Buffalo National River at Tyler Bend

In February 1972 Congress voted to make the Buffalo the country's first national river, and the Park Service now protects 135 of its 150 miles. After the Flood Control Act of 1938 the Corps of Engineers planned dams on the Buffalo, one near its mouth and one above Gilbert. Neil Compton and the Ozark Society fought the dam backers through the early 1960s, Justice William O. Douglas canoed the river, and in December 1965 Governor Orval Faubus wrote the Corps that he could not support a dam. The Corps withdrew its plan.

Tyler Bend, in the park's Middle District off US 65 near St. Joe, is the easiest place to see what was saved. The visitor center has exhibits, a theater showing the park film, a small bookstore and rangers at the desk. A flat, easy walk of a tenth of a mile leads to the Collier Homestead, where Solomon "Sod" Collier, his wife Ida Mae and two of their seven children built a cabin on one of the last parcels along the river after moving from Kentucky in 1928, and stayed until 1962. The Riverview Trail runs 1.5 miles between the homestead lot and the visitor center, with overlooks high above the water.

The river's protection has stayed contested. After a large hog farm opened near Mount Judea in 2013, a 14.3-mile stretch of the river and Big Creek was listed as impaired in 2018, the state refused the farm's permit that year, and in 2019 the owner took a $6.2 million buyout and the land went to the state as a conservation easement.