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Historically,
ARKANSAS belongs very much to
the American South. It sided firmly
with the Confederacy in the Civil
War, and its capital, Little Rock,
was in 1957 one of the most
notorious flashpoints in the
struggle for civil rights.
Geographically, however, it marks
the beginning of the Great Plains.
Unlike the other Southern states, on
the far side of the Mississippi
River Arkansas remained very
sparsely populated until almost a
century ago. Westward expansion was
blocked by the existence of the
Indian Territory in what's now
Oklahoma, and not until the
railroads opened up the forested
interior during the 1880s did
settlers stray in any numbers from
their small riverside villages. Only
once the Depression and
mechanization had forced thousands
of farmers to leave their fields did
Arkansas begin to develop any
significant industrial base.
In
1992, local boy Bill Clinton's
accession to the presidency jolted
Arkansas into national prominence.
Four towns lay claim to him: Hope,
his birthplace; Hot Springs, his
"home town"; Fayetteville,
where he and Hillary married; and,
of course, Little Rock, the state
capital. Of the four, only sleepy Little
Rock and the nearby spa resort
of Hot Springs are worth a
trip, whatever the tourist brochures
may say.
Though
Arkansas encompasses the Mississippi
Delta in the east, oil-rich
timber lands in the south, and the
sweeping Ouachita (Wash-i-taw)
Mountains in the west, the
cragged and charismatic Ozark
Mountains in the north are its
most scenic asset, where the main
attraction for tourists are the
un-crowded parks and unspoiled
rivers.
Incidentally,
"Arkansas" is a distorted
version of the name of a small
Indian tribe; the state legislature
declared once and for all in 1881
that the correct pronunciation is Arkansaw.
Click here to go to Arkansas
State web site |
