Crowley's Ridge (also Crowleys Ridge) is an unusual geological formation that rises 250 to
550 feet (170 m) above the alluvial plain of the Mississippi embayment in a 150-mile (240
km) line from southeastern Missouri to the Mississippi River near Helena, Arkansas. It is
the most prominent feature in the Mississippi Alluvial Plain between Cape Girardeau,
Missouri and the Gulf of Mexico. This narrow rolling hill region rising above the flat plain
is the sixth, and smallest, natural division of the state of Arkansas. Most of the major
cities of the Arkansas Delta region lie along Crowley's Ridge. The ridge received its name
from Benjamin Crowley, the first European settler to reach the area (near present day
Paragould, Arkansas) sometime around 1820. The Civil War Battle of Chalk Bluff was fought on
Crowley's Ridge in May 1863.
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