Arkansas's areas of forested wilderness are much the same as those de Soto discovered in 1541. In the lovely Ozark and Ouachita mountain ranges, separated by the Arkansas River, there are splendid forests. Pine and hardwood trees shade streams filled with enough black bass, bream, and trout to restore any angler's faith. There are deer, geese, ducks, and quail to hunt and feast on in season. Ducks fly over eastern Arkansas, and such towns as Stuttgart make a big event of hunting them. The White River National Wildlife Refuge east of here is a wilderness area. Caves, springs, meadows, valleys, bayous, rice and cotton fields, and magnificent lakes and rivers dot the state. For an enjoyable backwoods vacation, the visitor can hardly do better than a choice of either a quiet rustic resort or cosmopolitan Hot Springs National Park—the renowned spa dedicated to sophisticated pleasures as well as therapeutic treatment.

Arkansas is one of the major producers of bromine brine in the United States. In addition, a large amount of crude oil and bauxite (aluminum ore) comes from Arkansas every year. Sixty useful tree varieties grow here, and timber is big business. In fact, practically every crop except citrus fruit is cultivated on its acres, including rice, strawberries, peaches, grapes, apples, cotton, soybeans, sorghum, and wheat. Arkansas is also a state plentiful in raw materials and has the only diamond field in North America open to the public. Preserved as Crater of Diamonds State Park (see MURFREESBORO), visitors may dig for diamonds on a "finders, keepers" basis.

Because Arkansas was remote, of rugged terrain, and slightly off-track of the western surge of frontier expansion, the area was slow to develop. After the Spaniards came the French—Marquette and Jolliet visited the territory in 1673, and La Salle took possession for France in 1682. The first permanent settlement was made by Henri de Tonty in 1686 at Arkansas Post (see), which today is a national memorial. It was not until 1804, a year after Arkansas and the rest of the Louisiana Purchase had become US property, that the government paid any attention to the area. A United States headquarters was established at Arkansas Post; in 1819 the Arkansas Territory was organized and two years later the capital was moved to Little Rock.