1890 Map of Mount Ida

About this map

The Washita or Ouachita River flows through a landscape defined by sharp mountain ridges and isolated settlements in this late nineteenth-century survey of West Central Arkansas. The settlement of Mt Ida serves as a focal point in the south, while the mining interest at Silver City and the therapeutic draw of Sulphur Springs suggest the varied economic drivers of the era. The terrain is dominated by a series of parallel east-west ridges, including Petit Jean Mountain and Dutch Creek Mountain, which constrained travel to narrow valley corridors like those along Dutch Creek. Local geography is deeply tied to these drainage basins, with the Fourche La Fave River carving its way through the center of the sheet. For those tracing regional history, the map preserves the locations of early post offices and hamlets such as Olio, Parks, and Gravelly Hill before the modern infrastructure of the twentieth century altered the rural network.