Mammoth Spring State Park
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Mammoth Spring State Park
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.JPG) Spring pot of Mammoth Spring |
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| location | Fulton County in Arkansas (USA) | |
| surface | 25 ha | |
| Geographical location | 36 ° 30 ′ N , 91 ° 32 ′ W | |
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| Setup date | since 1972 National Natural Landmark | |
| administration | Division of State Parks, Arkansas Dept. of Parks and Tourism | |
The Mammoth Spring State Park is located directly next to the town of Mammoth Spring in Fulton County of the US state Arkansas at 161 m altitude. The 25 hectare state park contains Mammoth Spring, Arkansas' largest spring with a discharge of 10 m³ / s (9.78 million gallons per hour), a former hydroelectric power station , an old mill and a railway museum.
The Osage populated the area thousands of years before the first European settlers arrived. In the early 1800s, the spring was called "Head of the River" by white settlers. In 1850, geologist David Dale Owen investigated the source and the area became a tourist attraction. The first industrial use was a simple wooden grist mill . To the west of the headwaters, the settlement of Mammoth Spring was built and in 1883 the connection to the St. Louis and San Francisco Railway Company (Frisco) started an economic upswing.
A 69 m long dam dammed the water for a large flour mill, while tourists were also transported by train. Hotels and guest houses were built for summer visitors from Tennessee, Missouri, St. Louis and Memphis. In 1903, Arkansas's first national fish farm was built on the other side of the railway line with the Mammoth Spring National Fish Hatchery . In 1925, the Arkansas-Missouri Power Company acquired the rights to use the dam and built a hydroelectric power station that produced electricity until 1972.
In 1957 the permit for a state park was granted, although the land was not acquired until 1966. The railway depot of the disused railway was leased in 1968 and most of the land acquisitions were completed in 1975. The site has been registered as a National Natural Landmark since 1972 . On March 16, 1987, the tenth Arkansas Welcome Center opened right next to US Highway 63 and still within sight of the neighboring state of Missouri , which borders the park to the north.
In early 2009, some of the park's trees were severely damaged by winter storms . Clean-up work, additional fire prevention measures and reforestation can temporarily impair the recreational character of the park in the following months.
The source of the pot Mammoth Spring is 21 m deep and the water flows at a constant temperature of 14 ° C in the Spring River . Coloring tests have shown that some of the emerging water previously flows as an underground river into a cave in the Grand Gulf State Park, 15 km to the north .
References
- ↑ http://www.nature.nps.gov/nnl/Registry/USA_Map/States/Arkansas/NNL/MS/index.cfm
- ↑ http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=1238
- ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original dated July 6, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ http://gorp.away.com/gorp/location/ar/parks/mammoth.htm
Web links
- Mammoth Spring State Park at arkansasstateparks.com
- Photos on Flickr
- Storm damage in 2009 in the park