Bull Shoals, AR

Bull Shoals is a lake-and-dam town whose modern story starts with Newton Flat, the earlier settlement along the White River. In the mid-1940s, developer C.S. Woods Sr. and his son bought over 1,000 acres for a planned community, and the original street plan was sketched on the back of a brown paper bag. The town’s plat was filed in 1946, before construction began on Bull Shoals Dam. The dam was completed in 1951, and the lake changed the shoreline and the region’s economy. Today the city is bordered on three sides by Bull Shoals Lake, while the White River feeds the lake and continues below the dam. If you’re orienting yourself, follow Highway 178 across the dam toward Lakeview.