The Continental Divide is the line that marks the separation of waters of the United States that flow easterly to end up in the Gulf of Mexico from those that flow westerly to the Pacific Ocean.
A similar line across northern Arkansas separates waters that flow to the region’s two main river basins — the Arkansas River to the south and the White River to the northeast. Both rivers eventually drain into the Mississippi River.
We have dubbed this north Arkansas line the “Boston Mountain Divide,” since the line mostly runs across the high point of the Boston Mountains.
The high point also runs right through Fayetteville, splitting it in two as well. Ironically, though, rain falling in the northeast part of Fayetteville ends up flowing south to the Arkansas River, and rain falling in southwest Fayetteville ends up going north to the White River, creating a yin and yang in the geography of the town’s waterways.
And, famously, a University of Arkansas professor trying to explain the concept of watersheds cited Old Main as an example: if you throw a bucket of water out the basement’s north door, the hillside will shed the water north into Scull Creek and eventually in the Arkansas River; if you throw a bucket of water out the south entrance, the campus terrain will shed the water downhill to Town Branch and eventually the White River.
Division of Waterways
The following Fayetteville streams flow into the White River watershed:
- Cato Springs Branch
- Mullins Creek (College Branch)
- Spout Spring Creek
- Tanglewood Creek
- Town Branch
- West Fork of the White River
The following Fayetteville streams flow into the Arkansas River:
- Clabber Creek
- Clear Creek
- Flynn Creek
- Goose Creek
- Hamestring Creek
- Kitty Creek
- Mud Creek
- Niokaska Creek
- Owl Creek
- Scull Creek
- Sublett Creek
Towns on the Divide
Other Arkansas cities and communities through which the Boston Mountain Divide passes include Alread, Arbaugh, Austin, Ben Hur, Boston, Crabtree, Deer, Lowell, Nail, Pelsor, Raspberry, Rogers, Springdale, Winslow, Witts Spring, and Zion Hill among others.
The Razorback Greenway crosses the Boston Mountain Divide at the greenway’s highest point, just a couple dozen feet south of Fayetteville’s Maple Street.
Counties on the Divide
In addition to Washington County, the Boston Mountain Divide runs across Benton, Madison, Newton, Pope, Searcy, Van Buren, White, Lonoke, Prairie and Arkansas counties.
As the divide line wends its way across the high points of the Boston Mountains, the divide line runs very close to Arkansas Highway 16 from the community of Boston to the city of Clinton.
The divide also passes close to the highest point in the Ozarks, Wahzhazhe Summit, named for the ancestral homeland of the Indigenous nation that the French transliterated as “Osage,” which is not too far off the correct pronunciation if spoken in French but considerably off the mark when spoken with English phonetics.
The summit of Wahzhazhe is listed in most sources as 2,562 feet above sea level, although occasionally as 2,561 feet. The summit is within the boundaries of the Upper Buffalo Wilderness, the Ozark National Forest and Newton County.