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A
joint project of the University of Arkansas Press and the
Ozark Society Foundation.
A portion of the proceeds from the sale of this book will
be donated to support the Neil Compton Scholarship in Natural
Sciences at the University of Arkansas.
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The
Battle for the Buffalo River
The Story of America’s First National River
Second Edition
Neil
Compton
With a New Foreword by Kenneth L. Smith
Back in print and in paperback,
how the Buffalo River became America’s first national
river
“All of us who have been on it love it. It would be
sheer desecration to
destroy it by a dam or otherwise. It should be kept in perpetuity
as a
remnant of the ancient Ozarks unspoiled by man. Its fast waters
and its idyllic pools make it a bit of heaven on earth.”
—William O. Douglas, Associate Justice,
U.S. Supreme Court
“The Buffalo River is no stranger to me. I hiked along
its banks from Ponca to Jasper back in 1926 when I made a
series of sketches about rural American life. Some of these
sketches appeared in my book, An Artist in America.
I love this country.”
—Thomas Hart Benton, Artist
“This book is a ‘must read’ for conservationists,
canoeists, hikers, and all who simply enjoy a finely told
story.”
—Dwight T. Pitcaithley, former chief,
Cultural Resources, National Park Service
“Masterful . . . [this book] is a testament to the efforts
of conservationists and also a blueprint for citizen groups
facing similar threats.”
—Forest & Conservation History
Under the auspices of the 1938 Flood Control Act, the U.S.
Corps of Engineers began to pursue an aggressive dam-building
campaign. A grateful public generally lauded their efforts,
but when they turned their attention to Arkansas’s Buffalo
River, the vocal opposition their proposed projects generated
dumbfounded them. Never before had anyone challenged the Corps’s
assumption that damming a river was an improvement.
Led by Neil Compton, a physician in Bentonville, Arkansas,
a group of area conservationists formed the Ozark Society
to join the battle for the Buffalo. This book is the account
of this decade-long struggle that drew in such political figures
as supreme court justice William O. Douglas, Senator J. William
Fulbright, and Governor Orval Faubus. The battle finally ended
in 1972 with President Richard Nixon’s designation of
the Buffalo as the first national river.
Drawing on hundreds of personal letters, photographs, maps,
newspaper articles, and reminiscences, Compton’s lively
book details the trials, gains, setbacks, and ultimate triumph
in one of the first major skirmishes between environmentalists
and developers.
Neil Compton
(1912–1999) was also the author of The
High Ozarks: A Vision of Eden. He received the National
Wildlife Federation’s National Conservation Achievement
Award and was a President George H. W. Bush Point of Light
Recipient for his community service, and in 1990 President
Bush presented him with the Teddy Roosevelt Conservation Award.
Kenneth L. Smith
is the author of Buffalo
River Handbook, The
Buffalo River Country, and Illinois
River, and Sawmill:
The Story of Cutting the Last Great Virgin Forest East of
the Rockies.
June
7 x 10, 496 pages, 90 photographs,
3 maps, index
$29.95 paper
ISBN 978-1-55728-935-3
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