A little weirdness on the road to Central Arkansas

Heber Springs, Ark., a friendly town of 6,000 that tourists swell to 30,000.

Driving through the pine forests of East Texas, on the way to Central Arkansas, you pass signs for places like New Boston, Pittsburgh, Mount Pleasant and even Paris.

It’s almost like pioneers started running out of names by the time they got to Texas. 

But things get a bit more imaginative once you arrive at the Arkansas border. Names there start off with morphed incarnations like Texarkana, and later dish up tidy permutations such as Arkadelphia. 

The one that snapped me to attention on my trip last weekend was “Okolona.”

You know, Oklahoma’s just a short jog to the west, I thought. Could it be? Is this some sort of an Arkansas localism? Perhaps it was pranksters?  

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