62 Awesome and Interesting Facts & Trivia About Arkansas
America was halfway completed when Arkansas became the 25th state in 1836, and we have way more than 25 facts about it! We’ve talked about Illinois, Georgia, Colorado, Massachusetts, Delaware, Maryland, and other states. Continuing the Content Bash series on facts about all 50 Nifty United States — after Alabama, Alaska, and Arizona — is Arkansas, 4th in the alphabetical list and perhaps 4th in your hearts, as well.
What is Arkansas known for?
1. The Natural State! From the Ozark Mountains to the limestone caves of Blanchard Springs Caverns, there is a lot of beautiful scenery and gorgeous wilderness in Arkansas. That’s why it’s nicknamed the Natural State — and not for no reason. Mother Nature has given Arkansas over 600,000 acres of lakes, as well as 9,700 miles of rivers and streams.
2. Bill Clinton! The 42nd president of the United States was born in Hope, Arkansas on August 19, 1946. After graduating from Yale Law School in 1973, Bubba returned to Arkansas and served as its Attorney General from 1977 to 1979. Bill Clinton then served as the governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981, and then again from 1983 to 1992. In 2004, the William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Museum opened in Little Rock, Arkansas. It contains the largest archives of any presidential library.
3. The University of Arkansas Razorbacks! College football is pretty big in this part of the United States, and Arkansas folks love the Razorbacks, and the football team alumni includes Hall of Famers like Steve Atwater, Dan Hampton, and Lance Alworth. If you think you are smart enough and/or good enough at football to go to the University of Arkansas then go ahead and apply to them.
4. The Little Rock Nine. In 1954, the United States Supreme Court declared that segregated schools were unconstitutional. Three years later, the Little Rock Nine — Melba Pattillo Beals, Jefferson Thomas, Minnijean Brown, Terrence Roberts, Elizabeth Eckford, Thelma Mothershed, Ernest Green, Gloria Ray Karlmark, and Carlotta Walls LaNier — were the first Black students to integrate previously all-white schools.
What are the official state symbols of Arkansas?
5. In 1985, the fiddle was designated as the official state instrument of Arkansas.
6. Suzanne Underwood Rhodes is the current State Poet Laureate of Arkansas. Suzanne’s poems have been collected in What a Light Thing, This Stone (1995) and Flying Yellow (2021) and you should totally buy them.
Click on the bee to buy Flying Yellow by Suzanne Underwood Rhodes!
7. The apple blossom was designated the official state flower of Arkansas in 1901. It also happens to be the state flower of Michigan.
8. The mockingbird is the official state bird of Arkansas in 1929. This is not exactly an original choice, as Florida, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Texas have also designated the mockingbird as their bird.
9. Dairy farming plays a big role in Arkansas agriculture and to encourage and support its consumption, milk was declared the official state beverage in 1985. In 2013, raw milk became legal for sale in the state. Milk also happens to be the official beverage of Delaware.
10. No less than 10 states have declared a type of pine tree to be their official state tree, and Arkansas is one of them. They designated the loblolly pine as its official tree in 1939, which happens to be the second-most common species of tree in the United States after the red maple.
11. The Arkansas state flag was adopted over 100 years ago on February 26, 1913, with the most recent modification made in 2011. It was created by this schoolteacher in Wabbaseka, Arkansas named Willie K. Hocker. Here is a gif of the flag billowing in the digital breeze!
12. The Arkansas state anthem, which was adopted in 1987, is the aptly-named “Arkansas” by Eva Ware Barnett.
13. Arkansas has a state historical song called “The Arkansas Traveler” by Sanford C. Faulkner that was adopted in 1987.
14. Arkansas actually has two state songs — which are not to be confused with the state historical song and/or the state anthem — and they are called “Oh, Arkansas” and “Arkansas (You Run Deep in Me),” officially recognized in 1987.
15. Arkansas named the dutch oven as the official state cooking vessel in 2001, that cast iron kitchen instrument that was a staple in most Arkansas homes by the time it became a state in 1836. Do you have a cast iron dutch oven in your kitchen? If not, you should buy one right now! We will provide a link to a high-quality one to make it easier for you.
16. Did you know that Arkansas has an official dance? It’s the square dance. Did you also know that square dancing also happens to be the official dance of Alabama, Colorado, Connecticut, and Georgia, as well as Idaho, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, and Missouri? And Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and Oregon, too, as well as Tennessee and Texas? And Utah? And Virginia as well? And also Washington state, too! That’s more than 40% of all of the states!
17. Arkansas is the only state in the country where you can find actual real live diamonds so it makes sense that they were made the official gem in 1967.
18. Guess what the state insect of Arkansas is? That’s right, the honey bee! Guess when it was made official? That’s right, 1973!
19. The white-tailed deer was plentiful all over Arkansas land once upon a time, sustaining the Native American population for untold centuries and generations. But because white people ruin everything, just a few hundred white-tailed deer were still around in Arkansas in the 1930s. Thankfully, the population rebounded to over a million by 2008 and in the meantime, Arkansas made the white-tailed deer its official state mammal in 1993.
Arkansas Topography & Geography
20. The capital of Arkansas is Little Rock. It’s also the biggest city.
21. Other highly-populated and more well-known cities in Arkansas in addition to Little Rock include Fort Smith, Fayetteville, Jonesboro, Springdale, Pine Bluff, and Hot Springs.
22. The highest point in Arkansas is funly-named Mount Magazine, which is 2,753 feet above sea level.
23. At 605 miles long, the Ouachita River is the 25th-longest river in the United States, from western Arkansas to the Tensas River near Jonesville, Louisiana. It also contains the lowest point in the state, at just 55 feet above sea level.
24. At 53,179 square miles, Arkansas is the 29th largest state by area.
25. There are 75 counties in Arkansas, and four (4) congressional districts.
26. Want to drive through Arkansas? It’s about 240 miles from north to south, and 270 miles from east to west.
27. Arkansas is full of amazing waterfalls like Cedar Falls, which is located in Petit Jean State Park in Conway County. There’s also Cougar Falls in the Ozark National Forest, and Eden Falls in Buffalo National River Park. Waterfall chasers will find a lot of marvel in Arkansas.
Early History of Arkansas Facts
28. The very very first indigenous peoples that inhabited present-day Arkansas appeared around all the way back in woolly mammoth times in 11,700 B.C.
29. in 1541, Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto became the first European to wander Arkansas land. De Soto met resistance from the Native population and when trying to convince the natives he was some sort of sun god did not work, he fled back to the Mississippi River with his men and died not long after in May 1542.
30. In 1681 — a few years after Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet found the Arkansas River in 1673 but turned around — Robert La Salle claimed the Mississippi River for New France in April 1862. Basically that means this part of the United States actually belonged to France.
31. Henri de Toni established the very first European settlement in Arkansas in 1686, near the confluence of the Mississippi and Arkansas Rivers.
32. With the Treat of Fontainebleau in 1762, the Kingdom of France ceded the Louisiana Territory (including Arkansas) to Spain in exchange for Florida.
33. The Louisiana Territory — which included Arkansas — went to Napoleon Bonaparte in 1800 as part of the Third Treaty of San Ildefonso.
34. All of Arkansas was sold by Napoleon Bonaparte to the United States in 1803 as part of the Louisiana Purchase. The $15-million-dollar deal for 828,000 square miles of land also included the entirety of Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Nebraska. The insanely high return of investment the United States got for their money cannot be overstated. It’s perhaps the best real estate deal like of all time.
35. Arkansas is the 25th state, and it was admitted to the Union on June 15, 1836.
36. You’ve probably noticed that the state is spelled the same way as Kansas with two extra letters in front — but with a completely different pronunciation. That’s because the name comes from the Arkansas River, which came from the French term Arcansas. That, in turn, came from akansa, which was the Algonquian term for the Quapaw people, who settled there around the 13th century. The Arkansas state legislature even defined the officially pronunciation in 1881.
Places to Visit in Arkansas
37. Want to mine for your own diamonds and keep what you find? You can do that in Murfreesboro at the Crater of Diamonds State Park, the only diamond mining site in the world that’s open to the public.
38. The Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas has a little something for all fans and students of American art. Its frankly astonishing permanent collection contains pieces by heavyweights like John Singer Sargent, Georgia O’Keeffe, Norman Rockwell, Roy Lichtenstein, Winslow Homer, Jasper Johns, and Andy Warhol.
39. A giant bronze statue of Popeye was erected in Alma, Arkansas in 2007 because the town claims to be the spinach capital of the world. You can totally travel to Alma and see for yourself.
40. The Beatles once had a two-day layover in Arkansas, landing at Walnut Ridge Airport for their only visit to the state in 1964, but it was such a big deal to Arkansans that the town dedicated a park to them and even built a sculpture. Beatles Park is located at 110 Abbey Road in Walnut Ridge, and the sculpture — created by local artist Danny West — is a silhouette replication of their famous street-crossing image from Abbey Road.
41. Tiny Town Trains in Hot Springs, Arkansas is the lifelong work of Frank and Louise Moshinskie, who created a big-ass miniature town out of household scrap items like toothpicks, clothespins and spools, as well as motors repurposed to power the model trains that run through. Today, Tiny Town is run and maintained by the Moshinskie children, who still host charmed visitors.
42. Literature nerds will want to check out the Hemingway-Pfeiffer Museum and Educational Center in Piggott, Arkansas. Pauline Pfeiffer, who was Ernest Hemingway’s second wife, came from well-to-do family that owned over 60,000 acres of Northeastern Arkansas land. Ernest Hemingway wrote a big chunk of A Farewell to Arms in the barn here, and it was named to the National Historic Register in 1982. Visitors curious to get a glimpse into Hemingway’s day-to-day life are going to be fascinated by this place.
43. The Museum of Native American History in Bentonville, Arkansas was founded in 2006 to celebrate more 10,000 artifacts that cover more than 24,000 years of Native American history and culture — from Paleo to Archaic to Woodlands to Mississippian to Historic to Pre-Columbian periods. It’s a labor of love for Cherokee Nation member David Bogle, who supplements his private collection of Native American artifacts with other donated and on-loan collections.
What famous people are from Arkansas?
44. The incomparable legendary country singer-songwriter Johnny Cash was born in Kingsland, Arkansas on February 26, 1932.
45. Prominent movie-making folks with Arkansas roots include Oscar-winning actress Mary Steenburgen (born in Newport), filmmaker David Gordon Green (born in Little Rock), Dolemite actor Rudy Ray Moore (born in Fort Smith), actor Billy Bob Thornton (born in Hot Springs), and Rodger Bumpass (born in Little Rock), who is the person who voices Squidwad Tentacles on SpongeBob SquarePants.
46. Legal thriller novelist John Grisham has sold more than 300 million copies of his dozens of published titles. He was born in Jonesboro, Arkansas.
47. Hall of Fame athletes who were born in Arkansas include St. Louis Cardinal speedster Lou Brock (born in El Dorado), Baltimore Orioles 3B Brooks Robinson (born in Arkansas), and Chicago Bulls superstar Scottie Pippen (born in Hamburg).
48. Former Surgeon General of the United States Joycelyn Elders was the first Black person to serve in the person. She expressed very progressive views on abortion and drug legalization, and was forced to resigned when she dared to suggest that masturbation maybe should be part of a healthy sex education. Anyway, she was born in Schaal, Arkansas.
49. The art of rug-hooking was developed and perfected by Arkansas resident Helen Martin King. She dedicated her life to this craft, studying all the materials she could get her hands on and creating hundreds of original designs and patterns. Helen learned to mix dyes and even served as a consultant to textile mills and dye companies to produce fabric materials to meet her exact specifications. She was featured in Life and National Geographic in the 1940s and in 1948, she published How to Hook Rugs, which is still available for purchase today.
50. A handful of prominent jazz musicians are from Arkansas. These include trombonist Snub Mosley (who was born in Little Rock and played with Louis Armstrong and Fats Waller), saxophonist Pharoah Sanders (who was born in Little Rock and played with John Coltrane), and free jazz tenor saxophonist Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre (born in Clarksville). Jazz composer, songwriter, and arranger Bob Dorough — who worked with Miles Davis and performed a lot of the songs in the Schoolhouse Rock! series — was born in Cherry Hill, Arkansas. And Red Holloway was a saxophonist born in Helena who played with Chuck Berry, Aretha Franklin, Muddy Waters, and Billie Holiday.
Fun, Cool & Weird Facts about Arkansas
51. The World’s Championship Duck Calling Contest has been held in Stuttgart, Arkansas every year since 1936. Fifteen (15) duck-callers have won the championship multiple times.
52. Those with an interest in cryptozoology will find lots to be fascinated by the Fouke Monster. Also dubbed as the Boggy Creek Monster, sightings of the Bigfoot-like creature have been reported around the small town of Fouke, Arkansas since 1908, and have persisted for over a century. It was also the subject of the 1972 film The Legend of Boggy Creek.
53. The first cheese dip was created at a restaurant in Hot Springs, Arkansas in 1935. Seventy-five years later in 2010, the first World Cheese Dip Championship was held in North Little Rock, where it has continued annually since.
54. There was once a theme park called Dogpatch USA in Marble Falls, Arkansas that was based on the old Li’l Abner comic strip. It opened in 1968 with the blessing of Li’l Abner creator Al Capp, but there were concerns from state officials about the park encouraging and reinforcing negative stereotypes of rustic Arkansas culture at a time when Green Acres and The Beverly Hillbillies were hit television shows. The park was successful for a little while and despite optimism that it would see over a million visitors a year, it barely reached a fifth of that, and the park took a hit when Capp retired his comic strip in 1977. It passed through different ownerships and managed to hang around until 1993 when it closed permanently. Many attempts to sell and rejuvenate the land since then have been unsuccessful — including in 2002 when the site was placed on eBay but received zero bids.
55. If you know someone from Arkansas, they’ll likely refer to themselves as an Arkansan.
56. There’s some baseball history associated with Hot Springs, Arkansas, which has been referred to as the birthplace of Spring Training. Way back in 1886, the Chicago White Stockings (which you know as the current Chicago Cubs), traveled to Hot Springs to prepare for the upcoming season. Many other teams soon followed over the next couple decades, including a few Negro League teams. It was also the town Babe Ruth reinvented his career. A successful pitcher coming off an excellent season, he was a last-minute substitution at first base at an exhibition game — his first position playing anywhere other than pitcher — and ended up hitting two very long home runs, one of which that landed in the Arkansas Alligator Farm and Petting Zoo some 573 away from home plate.
57. A 2019 poll at Big 7 Travel asked participants for their opinion of the friendliest states and unfortunately, Arkansas placed next-to-last at 49th, between Delaware and New York. This conflicts with the state’s reputation for southern hospitality so Content Bash readers are encouraged to travel and see for yourselves and report back with your findings.
58. There are many counties in Arkansas that are dry, meaning you can’t buy liquor unless it’s from a private club that has a permit. Even in the wet counties, there are exceptions within certain townships where you cannot purchase alcohol. There is a push to change this, though.
59. Municipal cow-walking laws in Little Rock, Arkansas are very specific and restricted to certain hours of the day. You are advised not to walk your cow in the morning between 4 a.m. and 9 a.m., and in the evenings between 4 p.m. and 10 p.m. You’re allowed to walk your cow between noon and 1 p.m., but that window of time is probably way too short to get your cow out long enough for a sufficient constitutional.
60. Arkansas is the leading producer of rice in the United States, accounting for at least 40% of all rice production in the country, according to the folks at Arkansas Farm Bureau. There are over 2,500 rice farms in the state that produce over nine billion pounds of rice each year.
61. Films that were shot in Arkansas include Roger Corman’s Bloody Mama (1970), which starred a young Robert De Niro; Elia Kazan’s A Face in the Crowd (1957), and Jeff Nichol’s fantastic Mud (2012).
62. Other notable films that were shot in Arkansas include Norman Jewison’s A Soldier’s Story (1983), Martin Scorcese’s Boxcar Bertha (1972), and Mike Nichol’s direction of Neil Simon’s Biloxi Blues (1988).
Cover Image Credit: Photo by Booth Kates from Pixabay
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