There are larger rivers in Arkansas. Some carried more commerce, powered more industry, and played a larger role in the state’s settlement.

But there is nothing quite like the Buffalo.

Running through some of the roughest country in the Arkansas Ozarks, the Buffalo River winds beneath towering limestone and sandstone bluffs, past abandoned farms and old mining settlements, through deep forest and isolated valleys, and eventually into the White River.

For most of its existence, nobody considered it a national treasure.

It was simply the river.

Families lived beside it. They planted corn in its bottoms, raised livestock on its hillsides, cut timber from the surrounding forests, dug zinc and lead from the mountains, fished its pools, crossed it on horseback and in wagons, and sometimes watched helplessly as floods swept away what they had built.

Then, in the twentieth century, Americans began to see rivers differently. [continue reading…]

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In the 1930s, the same drought that was destroying farms across the Great Plains was uncovering something remarkable beneath the soil.

Erosion exposed mammoth bones, ancient bison remains, stone spear points, and evidence that people lived in North America long before many scientists believed. Popular Science called one discovery “The First American.” Some conclusions were wrong, but the discoveries sparked a revolution in American archaeology.

The Dust Bowl was stripping away the present, one layer of soil at a time. In doing so, it was also revealing a human story buried for thousands of years.

Read the full article.

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Note: image was generated using ChatGPT

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