew. Afterwards, the ridge was covered with a dust called loess (pronounced "luss"). This made the ridge taller and more rugged. Through the years, water has cut through the ridge which now maintains an upland character like that found in the Ozarks.. Hardwood forests with oaks, hickories and the tulip tree are found. Streams flow rapidly through the area.
Some of the largest communities of eastern Arkansas including Jonesboro, Forrest City, Helena and Wynne are located on Crowley's Ridge. Many families live on the ridge, but rely on the local farming economy of the adjacent Delta for their livelihood. On the ridge, peach orchards, gravel mines and the St. Francis National Forest can be found.
The greatest concern facing citizens living on Crowley's Ridge is erosion. Loess erodes and gullies can quickly form and give way to landslides. Although it is the smallest, it is one of the most unusual geographic regions of the state.
At the time dinosaurs roamed the earth during the Mesozoic Era, eastern and south Arkansas were under the waters of what would be the Gulf of Mexico. This was 130 million years ago. The Gulf of Mexico withdrew from Arkansas about 50 million years ago during the Cenozoic Era and left behind sand and gravel that is common in south Arkansas today.
Today, the geography of Arkansas can be divided into the uplands and the lowlands. The uplands have mountains and are rocky while the lowlands are hilly in some places and low, flat and wet in other places. The soil is sandy and there are many rivers. Each supports many different plants and animals, farming, scenery and recreational opportunities.
From the uplands to the lowlands, Arkansas can be subdivided into six natural divisions, each with its own unique geographical features.
Regions:
Ozark Mountains
Covering the northwestern and north central part of Arkansas, the Ozarks are known for their rugged topography. Rivers have carved deep valleys into the high, flat plateaus here. A common rock known as limestone has formed brilliant caves like those found at Blanchard Springs in Mountain View. Rivers, such as the Buffalo, cut through the deep valleys. Lakes like Beaver and Norfork are popular recreational sites.
The forests of the Ozarks are mostly upland hardwood. Oak and hickory trees are numerous. The first people to live in the area were American Indians who were nicknamed "bluff dwellers" because they lived under the shelter of the mountains. The settlers who arrived in the 1800s practiced subsistence lifestyles, which meant they grew their own food, hunted, and raised free-range animals, such as hogs. Many settlers to this area originally came from Tennessee and were fairly isolated by the mountains in their new home.
In the late 1800s, the railroad broke the isolation of the Ozark region. Timber was a leading industry in communities like Leslie and Shirley in Stone County. Today, major industries like Tyson and Wal-Mart have made the Ozarks their home. Emigration to the northwestern corner of the state is very high and the region is one of the most popular vacation areas in the state.
Arkansas River Valley
Running between the Ozarks and the Ouachitas is the Arkansas River Valley. This area is a combination of flat-topped mountains like those found in the Ozarks, and ridges like the Ouachitas, with the great Arkansas River flowing through its valley. The tallest mountain in the state, Magazine, can be found in this region (Logan County), as well as Petit Jean and Nebo.
Wide bottomlands with fertile soil are found along the river and produce many different crops. Pines and hardwoods, prairie grasses, bottomland forests and swamps mark the landscape. In the 1700s and early 1800s, bison and elk were common sites as the area became a migration corridor for many animals. Today, migrating birds still follow the Arkansas River through the valley.
The Caddo and war-like Osage inhabited the area before European settlement. Henri de Tonti, a French explorer, visited the valley in the early 1700s. The army built a western military post, Fort Smith, at the western edge of the valley. It was the last outpost before traveling into the western plains. In the late 1850s, the Butterfield Stage Line ran through the Arkansas River Valley before heading to California. Fort Smith (Arkansas's second largest city), Pottsville, Paris, Booneville, Atkins, Ozark, Clarksville, Van Buren, Russellville, Morrilton, and Dardanelle are the largest communities found in the river valley.
One of the most important events to occur in this area was during the 1960s when the U.S. Corps of Engineers completed the McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System that made the Arkansas River navigable to Tulsa, Oklahoma. River, rail and highway travel have helped to populate this area and contributed to its growth. Today, it possesses beautiful mountains and scenic waterways and is considered one of the most attractive places to live.
Ouachita Mountains
The Ouachitas are located in the western part of the state. Long, narrow ridges that run from east to west characterize this region. Within its boundaries lie the communities of Hot Springs, part of Little Rock and Mena. Sandy soil allows pine trees to grow on the south slopes of the Ouachitas and hardwoods grow on the north faces. Why? Because the sun shines on the southern slope and creates a warm, dry place for pines to grow. Hardwoods need cool, moist ground. The valleys of the Ouachitas often support mixed forests of hardwood and pine.
Like the Ozarks, the first settlers in the Ouachitas were American Indians. The Caddo tribe had one of the largest villages in the area, where they grew gardens in the fertile soils of the Ouachitas. They used novaculite, a local rock to make arrowheads and tools. The region is one of the most productive crystal-producing areas on the continent.
Settlers to this area built railroads in order to haul pine logs for the timber industry and used the wide valleys for farming. Known for their healing effects, the thermal springs at Hot Springs drew large numbers of visitors to their bath houses in the late 1800s. The springs were visited first by American Indians thousands of years earlier.
Today, the Ouachita forest is used for the timber production and recreation. The Ouachita National Forest hosts hundreds of visitors each year. Tourists flock to visit Hot Springs National Park and to watch horse racing at Oaklawn.
Gulf Coastal Plain
In the lowlands of Arkansas lies the Gulf Coastal Plain. Covering south Arkansas, major communities are Texarkana, Arkadelphia, El Dorado, Monticello, parts of Pine Bluff and Little Rock. Sandy, rolling hills harbor pine trees and hardwood bottoms are found along rivers. Wildlife such as deer, beaver and wading birds are abundant.
Like the Ouachitas, the Coastal Plain's first inhabitants were the Caddo Indians. They lived in large villages in the river bottoms, where they had large fields to plant corn and gardens. The French were the first white settlers to arrive in the area. Place names such as Smackover and Cossatot are their legacies. Washington, an important town during the early 1800s, was settled on the Southwest Trail, a road that started at St. Louis, Missouri, and cut down in a southwesterly pattern until it reached Texas. Washington was a major center of trade and information until the 1870s. Today, it is a state park as well as a town.
The railroads of the late 1800s made a large impact on the Coastal Plain. Timber companies stripped the land but saw that the forests could be reproduced. This is called sustained-yield production. Oil and gas booms brought wealth to communities like Smackover and El Dorado. Gravel and bauxite were mined, as well as diamonds near Murfreesboro. Because of changes in the forest, some species of animals that were native to the region such as the red-cockaded woodpecker are now endangered species.
Visitors to the Gulf Coastal Plain can enjoy beautiful scenery, historic sites like Old Washington and the Oil and Brine Museum at Smackover, quaint communities like Hope and Magnolia, and dig for precious stones at the Crater of Diamonds State Park. The Gulf Coastal Plain is also home to some major corporations of the forest products industry.
Delta
A land of rivers, the Delta covers the eastern third of Arkansas. Major cities include Helena, Blytheville, West Memphis, Brinkley, Clarendon, Stuttgart and Lake Village. When the Gulf of Mexico receded from the Delta millions of years ago its geological deposits were removed by rivers and replaced by deep layers of sand, silt and clay. Flat bottomlands characterize the area and today, it is a major agricultural region. Powerful rivers, the Arkansas, White and Mississippi, flow through the area and often cause floods.
Natural vegetation includes cypress and tupelo trees that live in lakes and swamps that are permanently flooded. Oaks, hickory and pecan trees grow well in the Delta. The pecan trees are often grown in orchards and provide a marketable good.
The Delta is a wildlife paradise (migratory birds like ducks and geese winter somewhere in the Delta of Arkansas, Mississippi or Louisiana). For this reason, Arkansas is considered a favorite place to hunt ducks during season.
Many people that live in the Delta rely on farming. The first white settlers of the Delta farmed, as did the Quapaw Indian tribe that predated European settlement. The explorer, Hernando DeSoto, toured the Delta with his army in the winter of 1541 and examined the crops of the American Indian. One of the first European settlements settled west of the Mississippi River was Arkansas Post along the Arkansas River in the Delta (near present-day Gillett). It was maintained by both French and Spanish until the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 gave it to the United States.
Cotton was considered a main cash crop of the Delta during the 1800s. African-American slaves were brought in to work on farms and plantations. The largest percentage of slaveholders lived in the Delta prior to the Civil War. After the Civil War decimated the state, black and white alike turned to tenant farming and sharecropping. Hardy souls along the river lived in houseboats and were called "river rats." In the late 1800s, immigrants arrived in the Delta. Chinese, Italians, Swiss and Poles were among the groups to work in the Delta. Many of their descendants are found in the area today.
One of the most noticeable sounds associated with the Delta is the "blues." This form of music is often soulful and tells a melancholy story. The King Biscuit Blues Festival occurs every October in Helena and draws thousands of people to hear blues musicians. Duck hunters converge on Stuttgart to compete in duck-calling contests, and Riceland Foods has one of its branch offices in the Delta.
''Crowley's Ridge''
Crowley's Ridge is the smallest geographical region in the lowlands. It is in the eastern part of Arkansas and completely surrounded by the Delta, but it differs from the Delta in many ways. It is rises up to 200 feet higher than the Delta and can be seen for miles around in the flat fields of eastern Arkansas. During the Pleistocene Era, the rivers did not remove all of the ocean-bottom material left behind when the Gulf of Mexico withdrew. Afterwards, the ridge was covered with a dust called loess (pronounced "luss"). This made the ridge taller and more rugged. Through the years, water has cut through the ridge which now maintains an upland character like that found in the Ozarks.. Hardwood forests with oaks, hickories and the tulip tree are found. Streams flow rapidly through the area.
Some of the largest communities of eastern Arkansas including Jonesboro, Forrest City, Helena and Wynne are located on Crowley's Ridge. Many families live on the ridge, but rely on the local farming economy of the adjacent Delta for their livelihood. On the ridge, peach orchards, gravel mines and the St. Francis National Forest can be found.
The greatest concern facing citizens living on Crowley's Ridge is erosion. Loess erodes and gullies can quickly form and give way to landslides. Although it is the smallest, it is one of the most unusual geographic regions of the state.