Arkansas Gazette: The last train that came in over the Valley Route had a hard time of it, there being twenty-nine inches of water on the track between Varner and Reno on Monday night the time of its making the trip. Yesterday the road abandoned the running of trains further than Varner, twenty-three miles beyond Pine Bluff. Tickets are not being sold to any points beyond Varner. A gentleman who arrived in the city yesterday reports that he saw great numbers of snakes, on his journey between Trippe and Arkansas City, floating upon logs and other debris, some of them as large as his arm. They were driven to rafting to keep from drowning. May 19, 1892: The situation in the upper part of this county along the Missouri Pacific Railroad becomes worse hourly. News from there late this afternoon is to the effect that in Gum Swamp the water is as high as it was ever known, and is rising at the rate of an inch and a half an hour. The water is over the track of the Missouri Pacific for seven miles between Dumas and Varner. Several fine plantations in the immediate neighborhood of this place are completely under water. This afternoon the water reached two miles south of Reedville in the direction of Dumas, and was coming up on the farms around Dumas. At Walnut Lake, three miles south of Dumas the late is rising rapidly and is within three feet of the railroad bridge. From Dumas it is eleven miles to Pendleton on the Arkansas River. There is scarcely an acre of any land along those eleven miles. In addition to this, the river is still rising rapidly at Little Rock and 100 miles above and must therefore, rise for several days in Gum Swamp and in the farming country north and south of it. Just how high it will go and just how much country it will overflow it is impossible now to estimate. It is thought that considerable water will find its way into Bayou Bartholomew, several miles west, and it is feared that some farms along that stream will be flooded. The backwater here and between here and Trippe is still rising at the rate of six inches in twenty-four hours. It will take a rise of only about three feet more to put the water into Crooked Bayou and when that happens, the whole of the farming county, from McGehee south, will be flooded. The Missouri Pacific will run no trains through Gum Swamp for a week at least. It is thought that the company will make arrangements tomorrow to transfer mail, baggage, express and passengers over the water by means of skiffs. Walnut Lake May 18, 1892: To: J.T.W. Tillar: Water over the entire country, negroes in starving condition. What can be done? Signed: R.A. Pickens. Walnut Lake is some distance from the river and below Pine Bluff and has always been considered beyond all danger from overflow. (my note: Was the 1927 flood the most devastating in southeast Arkansas? jann ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com