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by Rex Nelson

The slow-moving, silt-laden St. Francis River widens between Lake City and Marked Tree, turning into more of a swamp than a river in what's known as the Sunken Lands. This is the area where the river dropped from six to eight feet during the New Madrid earthquakes of 1811-12.

Meanwhile, the Tyronza River, a St. Francis tributary, begins in Mississippi County and flows southwest to just north of Parkin.

"It no longer resembles the stream it was up until the early 20th century," Cindy Grisham writes for the Central Arkansas Library System's Encyclopedia of Arkansas. "It has been channelized, ditched and had its loops cut off. Before the formation of levee and drainage districts in the late 19th century that rerouted and channelized existing streams, the Tyronza rose out of a body of water called Carson Lake southwest of Osceola. From there, it flowed across low, swampy land, an area locals referred to as the Scatters of Tyronza.

"The river flowed into Tyronza Lake before narrowing into the regular path it followed until reaching the St. Francis. Tyronza Lake was simply a widening of the river channel, probably a result of the land falling during the New Madrid earthquakes. Carson Lake and Tyronza Lake have since been drained and are used for row-crop agriculture. Near Tyronza, a considerable amount of water was diverted out of the main channel along a large meander into what's referred to as Dead Timber Lake. ... The meander where Dead Timber Lake was located was cut off by a ditch and is no longer part of the river."

The Little River, also a St. Francis tributary, starts west of Cape Girardeau, Mo. After crossing into Arkansas, it enters the Big Lake National Wildlife Refuge and the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission's Big Lake Wildlife Management Area. It joins the St. Francis near Marked Tree. The St. Francis and Little rivers are only a quarter of a mile away from each other at Marked Tree, yet they flow in opposite directions.

"Before the........

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