After months of reverses, the Union army was going on the offensive in the spring of 1862 as General McClellan prepared for his Peninsula Campaign.

In Tennessee, General Grant had just captured Ft. Henry and Ft. Donelson; and in southwestern Missouri, Gen. Samuel R. Curtis had driven Sterling Price and his Missouri State Guard out of the state and into the arms of General Ben McCulloch's Confederate army in northwestern Arkansas. Using the united armies of Price and McCulloch, the new Confederate department commander, Earl Van Dorn, struck back at Curtis' Federal army which was now outnumbered and two hundred miles from its supply base. For two days in early March 1862, the armies of Van Dorn and Curtis fought in the wilds of the Ozark Mountains at a place called Pea Ridge. Control of northern Arkansas and southern Missouri for the rest of the war hung on the outcome.

The History Behind the Names

The place names of Arkansas reflect four centuries of settlement and human response to the state’s unique geography. Each new group of settlers brought their own rich memories, heritage and hopes for a better life, all of which manifested in the names of the places they encountered and the towns that grew. Merchants and businessmen (and women), especially railroad officials, eagerly attached their own names to the new stations and towns that sprang up in the late nineteenth century, while bureaucratic bumbles and confused legends led to unique names. And all the while, irrepressible humor combined with local patois to generate names like Greasy Corner, Oil Trough, Pig Eye, and Smackover. Arkansas place names provide a rich treasury for residents and visitors seeking to better know the history and popular culture of the Bear State.

Join author Heather Woodward as she breathes life into Arkansas’s derelict places, weaving tales of pioneer grit, oddball history and paranormal whispers. Wander into the neglected corners of Northwest Arkansas, where forgotten towns, crumbling ruins and eerie legends converge. Explore ghostly locales like Rush’s empty mines, the long-forgotten history of War Eagle Mill and East Calico Rock’s “ghost town within a town.” Step into the haunting past of Monte Ne, a sunken resort swallowed by Beaver Lake, or feel the residual chill of the Boone Tuberculosis Sanitarium. From the relics of Dinosaur World to the quirky remains of Dogpatch USA, uncover the weird, tragic and unexplained.

From a hot springs attraction to a central location for gangsters, gambling, moonshine and organized crime, trace the evolution of this "loose buckle in the Bible belt", now a resort and major tourist destination.

In the late 1800s, Hot Springs, Arkansas, was a small town with a big attraction: hot thermal water. The federal government took possession of the downtown-area springs, and bathhouse row was born, along with the first property that would be considered a national park. Following not too far behind were great entrepreneurs who brought in gambling and prostitution to go with the area's leading industry: moonshining. By the time the 20th century rolled in, Hot Springs was booming with tourists and became America's first resort. In the early 1930s, former New York gangster Owen Madden took up residence in the spa city, and things became very organized. Gangland luminaries from Al Capone to Frank Costello made regular pilgrimages over the next few decades to what was referred to as "the loose buckle in the Bible Belt."