Explore Arkansas Treasure Stories

Arkansas Treasure Lore

Crater of Diamonds

Cryptic Treasure Trail

Jesse James Black River Lost Gold

Treasure Near Pine Bluff

Welcome to Arkansas, officially "The Natural State," a state of mountains, valleys, clear lakes and streams, dense woodland, and fertile plains.

The name Arkansas means “south wind,” and is derived from a name used by some Native Americans to describe the Quapaws, an early tribe in the region.  The name is also another form of Kansas (Ar"Kansas"), and first appeared on a 1673 map of the area where the Kansas Indian tribe was a member of the Sioux nation.  It is illegal to mispronounce Arkansas while in the state -- it must be pronounced "Arkansaw."   Frenchman Henri de Tonti founded the first settlement in the lower Mississippi Valley in 1686, the Arkansas Post, which served as a trading post, a Mississippi River way-station, and housed a Jesuit mission.  But by 1721, plans to develop the Mississippi Valley failed, and 1,300 half-starved colonists, including whites and black slaves, abandoned the Arkansas Post.  The land was later ceded to Spain as part of the Louisiana Territory in 1762, and the French recaptured the land from the Spanish and sold it to the U.S. in 1803.