Pencil Bluff, AR

Tucked along the Ouachita River in western Arkansas, Pencil Bluff is a tiny Montgomery County community surrounded by the Ouachita National Forest. Home to fewer than a hundred residents along Highway 270, it earned its distinctive name from the soft slate bluffs by the river where local schoolchildren used to write. The area grew out of old settlements like White Town and Sock City during the regional timber boom. Today, it offers a peaceful, scenic slice of rural living with easy access to river floating, fishing, and quiet mountain backroads.