The St. Francis River in eastern Arkansas is, for much of its length, a slow and muddy waterway, but this modest river has borne witness to some of the most important developments in Arkansas history.
The year was 1939, and the devastating floods of 1927 and 1937 were still on the minds of northeast Arkansas residents. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers performed one of its greatest engineering feats that year to solve a problem.