Ken Smith's life-long accumulation of knowledge about the Buffalo River country, including complete trail and river guides and a fascinating sourcebook for geology and history of the Buffalo river area. All in a compact size, with more than 170 photos, maps, and diagrams. Coordinated with National Geographic Maps, Trails Illustrated. Ken Smith is the author-photographer of The Buffalo River Country, the Ozark Society Foundation classic now in its ninth printing.
Under the auspices of the 1938 Flood Control Act, the U.S. Corps of Engineers began to pursue an aggressive dam-building campaign. A grateful public generally lauded their efforts, but when they turned their attention to Arkansas’s Buffalo River, the vocal opposition their proposed projects generated dumbfounded them. Never before had anyone challenged the Corps’s assumption that damming a river was an improvement. Led by Neil Compton, a physician in Bentonville, Arkansas, a group of area conservationists formed the Ozark Society to join the battle for the Buffalo. This book is the account of this decade-long struggle that drew in such political figures as supreme court justice William O. Douglas, Senator J. William Fulbright, and Governor Orval Faubus. The battle finally ended in 1972 with President Richard Nixon’s designation of the Buffalo as the first national river. Drawing on hundreds of personal letters, photographs, maps, newspaper articles, and reminiscences, Compton’s lively book details the trials, gains, setbacks, and ultimate triumph in one of the first major skirmishes between environmentalists and developers.
This best-selling book is a timeless narrative of floating the Buffalo National River and roaming its hinterlands, all the while reflecting on its scenery, geology, flora, fauna, history, and archaeology.
These wonderfully detailed, beautifully printed photographs are about adventures and discoveries: the Buffalo River and its towering bluffs, side canyons with hidden waterfalls, natural bridges, historic places, and more.
A different kind of hiking guidebook that was designed for the GPS user. Fifty-three selected hikes and bushwhacks in the Central and Eastern Section of the Arkansas Ozarks. (723-photos, 73-maps) Trails are overlaid on USGS Topo Maps with GPS Coordinates, descriptions, mileage and difficulty. Over thirty-five of the selected hikes are bushwhacks (non designated trail) and are great for exploring new areas in the Arkansas Ozarks. Many are to waterfalls, rock features, shelters and some amazing vistas. The selected hikes are only a small sampling of some of the outdoor adventures you will find in Arkansas. Get out and discover some of them today. You won't be disappointed.
Like its companion book, this second volume of Arkansas Backstories will amaze even the most serious students of the state with surprising insights. How many people are aware that a world-class yodeler from Zinc ran against John F. Kennedy in 1960 for the top spot on the national Democratic ticket, or that an African-American born in Little Rock campaigned for the Presidency nearly 70 years before Congressman Shirley Chisholm made her historic run? Or that bands of blood-thirsty pirates once lurked in the bayous and backwaters of eastern Arkansas, preying on unsuspecting Mississippi River travelers? Likewise, how many readers will recognize the fact that an English botanist who spent months investigating Arkansas's flora in the early nineteenth century has been described as the worst explorer in history? That Fort Smith hosted the world's first international UFO conference? Or that the Nielsen rating system has a direct connection to the state as does Tony Bennett's signature song, "I Left My Heart in San Francisco"? Such tidbits are among the unexpected elements that make the Natural State so tantalizing. Written in an informal, conversational style and nicely illustrated, Arkansas Backstories Volume Two will be a wonderful addition to the libraries of Arkansans, expats, and anyone else interested in one of America's most fascinating states.
Sentinels of History was conceived of as a way to mark the turn of the millennium by the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program. This generously illustrated book contains thirty-nine essays, each of which showcases an important Arkansas site and is written by a noted authority. Also included is a location map for these sites and a full appendix providing location information, county by county, for the more than two thousand surviving properties in Arkansas (as of June 1999) that appear on the National Register. The essays are as wide-ranging as Roger Kennedy's placement of the Toltec Mounds at the time of Charlemagne, Donald Harington's sensitive look at the "bigeminal" architecture of the Wolf dogtrot cabin, and Neil Compton's egalitarian tribute to the Boxley Valley Historic District on the Buffalo National River. At least one current color photo of the site and one historic image are included with each essay. In addition, illustrations of the locations or structures listed in the appendix are scattered throughout sections. In all, Sentinels of History serves as a lavish inventory of historic properties in Arkansas at the end of the twentieth century.
