The 13 Weirdest And Strangest Things That Have Ever Happened In Arkansas
By J.B. VanDyke|Published April 12, 2016
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J.B. VanDyke
Author
J.B. Weisenfels has lived in rural Arkansas for three decades. She is a writer, a mom, and a graduate student. She is also an avid collector of tacky fish whatnots, slightly chipped teapots, and other old things. In her spare time she enjoys driving to the nearest creek to sit a while. If you were to visit her, she'd try to feed you cornbread.
Arkansas is a cool place, and like all cool places, Arkansas has its fair share of oddities. Here are 13 of the weirdest things you might not know happened in the Natural State:
1. In Prescott, a traveling salesman named Mike, whose last name wasn’t known to anyone, was embalmed and put on display outside a funeral home. His corpse was nicknamed “Old Mike.” He died in 1911 and wasn’t buried until 1975.
2. In 1927 there was a really nasty flood that totally devastated millions of acres of Arkansas farmland. The Arkansas legislature responded by making it illegal for the Arkansas River to rise higher than the Main Street bridge in Little Rock.
To date, no one has yet attempted to arrest the river.
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3. In 2011, more than 1,000 blackbirds fell from the sky over Beebe, Arkansas. Why? Well, it’s the apocalypse, of course. No, it’s aliens. Maybe a secret government weapon? Actually, no one really knows.
6. In the late 1800s, hanging judge Isaac Parker, who was in charge of enforcing the rule of law in the Indian Territory, condemned 80 people to be hanged by the neck until they were dead. His gallows still stand and have become a tourist attraction.
8. Van Buren’s Fairview Cemetery has a very old grave. Does it belong to a Viking? To one of Hernando DeSoto’s men? Was it just some random early Van Burenite? Theories abound, but no one actually knows.
9. Since the 1950s, Arkansas has been trying to help its native bear population rebound. Somehow it’s become totally legal to kill a bear in Arkansas under the right circumstances. And totally illegal to wake one with flash photography.
