Ring Slough (Clay County)

Ring Slough, a tributary of the Black River, flows between the Black River and the Cache River in central Clay County. It was one of the few streams prominent enough to have been featured alongside rivers on early state maps of the area. The origin of its name is unknown.

The slough likely began as two streams in Butler County, Missouri, which branched off from the Black River flowing south around six miles before merging one mile west of McDougal (Clay County). The western fork of Ring Slough was called Mile Slough (though it was longer than a mile), while the eastern fork ran parallel with Gillis Bluff, a large sand ridge. From the forks’ merger, Ring Slough flows west parallel with U.S. 62 for nearly five miles before draining into the Black River in two separate places northeast of Cantwell (Clay County). Prior to drainage efforts, the swampy central Cache River bottoms split Clay County in half during flood season. The higher elevation of Gillis Bluff between Ring Slough and the Cache River allowed for a settlement called Post Oak (Clay County) to develop as early of 1877, according to marked burials in Post Oak Cemetery the former site of  a Missionary Baptist church that was established there in 1885.

With sparse population, the area was an ideal hideout spot for outlaws on the run and criminal gangs. Historian Robert Webb noted that there was an island inside Ring Slough at the state line that was a prominent meeting location for members of the Ku Klux Klan and similar groups in the area. In 1879, one of those members, Elias Hensen was lodging in the area between the Black and Cache Rivers. After having testified against a member in a horse stealing case, he was seized from the residence to be lynched. He was shot to death and mutilated. In 1913, a gang of four horse thieves was found hiding in the Ring Slough neighborhood.

In 1914, the Butler County Railroad Company based out of Poplar Bluff, Missouri, laid tracks and numerous spurs through the area to log the abundant timber to make barrel staves and headers for the Brooklyn Cooperage Company. The railroad and timber industries created by it led to new settlements of McDougal, Hickoria, and Tipperary. A small community on the north side of the slough called the Ring neighborhood grew large enough to get its own school district, which was named Ring School.

After the timber was cut, drainage efforts began to make the area suitable for farming. The Cache River and Little Cache River were channelized, with dozens of additional ditches dug to drain the land. Ditch Number 18, Ditch Number 19, and Ditch Number 13 were dug through Ring Slough, heavily altering the slough’s water level, which, in turn, decreased the risk of flooding to the farmland around it. This action inadvertently led to the two streams of Ring Slough northwest of McDougal being low enough to be drained and filled in for farming by the end of the twentieth century. All that remains of Mile Slough are a few cut-off isolated sections. Most of the eastern fork was channelized as Ditch Number 13 around the western side of Gillis Bluff. Around 2012, a half-mile section of Ring Slough running through a field was drained and filled in with soil.

To help prevent the loss of wetlands in this area, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission preserves eighty-three acres of Ring Slough in the Ring Slough Wildlife Management Area south of the former Ring neighborhood.

For additional information:
“Horse Thieves Reported Caught.” Daily American Republic, June 9, 1913, p. 1.

“Ring Slough WMA.” Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. https://www.agfc.com/wma/ring-slough-wma/ (accessed May 29, 2026).

United States Army Corps of Engineers. White River and Tributaries: Selected Levee Plan, Existing Works, and Overflowed Areas above Pocahontas. 1934. Map, 11 x 16.5 in. UA Little Rock Center for Arkansas History and Culture Maps Records, 1712–1991 (UALR.MS.0314). Online at https://arstudies.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p15728coll6/id/783/rec/57 (accessed May 29, 2026).

Webb, Robert T., Bruce Brown, and Patsy Truscott, compilers. History and Traditions of Clay County. Piggott, AR: Webb, Truscott, and Brown, 1933. Online at https://dn720004.ca.archive.org/0/items/historytradition00webb/historytradition00webb.pdf (accessed May 29, 2026).

Drew A. Calhoun
Clay County Genealogical and Historical Society