Traveling across the state, one is amazed by the beauty of the Natural State and what it has to offer. Larger, well-developed metropolitan areas such as Fayetteville, Jonesboro and the Little Rock area interspersed with smaller towns and rich farmlands serve to remind us that we are far removed from the backward hillbilly image by which we have frequently been portrayed. That image, perhaps fomented by some of our earliest historians, has survived to the present time.