Graceful curves, reflected images, woody heights, soft distances; and over the whole scene, far and near, the dissolving lights drifted steadily, enriching it, every passing moment, with new marvels of coloring.
Centuries of artists, writers, and poets have contemplated the beauty of nature and humankind’s relationship to it. Visit the wild Ozark stream, War Eagle, and discover American engineering inspired by the power of nature with the historic War Eagle Mill and historic War Eagle Bridge. War Eagle Mill was built in 1832 and is still a working mill. War Eagle Bridge is a single-lane Parker truss bridge listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Learn more about War Eagle stream.
Touring the Mill is a great adventure, but it doesn’t stop there. Sit alongside War Eagle stream and spend some time at the Hobbs Nature Center in Hobbs State Park Conservation Area.
Walking the trails of Hobbs State Park, inspiration may find you as it did Mark Twain: “a densely wooded … forest… broken in one place by a long ruffled trail that shone like silver, and high above the forest wall a clean-stemmed dead tree waved a single leafy bough that glowed like a flame in the unobstructed splendor that was flowing from the sun.”
With more than 400 species of birds in Arkansas, you are likely to catch a glimpse of a belted kingfisher or ruby-throated hummingbird reminiscent of the ones captured in the 19th century works by Martin Johnson Heade now hanging in Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. Let us never lose the “grace, beauty, and poetry” that flows with the rivers and streams.
Quotations were taken from “Two Ways of Seeing a River” written by Mark Twain.
For more stories of the wild Ozark stream and the art it has inspired watch the documentary film, “Bridge to War Eagle”.
On your return to Eureka Springs, travel over another historic bridge in the little Town of Beaver, The Little Golden Gate Bridge. Turn left on Highway 187 just off of Highway 62 west of Eureka Springs. Map it on Google.
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