The old mountains of the Ouachita hold their own secrets, like these crumbling cliffs in Runestone Canyon. Photo © Bill Tiffee.

By Jeanne Devlin
Forest Magazine, March/April 2001

Straddling the Arkansas and Oklahoma border, the Ouachita National Forest may well be defined by what it doesn’t contain as by what it does. The Ouachita doesn’t have the 14,000-foot peaks of the San Juan Mountains in Colorado or the giant redwoods of Northern California. For those who know this national forest, what it does preserve is subtle: blossoming dogwoods, free-flowing streams, cypress stands and even the odd alligator. This is no dustbowl; its thick forests cover old mountains with their own secrets.

The Ouachita carries the distinction of being the oldest and largest national forest in the southern United States. And although it may lack the big-name appeal of national forests in the southern Appalachians, the Ouachita also lacks their hordes of visitors.

Its highest point, Magazine Mountain, rises 2,753 feet in the northeastern fringe of the forest in Arkansas. President Theodore Roosevelt designated the 1.8 million acres a national forest in 1907. Known as the Arkansas National Forest in those days, it was renamed Ouachita in 1926 for one of the mountain ranges it covers.

In some parts of the Ouachita, one is more likely to stumble onto a working moonshine still or a marijuana patch—southeastern Oklahoma’s largest cash crop—than another human.

People hang-glide off Rich Mountain, ride horses near Cedar Lake and scuba dive off the shores of Broken Bow Lake, but this forest remains more about subtleties and quirks than peaks or waterfalls or adventure travel. Its ecosystem covers one of the few east-west mountain ranges in the country, and its south slopes are covered in yellow pine, red and white oak and sturdy hickory. Its wetter opposing slopes blossom in spring with dogwoods and redbuds, gums and maples. Cypress grace the southernmost outpost of the Ouachita in Oklahoma near towns named Bokhoma, Hochatown and Tom by American Indians.

The Quapaw, Choctaw and Cherokee made their homes in the blue-tinted mountains and pine-covered hills. Crystal-strewn lakes are lined with limestone and filled with cold, clear water. Roaring mountain streams hold trout and a fly-fishing oasis. And just south of Broken Bow, the tepid, green creeks are known to spit forth the occasional American alligator. Here, too, runs the last free-flowing river in Oklahoma, the Glover.

Black bear, wild turkey, quail, eight species of woodpeckers and two types of deer thrive here, as do purple coneflowers, Queen Anne’s lace, verbena and the phlox known as wild sweet William. Freshwater mussels, leopard darters and the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker take refuge here.

Distinctive but overlooked, the Ouachita offers a surprise for the wilderness seeker. It offers an opportunity to find the solace that a national forest can provide away from the more lauded tracts hundreds, or thousands, of miles distant.

Forest Magazine | FSEEE