U.S. Route 71

Yeah.

Sunday morning after an unidentified creature attacked a house about 10 miles south of Texarkana on US Highway 71.

Ford was taken to St. Michael Hospital where he was treated for scratches and mild shock.

And released.

I still go camping, but I never again felt completely alone out there.

This happened on a cold winter night in early 2000 in the flooded timberland of Miller County, Arkansas, not far from Mercer Bayou and the old spot known locally as Thornton Wells between Highway 71 and Old Blockman Ferry Road.

The night was clear, the moon was bright, and the air held that damp chill common to the southern swamps in February.

I had gone coon hunting that evening, something I had done for years before my work started taking up most of my time.

Because once people started talking out loud, the sightings didn't just continue, they multiplied.

Barely three weeks later, on May the 23rd, three people, D.C. Woods Jr., his wife Wilma, and a friend, reported watching an ape-like creature lope across U.S. Highway 71 near the creek.

Then came the tracks.

The most famous of them turned up in a soybean field belonging to a local man named Scott Keith.

And, um, we just have a lot of changes in the '80s.

Uh, I'm from Northwest Arkansas, and so, um, Highway 71 was that, really that one major route from, uh, 40 up to Northwest Arkansas during that time.

And, uh, in the '80s, you have, uh, the start of what is now 49 going through there, uh, 540 at the time, and, uh, really that, that single development is major for the, uh, the population growth in Northwest Arkansas.

If this whole thing didn't sell it, that answer alone tells me we have the right guy for historian of ARDOT.

And so keep an eye on that.

And that's up around Highway 71 that runs pretty much between International Falls and Bemidji.

And that's quite a cell that's going to dump a lot of rain on Highway 71.

Again, right up around North Home and what have you, up towards Margie.

And keep that in mind.

And there is nothing on the radar, at least here in the Twin Ports.

So I think we're done.

There's some rain that's falling up Highway 71 between Big Falls and North Holm.