Hot Springs National Park is located 114 miles northwest of Monticello. Named for its numerous mineral springs, Hot Springs is considered by some to be the oldest National Park in the United States. Initially founded as a National Preserve, it became a National Park in 1921. Known for its hot mineral springs, around 143 degrees Fahrenheit, a principle attraction of the park is historic "Bathhouse Row" in downtown Hot Springs.
Visitors to the park can tour the Fordyce Bathhouse and Visitor Center, drive through the forests surrounding the area or simply take a walk down Bathhouse Row and shop at any of the unique stores that make downtown Hot Springs what it is.
Cane Creek State Park is located south east of Pine Bluff and east of Star City off State Highway 293. Services available are camping, fishing, a launch ramp, and a nature trail with picnic areas and showers.
Located 44 miles southwest of Monticello on State Highway 15, Moro Bay State Park offers an indoor group facility, boat ramp, and campsites. One of the most popular fishing and water sport areas in south central Arkansas is formed where Moro Bay and Raymond Lake join the Ouachita River. Moro Bay State Park, located at the confluence of these water sources, offers a quiet, peaceful holiday retreat with all the modern conveniences typical of Arkansas fine state parks.
This low-lying area, located 50 miles southwest of Monticello, is dissected by an intricate system of rivers, creeks, sloughs, buttonbush swamps and lakes throughout a vast bottomland hardwood forest that gradually rises to an upland forest community. Historically, periodic flooding of the 'bottoms' during winter and spring provided excellent wintering waterfowl habitat. These wetlands, in combination with the pine and upland hardwood forest on the higher ridges, support a wide diversity of native plants and animals.
Three other refuges scattered across south Arkansas are also managed as part of this refuge complex. Overflow NWR, located to the east in the Mississippi River Delta, is a wetland complex consisting of seasonally flooded bottomland hardwood forests, managed impoundments and croplands. The Oakwood Unit, which also lies within the Delta, consists of managed impoundments and recently reforested farmland. Cossatot NWR, located along the Texas/Oklahoma border, is entirely forested with bottomland hardwoods and protects one of the last remaining hardwood tracts in the Red River Basin. These refuges provide needed habitat protection for the extremely valuable, rapidly disappearing wetland hardwood forest community.
Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism
One Capitol Mall
Little Rock, Arkansas 72201
Phone: (501) 682-7777
FAX: (501) 682-1364
