Mines and graveyard tell history in the Lower Buffalo Wilderness

Special to the Democrat-Gazette/BOB ROBINSON
Bill Steward of Sherwood, retired from the mining supply business, finds an artifact from a distant time in an F-100 parked near Cow Creek among a cluster of equally well maintained vehicles in the Lower Buffalo Wilderness.
Special to the Democrat-Gazette/BOB ROBINSON Bill Steward of Sherwood, retired from the mining supply business, finds an artifact from a distant time in an F-100 parked near Cow Creek among a cluster of equally well maintained vehicles in the Lower Buffalo Wilderness.

Hikers who like to explore Arkansas' Ozark Mountains by map and compass rather than trails have given the Buffalo National River's headwaters the nod as a spectacular place to bushwhack. With the Upper Buffalo Wilderness lining the banks of the river at its origin, the forest abounds in natural marvels, panoramas, waterfalls.

But 100 river miles downstream, the national waterway carves through a larger and yet less visited wonderland: the Lower Buffalo Wilderness.

Add to the 22,500 acres of the Lower Buffalo Wilderness the 16,956 acres of the adjoining Leatherwood Wilderness and this is the largest wilderness zone in the lower 48 states. It's an almost 40,000-acre protected territory that has been closed to commercial activities, mechanical tools and motorized vehicles for almost 40 years.

The Lower Buffalo gives hikers an opportunity to step back in time and experience the Ozarks somewhat as our forefathers did.

However, the yin and yang of it is that lacking established, maintained trails and motorized transportation, one does not just leap out of one's car to have a quick look-see.

The lower wilderness is not exactly a day-hike destination. Besides, a day hike in the area is the equivalent of only licking the meringue off a slice of lemon pie. Better to allow a minimum of two to three days for a visit, or even longer if you have the time.

And then prepare.

GET A MAP

A must for any hike into the area is a copy of the National Geographic Trails Illustrated "East Half" map for the Buffalo National River, from Woolum to the White River (available on the Ozark Society's website, ozarksociety.net, for $11.95).

Spread the map across your kitchen table to study its topographical contour lines, seeking those which closely parallel one another, for this is a flag to a place you will want to visit.

Note the intriguing place names such as Dead Horse Gap, Sheep Jump Bluff, Dark Hollow.

Now mark a big X strategically in the middle of the areas that are calling out to you to explore. This will be the home base for your Lower Buffalo Wilderness adventure.

LAY OF THE LAND

The Lower Buffalo Wilderness straddles the Buffalo River at its southern end, but with its larger acreage north of the river. So unless you are traveling by boat, or you want to wade across, you will reach the area from the north.

Most hiker-friendly entry points, without trespassing on private land, are east of Yellville. After driving six miles on U.S. 62/412, turn south on Arkansas 101, which becomes Marion County 6064. After following this road for 11.4 miles, you pass a parking area on the left, which many use to enter the wilderness. This is the parking indicated on the "East Half" map, although the map identifies the road as County Road 662.

Just over a mile more on MC 6064, where it intersects MC 6061, there is another entrance better suited to exploring one of my favorite hiking areas.

The entrance to the Lower Buffalo Wilderness is up the steep hill to your left, leading to a radio antenna. There is a locked gate about a tenth of a mile up the hill, and parking is limited, so parking at the intersection to begin your hike makes sense.

This is where Bill Steward of Sherwood, Eddie Volman of Little Rock and I began a recent backpack trip. Under overcast skies, with our homes on our backs, map and compass in hand, we set out for our campsite, the Mary Agnes mine.

HISTORIC HOLES

The lower wilderness is speckled with many old mines. These once commercially productive sites produced zinc-bearing ores, mostly jack, some carbonate and a little silicate.

Ozark National Forest regulations prohibit entering the mines, both out of safety concerns and also to prevent the spread of white-nose syndrome in bats.

Steward formerly owned the Mill & Mine Supply Co. in Little Rock. With a professional interest in mining, he and wife Dana have collected an assortment of documents about the area's mining history. We read an article in a McGraw-Hill publication from 1918, Engineering and Mining Journal, which made reference to this very same Mary Agnes mine, announcing the discovery of a high-grade carbonate in its first prospect tunnel.

At one time this area was renowned for its ore. At the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis, zinc ore from the Morning Star Mine in Rush won first place. During World War I, Arkansas mines were among the nation's leading producers of zinc oxide.

The end of the war closed the book on the area's mining boom.

DARK HOLLOW

A leveled mound of crushed rock at the mouth of the Mary Agnes provided ample space to pitch our tents. With our homes for the next two nights in order, we tramped down the steep mountainside as it dropped into Brush Creek.

The destination for our first adventure was Dark Hollow. This is a picturesque box canyon. With its expansive half-mile cavity and 50-foot waterfall, it is as impressive as of box canyons in the mountainous Western states.

We climbed the rock-scattered spine on the canyon's northern embankment to reach the "hoodoos." These imposing, 30-foot-tall rock formations stand guard over the entrance of the canyon.

There was an established horse trail along the north rim, mere feet from the canyon's sheer 50-foot drop, that we followed to reach the waterfall. Discovering a rusty, heavy metal scoop on the banks of the creek that feeds the falls, we wondered what its function might have been.

Crossing the creek to continue hiking around the canyon, we eventually discovered a break in the sheer rock bluff where we were able to scramble down to then retrace our steps along Brush Creek and back up the hillside to our camp.

Over a hot meal and adult beverages, we planned our next adventure. With a full day available for exploration, we decided we would check out the many attractions within the Cow Creek drainage.

COW CREEK

The sun went down, and the sun came up. After breakfast in camp, we hiked to Dead Horse Gap by way of a well-used horse trail. Just before dropping off into a south prong of Cow Creek, we peered across the hollow to view the distinctive rock formation on a distant bluff of the Buffalo River. The striated outcrop is named Elephant Head, and it does resemble its name. Sweet!

Scattered across the hillside like a search party, we began working our way down. Although we had visited the mines in the past and knew what we were looking for, it would still have been easy to pass them by accident. Many of the mines have been abandoned for almost 100 years, and the Ozark backwoods are continually at work reclaiming the land.

We do have the GPS coordinates for the sites, but use them only as a last resort when we are lost. And by Steward's definition, "We aren't lost unless we have been out a minimum of one night and we don't know where camp is."

The pile of rock tailings is usually the first evidence you find of an abandoned mine. Once this is located, you can generally uncover other materials related to the operation.

The first mine we came across on our hike was Groundhog. This was once a large operation. At its peak in 1916, it produced 200 tons of free zinc carbonate. The remnants include several large concrete foundations that held the crusher, plus a 30-foot-long concrete wall constructed across Cow Creek.

(Melissa Baier, archaeologist for the National Park Service, later explained that streams were often dammed to power steam engines used to crush the ore. When the water levels were low or drainage was not available near a crusher, miners burned wood to power the engines. When water levels allowed, the ore was transported down the Buffalo River on barges. When the levels were too low, it had to be hauled out by mule.)

Continuing farther downstream, we found one of the most productive mines along the banks of Cow Creek, the Bonanza. Its long-ago success is still evident in towering piles of finely crushed rocks that cover the hillside like giant sand dunes.

FREE PARKING

We had to cross Cow Creek for our next destination, a graveyard of abandoned vehicles at an old home site. Locals say there was once a schoolhouse at this place.

There were a couple of Plymouths, a Studebaker, a Chevy station wagon and Ford F-100 pickup. A testimony to the punishment the area dealt out to vehicles, the odometer on the pickup displays only 5,634 miles.

We had one remaining destination on our agenda for the day, Cow Creek Cemetery. I had seen the cemetery on the map but had never visited. We found the cemetery on the north bank of Cow Creek about a quarter mile before it empties into the Buffalo River.

The cemetery's grounds appeared to be maintained, for the perimeter of its relatively cleared setting was dense with cane and undergrowth.

The cemetery consisted of about two dozen unmarked native rocks propped upright and a single manufactured headstone. The headstone names "MD Yochum," noting that he was born Dec. 17, 1840, and died Sept. 30, 1920, and is "gone, but not forgotten."

Researching his story after our trip, I read that Yochum's remains were brought to the cemetery by boat on the Buffalo River. It would only have been a short quarter-mile hike to visit the cemetery had we been floating the Buffalo River. A hike to the cemetery, along with a visit to the mines, would be an interesting break for a river float trip.

ROAD? WHAT ROAD?

With all of our objectives met, we decided to follow a series of abandoned mining roads back to camp. The map lists several roads in the wilderness area; however, Mother Nature is doing a pretty good job of obscuring what remains of them.

With the exception of the abandoned roads that equestrians have kept somewhat open, most of the old roads are sketchy. But we didn't resent having to think a bit to find our way back to camp, because this wilderness, like all wilderness areas, is part of the grand plan to preserve the area in a natural state for future generations.

ActiveStyle on 04/20/2015

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