I was recently talking with a friend out of state about how Arkansas has some of the most famous urban legends around. Growing up in Dallas I heard about the Fouke Monster and the Gurdon Lights, but, it got me thinking. Are there other stories? Sure enough, there are.

Digging around on the Internet I found some I'd never heard before.

White River Monster

This monster was spotted in northeast Arkansas at Newport off the White River. According to Animal Planet locals reported seeing this huge water creature in the early 1900s. One eyewitness in the 1930s described it as wide as a car and as long as three. Yeah, that ain't no little fishy. The last reports of it were in the 1970s. The video below tries to explain what this thing really could be, but the legend lives on and could actually go back as far as the civil war.

This ghost story about lost love comes to us from just up the road in Arkadelphia. With two universities in this small town (Henderson State University and Ouachita Baptist University) there is a big rivalry between the schools. This story comes from the 1920s when a male student, Josh from Henderson, who was dating Jane, a girl from Ouachita. His friends teased him then threatened to not be his friend because she went to the other school. He finally broke up with her and at the worse time, homecoming. She was so distraught she put on a black dress and veil and jumped off a cliff to her death. Locals say that every year around homecoming  you can see her walking across campus looking for the guys that made her boyfriend break up with her.

This story is also known as the Vanishing Hitchhiker and takes place just south of Little Rock on old Highway 365. A young woman in a white dress has been spotted on rainy nights on the side of the road. Drivers have stopped for her and she says she's been in an accident and asks for a ride to her house in the nearby town of Woodson. When they get to the house she disappears. The story goes that one man actually went up to the house and the person that answered the door said the their daughter died in a car accident. Yikes!  There are a few different variations of the story, but you get the gist of the story and yes, it's creepy.

Want more? Check out the Shadowlands website.

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