Island No. 25/Forked Deer River/Tomato, Arkansas

Island No. 25/Forked Deer River/Tomato, Arkansas. Mississippi River Walk. , A) Island No. 25 , Mile 803.0 AHP, On December 15, 1811, a group of flatboatmen tied up on Island No. 25 to spend the night. At two o'clock the next morning they were shaken awake by the first violent tremors of the New Madrid earthquakes. As they watched in horror, the trees twisted and smashed together, the ground sank, water spewed from the center of the island, and 400 acres of the west bank fell immediately into the river. , B) Forked Deer River , Mile 803.9 AHP, The Forked Deer was named for the unusual antlers of a buck killed by early settlers, but the name is equally appropriate to the tiny river's many branching courses. Keelboats once navigated parts of the Forked Deer, as far inland as Dyersburg and Jackson, Tennessee. A few small steamers appeared in the 1830s, although their crews spent much of the trip chopping snags and driftwood out of the channel. A navigation improvement project in the 1880s was abandoned due to the recurring obstructions and the low bridges built across the stream. Today there is no commercial traffic. The Forked Deer originally branched into two months, one entering the Mississippi near this point and the other emptying six miles downstream. The river's course has since changed several times, and most of the Forked Deer now empties into the Obion River just above its mouth. , C) Tomato, Arkansas , Mile 806.6 AHP, Established as a shipping point for truck farms in the area, Tomato is one of the few communities on the river that lies outside the protection of the Mainline Levee System.