Early Arkansas Hunting: Hunting is Healthy!

Other Hot Springs visitors used these short hunts as a form of enjoyment while at the springs because “the variety of entertainment is very limited [here],” explained Engelmann.  They could walk, ride horses, dance, hunt, or visit Little Rock, and “that is practically all that is offered,” complained the German botanist.  “Hunting parties on horseback are as I said quite frequent,” he wrote.⁵⁴ 

Arkansas Game Warden Cochran claimed that he met a young man with tuberculosis whose doctors had ordered him into the outdoors for fresh air, believing that camp life could save the young man.  With some coaxing from Cochran, the patient tried fishing.  Cochran claimed that one fish, the only one the man caught during that initial outing, actually saved the man’s life.  After a tiring and challenging experience, the fellow started a steady progression of outdoor activities, eventually becoming well enough to continue his life.

Urbanization fundamentally altered man’s relationship with the land.  After the Industrial Revolution, people surrounded by steel and concrete sometimes looked to the outdoors for some sort of relief and rejuvenation.  Men separated from the wilderness as they moved to growing cities like Chicago, New York, and St. Louis.  In some cases, many believed that part of the cure for what ailed them came from reconnecting with the natural environment.

1910 About an Arkansas Camp Fire

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