Mammoth Spring State Park
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The Mammoth Spring State Park is located right next to the town of Mammoth Spring in Fulton County of the U.S. state of Arkansas to 161 m altitude. The 25 -acre State Park contains at Mammoth Spring, the largest source of Arkansas with a bed of 10 m³ / s ( 9.78 million gallons per hour), a former hydroelectric plant, an old mill and a railroad museum.
The Osage already settled in the area thousands of years before the arrival of the first European settlers. In the early 1800s the source of white settlers " Head of the River " was called. 1850 examined the geologist David Dale Owen, the source and the area became a tourist attraction. The first industrial use was a simple wooden grist mill. West of the source area was the settlement Mammoth Spring and 1883 put the link to the St. Louis and San Francisco Railway Company ( Frisco ) an economic boom in motion.
A 69 m long dam dammed the water for a large flour mill, while the train and tourists were transported. For summer guests from Tennessee, Missouri, St. Louis and Memphis hotels and guest houses were built. 1903 was built at the other side of the railway line with the Mammoth Spring National Fish Hatchery, the first national fish farms of Arkansas. 1925 acquired the Arkansas - Missouri Power Company the rights to use the dam and built a hydroelectric power plant that generated electricity by the year 1972.
In 1957, the authorization for a State Park was granted, although until 1966 the land was acquired to it. The railroad depot of the disused railway was leased added in 1968 and 1975, the most of the land acquisition was completed. Since 1972, the site is registered as a National Natural Landmark. On March 16, 1987, the tenth Arkansas Welcome Center opened adjacent to the U.S. Highway 63 and still within sight of the neighboring state of Missouri, which is adjacent to the park in the north.
Beginning of 2009 was partially damaged by winter storms the trees of the park. Cleanup, additional measures for fire prevention and reforestation may affect the recovery of the park in the following months at times.
The Quelltopf the Mammoth Spring is 21 m deep and the water flows at a constant temperature of 14 ° C in the Spring River. Dyeing tests have shown that a portion of the water in the outcrop just 15 km north Grand Gulf State Park flows previously as an underground river in a cave.