Ashbrook Cutoff/Eunice Landing, Arkansas/Arkansas City, Arkansas

Ashbrook Cutoff/Eunice Landing, Arkansas/Arkansas City, Arkansas. Mississippi River Walk. , A) Ashbrook Cutoff , Mile 549.0 AHP , Rowdy Bend was the first of four consecutive loops, in this stretch of the river that pilots called the “Greenville Bends.” Rowdy Bend kept getting longer despite efforts to stabilize it, and Ashbrook Cutoff was built in 1935 to remove it from the river. During the Civil War, the community of Gaines Landing on the west bank of rowdy Bend was a bee of operations for Confederate troops. Even after the town was burned, a battery of ten rebel cannons bombarded Union boats from the ruins with considerable success. A Federal garrison finally had to be stationed to stop the shelling., B) Eunice Landing, Arkansas , Mile 553.5 AHP , Before the Civil War, the Eunice community was a railroad terminal and steamboat landing. When Confederate artillery fired on Union boats near Eunice Landing in 1863, Federal troops burned it to the ground., C) Arkansas City, Arkansas , Mile 558.0 AHP , When the river washed away Napoleon, Arkansas, many of its residents moved south to found Arkansas City in the 1870’s. The new town also proved vulnerable to flooding. A levee crevasse in 1903 serenely damaged Arkansas City, and during the flood of 1927, some 2,000 people and to rescued when water in the streets ran ten feet deep. Choctaw Island later joined the river bank, growing down to block the town’s waterfront, and Arkansas City now lies several miles from the river. The town’s streets are named for famous steamboats: Natchez, Rob’ E. Seem Sprague, Kate Adams., Photo Credit: Greenville, Mississippi on April 27, 1927-by Steve Nicklas, NOS, NGS, Historic NWS Collection