Epoxy

Greers Ferry Lake

Heber Springs, Arkansas, USA

Also known as Heber Springs, Little Red River, Cleburne County, Sugar Loaf Mountain

Seven weeks before Dallas, John F. Kennedy stood at the end of this lake and talked about the long view.

The dedication of Greers Ferry Dam on 3 October 1963 was his last, and one of his final public appearances. Around ten thousand people came out for it. He pointed out that the project had taken almost thirty years, first authorized under the New Deal, funded in the mid fifties, finished in 1962, and that its real effect would not be felt for another decade or two. He argued for setting land aside now for a country that would be more urban later.

The dam was built for flood control. The Little Red River ran uncontrolled through the first half of the century and flooded most years, feeding into problems downstream on the White River. It stands 243 feet above the streambed and runs 1,704 feet across.

The ferry it is named for belonged to a man called Bud Greer, who ran it here in the 1800s.

Details

Feature: Lake
Build: Epoxy
Material: Solid Walnut
Colour: Caribbean Blue
Size: 10-1/2" x 16"
Completed: June 2025

Shop this Style $350.00 CAD

Detail of the Greers Ferry Lake map by Keyway

How this one was made

Walnut, inset, with the dam following the waterline about half an inch out.

Greers Ferry is a reservoir filled into a river valley, and that shows in the outline. It is almost entirely arms. Two main bodies joined in the middle, with dozens of narrow fingers running off both of them into what used to be creeks, most of them branching again before they end. The tips come down to points a couple of millimetres across, and every one of those is dammed on both sides the whole way out and back. The far northern arm carries on past the lake as a thin single channel finer than the dam holding it.

One colour on this board, the water, with the lettering engraved and left unfilled.

A shape like this is long work rather than large work. The lake is not big on the board, but the shoreline packed into it is as much as anything we do.