Lost Valley

My An Arkie's Faith column from the November 8, 2023, issue of The Polk County Pulse.

Abraham Clark settled near the Buffalo River in Arkansas sometime in the 1830s or 40s. Records from those early days in Arkansas are scarce. He built a small cabin near a tributary of the Buffalo. Families who settled in the Buffalo River region had to work hard to make it. The land could provide food, but it wasn’t easy to make money. Some families grew cotton and some harvested plants like goldenseal, ginseng, sassafras, and slippery elm to sell to dealers. The rugged terrain made it difficult to move goods.

We don’t know much about Abraham Clark, but the tributary of the Buffalo River, where he first settled, is named for him. This intermittent stream, called Clark Creek, plunges 1,200 feet in the 3-mile stretch from its source to its confluence with the Buffalo River.

It was one of Abraham’s descendants who guided a group of government surveyors up the creek in 1898. He led them to an enormous rock shelter. Deep in its dry interior, they noticed bushel upon bushel of tiny corn cobs left centuries earlier by Native Americans. The locals named the rock formation Cob Cave. 

In 1931, archeologist Samuel C. Dellinger led an expedition from the University of Arkansas to the cave, looking for Native American artifacts. He spent three weeks digging in the deepest section of the Cob Cave. Dellinger and his team uncovered many corn cobs, and an assortment of gourds, sunflower seeds, and woven baskets. The artifacts had been preserved due to the site’s arid conditions. The collections, made possible by a grant from the Carnegie Foundation, are still used today by researchers examining the food and fiber practices of Native Americans.

In the spring of 1945, Arkansas state publicist Avantus Green arranged for a National Geographic staff photographer, Willard Culver, to visit the Buffalo River area. Green had heard rumors of Cob Cave and decided to take his guest to the remote location. Not only did they find Cob Cave after a strenuous hike, but they also found a series of waterfalls beyond the rock shelter and another cavern with an underground cascade. Even though National Geographic decided not to use any of Culver’s photographs taken that day, Green was impressed with the area’s spectacular beauty and named it The Lost Valley.

Green’s press releases about The Lost Valley caught the attention of Margaret Maunder, a feature writer for the St. Louis Globe-Democrat. In April 1946, she traveled to Little Rock, where she met Green and Harold Foxhall, an Arkansas state geologist. The trio drove to Harrison and then to the valley of Clark Creek the following day. The Sunday, June 2, 1946, edition of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat included a full-page article describing the adventure, along with six photographs.

The first paragraph of Margaret Maunder’s article read, “Oddly enough, in a country combed by the wandering footpaths of 140,000,000 people, there still exist spots of rugged yet ethereal beauty, virtually unknown to present-day Americans. One of these is the newly discovered Lost Valley in the verdant, rocky wilderness of northwestern Arkansas, scarcely more than 325 miles from the heart of St. Louis. Here, as recently as one year ago, mighty waterfalls cascaded over cliff-like palisades as tall as 40-story buildings and pounded on ancient slabs of pure marble many feet below all without their thundering roar touching the eardrums or their sun-glistening beauty catching the eye of modern man.”

In the early 1950s, students from the University of Arkansas began making the arduous trip from Fayetteville to explore this special place they kept hearing about. One of them was Kenneth L. Smith, who, in the summer of 1958, wrote two articles on Lost Valley for the Sunday Magazine published by the Arkansas Gazette. 

In 1960, commercial logging within sight of Cob Cave galvanized public support for protecting the property. In 1966, Gov. Orval Faubus announced a 200-acre purchase establishing Lost Valley State Park. In 1973, this park was given to the National Park Service for inclusion in the Buffalo National River.

Today, Lost Valley is a popular destination with an easy-to-moderate trail leading to Cob Cave and Eden Falls. The round-trip hike of a little over 2 miles is jam-packed with fascinating photo ops: caves, springs, waterfalls, bluffs, a rock shelter, and a natural bridge. When Margaret Maunder described Lost Valley as “one of the most scenically beautiful spots between the two oceans,” she wasn’t exaggerating.  

I have made the beautiful hike along Clark’s Creek to Cob Cave several times. I spent last weekend in the Buffalo River area. We had family visiting from Oregon and wanted to show them some of the beauty that Arkansas has to offer. The weekend was rainy and gloomy, but we didn’t let the weather dampen our spirits.

On Sunday, the group decided to hike the Lost Valley Trail in the rain. I couldn’t do the hike because of my recent knee replacement surgery, but those who went had a great time, even in the rain. They took flashlights with them so they could explore the cave. I’m so thankful that this beautiful location is now easily accessible to so many. A friend told me, “I guess if they named it, it isn't really lost anymore.”

There was a time when the Bible wasn’t easily accessible. Only a select few could read it. The Church discouraged people from reading the Bible on their own. This policy intensified through the Middle Ages and later, with the addition of a prohibition forbidding translation of the Bible into native languages. The Council of Toulouse (1229 C.E.) declared, "We prohibit also that the laity should be permitted to have the books of the Old or New Testament; but we most strictly forbid their having any translation of these books."

Although much of the world now has easy access to the Bible, in over 50 countries, it is either illegal to own or challenging to get Bibles. I’m thankful that I can easily purchase Bibles and access many translations for free over the internet.  

Gentle Reader, if you are looking for a beautiful hike in Arkansas, I recommend the Lost Valley Trail. And if you are looking for hidden gems of wisdom, I recommend The Bible. God says, “Listen to what I say, and treasure my commands. Tune your ears to wisdom and concentrate on understanding. Cry out for insight and ask for understanding. Search for them as you would for silver; seek them like hidden treasures.” Proverbs 2:1-4 (NLT)