USA Guide
The South
Arkansas
Southeast to northwest, Arkansas' geography undulates, rising from the alluvial floodplains of the Delta to the forested hills of the Ozark Mountains and ultimately giving way to the Great Plains. Unlike the Southern states on the east side of the Mississippi River, Arkansas (the correct pronunciation is "Arkansaw" according to a state law from 1881) remained sparsely populated until the 1880s when railroads opened up the interior and settlers began to move toward urban centers. The combined forces of the Great Depression and industrial mechanization eventually forced thousands of farmers to leave their fields in the early decades of the 1900s, allowing Arkansas to begin to develop an industrial economic base. Historically, Arkansas belongs firmly to the American South. It sided with the Confederacy during the Civil War, and its capital, Little Rock, was, in 1957, one of the most notorious flashpoints in the struggle for civil rights. But it was in 1992 that local boy Bill Clinton's accession to the presidency catapulted Arkansas to 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. Each of these sites is included in the "Billgrimage": a tour, complete with an Arkansas Passport (also available at Arkansas Visitors Centers and the Clinton Presidential Library) that is stamped at each site.
Though Arkansas encompasses the Mississippi Delta in the east, oil-rich timber lands in the south, and the sweeping Ouachita ("Wash-ih-taw") Mountains in the west, the cragged and charismatic Ozark Mountains in the north are its most scenic asset, abounding with parks, lakes, rivers and streams.
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