Chalk Bluff

The bluff is not chalk. The Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission says the pale slopes are light-colored clays, silts and sands that erode easily into steep faces and deep ravines. Where the St. Francis River cuts through the northern end of Crowley's Ridge, those ravines hold stands of pawpaw and Christmas fern under beech trees, with oak-hickory forest above. The state added the 55-acre Chalk Bluff Natural Area to its system in 1977, and a one-mile loop trail drops toward the river past interpretive panels. Clay County holds a long-term lease on part of the site for public facilities.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Hemingway-Pfeiffer Museum — 6.8 mi
  The Piggott house and barn where Ernest Hemingway visited his in-laws, the Pfeiffers, and worked on A Farewell to Arms in 1928, kept with the family's own Stickley furniture.

More markers nearby

• Chalk Bluff in the Civil War (Raids of March-April 1863) — steps away
• Chalk Bluff in the Civil War (Skirmish of May 15, 1862) — steps away
• Chalk Bluff Crossing and Town — steps away
• Chalk Bluff in the Civil War (Battle of May 1-2, 1863) — steps away