Pinnacle Mountain
If you have never been to Pinnacle Mountain, you should visit this iconic natural wonder of “The Natural State” once Old Man Winter departs. The mountain lies just outside the city limits of Little
Rock, and is the centerpiece of Arkansas’ most visited state park.
Early French explorers, traveling up the Arkansas River in the 1700s, called the mountain
“Mamelle,” the French word for the female breast. Mamelle was, eventually, anglicized into
“Maumelle,” from which two rivers in the vicinity, a nearby
Corps of Engineers park and a city take their name. Through the years, the mountain became known simply as “the pinnacle,” and the name stuck.
Climbing “the pinnacle” became a popular activity in the late 1800s and into the 1900s. Arkansas River steamboats would drop passengers at the nearby “natural steps,” a natural rock formation of sandstone steps on the riverbank, which allowed adventure-seekers to climb the cliffs overlooking the river and make the short walk to the mountain.
Through the use of federal, state and local funds and donations of land, primarily by the family of former Pulaski County Judge James Fulk, and a massive cleanup of the area led by the Boy Scouts of Arkansas, Pinnacle Mountain State Park officially opened to the public in 1977.
As a former manager of the park’s visitor center, one of the most common questions I received was, “Was Pinnacle Mountain once a volcano?” Considering the mountain’s conical shape, that’s a valid question. But Pinnacle was never a volcano; rather, it’s the reduced remains of the once mighty and massive Ouachita Mountain range, and was created by nearly 275 million years of erosion, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
While we’re being honest, I’ll add that
Pinnacle Mountain is not considered by the U.S. Geological Survey to be an actual mountain. That’s right, the only real mountain in Arkansas is Magazine Mountain, which is the highest point in the state at 2,753 feet. Pinnacle checks in at about 1,011 feet, which doesn’t meet the government’s legal definition of a mountain.
Yes, calling Pinnacle a mountain might be an exaggeration. But that wouldn’t be the first time such a thing has happened in our state, and “Pinnacle Hill” just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
A proud sixth-generation Arkansan, Darrell W. Brown is lover of all things Arkansas. He served several years with the Arkansas Department of Parks, Heritage and Tourism, and worked in all three divisions. He lives in Saline County with his wife and two beloved Boston terriers.