Arkansas River at Pine Bluff Frozen Over

My favorite postcards are usually the ones that reflect historical events. I have actually found three postcards regarding the freezing of the Arkansas River in Pine Bluff. The first two I found were from January 1912.This one appears to be a steamboat towing a sightseeing barge. At least, I would guess that's why there is an open lower and upper deck with stairs leading to the upper deck.

 This boat has a gangplank and boards  leading to shore and there are actually men and women walking on the frozen river. The ice looks pretty rough and probably would be hard to do more than walk for a short distance.

This was the third card I found. The river froze in February 1898, fourteen years before the date of the two above. It's really cool that the card points out that the two dots seen on the left side are actually people walking on the ice.

This is a scene of the Arkansas River during warmer weather. 

The most recent freezing event I could find in an online search was December 1983. The river does seem to flood with some frequency, but freezing is a pretty rare event. It's hard to believe that, since Pine Bluff is in southern Arkansas, that a river as large as this would freeze at all. I live in the northern part of the state and can only remember the rivers freezing here the same year (1983) that the Arkansas River froze. The Mississippi River at Memphis also had ice in it that year.

When you talk to residents who have lived here all their lives, many of them tell of their parents and grandparents going down to the White or Buffalo Rivers in winter to cut ice blocks for their ice houses.

The link below will take you to KATV's Weather Blog and a video of the river in December 1983.

http://arkansasweather.blogspot.com/2011/12/remembering-one-of-worst-arctic.html