12 Things Arkansans Take for Granted Until They Move Away

Thanksgiving weekend in Stuttgart means the World’s Championship Duck Calling Contest.

If you grew up in Arkansas, that sounds normal. Move away, and you’ll find most Americans have never heard of it.

Here’s what Arkansans take for granted until they move away.

1. Free Thermal Water

Hot Springs National Park has jug fountains where you can fill your jugs with thermal spring water for free.

Two fountains on Reserve Street are suitable for filling jugs.

The National Park Service says drinking the water is normal, even encouraged.

Thermal water comes out of the ground at 143 degrees Fahrenheit.

President Andrew Jackson signed legislation in 1832 to set aside the springs.

The area didn’t become a national park until 1921.

2. Cheese Dip

Arkansas cheese dip has a world championship, and it debuted in Little Rock in 2010.

Twenty-three dips competed that first year.

Ask where cheese dip started, and you’ll hear more than one answer.

One researcher credits Mexico Chiquito, which opened in 1935 in North Little Rock.

The Wall Street Journal ran a story about Arkansas’s claim to cheese dip on November 2, 2016.

In response, many Texas news outlets ran stories insisting that chile con queso is of Texan origin.

Arkansas’s two U.S. senators also challenged their Texas counterparts to a blind taste test.

The dip from Heights Taco & Tamale in Little Rock won.

3. Low Cost of Living

Arkansas has the eighth-lowest cost of living among the states in the second quarter of 2026.

The Missouri Economic Research and Information Center (MERIC) scores Arkansas at 89.0, against 100.0 for the United States as a whole.

Put in dollars, goods that cost $100 at the national average cost about $89 in Arkansas.

The Census Bureau’s 2020–2024 American Community Survey puts median gross rent at $947 a month in Arkansas, against $1,413 for the United States.

At the national median, you’d spend $466 more every month.

Arkansas costs run below the U.S. average in all six categories.

4. Hog Calling

The Hog Call, “Woo, pig, sooie,” is the University of Arkansas Razorbacks’ standard cheer, and some sources trace it to the 1920s.

Back then, farmers reportedly called to the team the way they’d call their pigs home.

If you say “Razorbacks,” you’re using a name the team has carried since the 1910 season.

The Razorbacks play most of their home games at Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium in Fayetteville.

They once played multiple games at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock, and in 2018 that dropped to one game every other year through 2024.

5. Crater of Diamonds

Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas lets you dig for natural diamonds in a 37-acre plowed field.

Arkansas’s state parks site calls the park the only place in the world where the public can search for natural diamonds in their original volcanic source.

Any rock or mineral you find is yours to keep.

That includes diamonds.

The 40.23-carat Uncle Sam, found at the park, is the largest diamond ever unearthed in the U.S.

As of January 13, 2026, visitors had found more than 37,377 diamonds at the park since it became a state park in 1972.

6. Buffalo River

The Buffalo River became the first national river in the United States on March 1, 1972.

You can float one of the few remaining free-flowing rivers in the lower 48 states.

The National Park Service says the river flows freely for 135 miles.

The park covers 135 miles of the river’s 150 miles.

The Corps of Engineers once included the Buffalo in its planning for a system of dams on the White River.

Governor Orval Faubus came out against a dam on the Buffalo in December 1965, and the Corps then withdrew its dam proposal.

7. Walmart’s Roots

Walmart’s story starts on the downtown square in Bentonville, where Sam Walton opened the first store bearing a shortened version of his family’s name in 1950.

Walmart’s first store opened in Rogers, Arkansas, on July 2, 1962.

The company’s first distribution center and Home Office opened in Bentonville in the 1970s.

The Walmart Museum now occupies that space, so you can step inside it.

8. Free Art Museum

Crystal Bridges, the museum in Bentonville, Arkansas, opened on November 11, 2011.

Philanthropist Alice Walton founded it.

Architect Moshe Safdie designed the building.

The museum’s grounds include a 134-acre park with five miles of sculpture and walking trails.

Crystal Bridges says it welcomes all with free admission.

Select temporary exhibitions may have admission fees.

The collection you see inside spans five centuries of American art, from early American works to the present.

9. Fried Dill Pickles

The Encyclopedia of Arkansas credits Bernell Austin, who opened the Duchess Drive In near Atkins in April 1960, with creating the fried dill pickle.

The first fried dill pickles ever sold anywhere were sold in the summer of 1963.

An order of fifteen slices cost fifteen cents.

The drive-in sat just across the highway from Atkins Pickle Company.

Atkins holds a two-day Picklefest every May.

If you go, you can order them from the Austin family, which sells an estimated 2,500 orders there.

10. Stuttgart’s Ducks and Rice

Stuttgart, Arkansas, calls itself the “Duck and Rice Capital of the World.”

You can catch the World’s Championship Duck Calling Contest there every Thanksgiving weekend.

The first contest took place on Main Street in Stuttgart on November 24, 1936.

A dispute among local duck hunters started it, and seventeen people entered.

Organizers chose Thanksgiving because it falls during the state’s duck season.

The University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture says Arkansas accounted for nearly half of U.S. rice production in 2024.

11. Delta Tamales

The Encyclopedia of Arkansas says you can find tamales on restaurant menus and at roadside stands throughout the state.

Tamales have been a vibrant foodways tradition in the state for generations.

Peter St. Columbia arrived in the United States from Sicily in 1892, and he and his son Pasquale made and sold tamales together for forty or so years.

Order one in the Delta, and the rough texture of the cornmeal marks it as made there.

Tamales have been on the menu at McClard’s Bar-B-Q in Hot Springs since it opened in 1928.

12. 1881 Pronunciation Resolution

Arkansas’s General Assembly passed a resolution in 1881 declaring that the state’s name is spelled “Arkansas” but pronounced “Arkansaw.”

The state’s two U.S. senators were divided on the spelling and pronunciation.

Look at the spelling, and you can see the French adventurers who first explored the area.

About 1811, the explorer Zebulon Pike spelled the name “Arkansaw.”

How Neighboring States Compare

Three of Arkansas’s neighbors cost less overall in MERIC’s second-quarter 2026 table: Oklahoma, Mississippi, and Missouri.

A basket of goods that costs $100 at the national average runs about $83 in Oklahoma, $87 in Mississippi, and $88 in Missouri.

Tennessee, Texas, and Louisiana cost more than Arkansas, at about $90, $91, and $91 for that same basket.