Silver Hill

Silver Hill is the home of Tyler Bend, the Visitor Center for the Buffalo National River, America's 1st National River! Searcy County is home to approximately 48 miles of America’s 1st National River! 1,393,247 recreation visits to the BuffaloNational River in 2025! Was almost 1.7 million in 2024!

From local historian James Johnston, “Silver Hill got its name because in the 1880s and later a man known in Searcy County as “Indian Woodard” came in and told people that he had discovered a rich silver mine. He blindfolded men from time to time and led them individually into a mine where he took off their blindfold and showed them stacks of silver, either as ore or as blocks. Then he blindfolded them and took them out. None of the men was ever able to locate the place where they had been taken. Based on what some of the men said, it was believed that the mine was somewhere on Silver Hill. Many people dug around the mountain looking for the mine, but never found anything that looked like a mine. Unlike other Indian mine scams in 1880s Arkansas, Indian Woodard never tried to raise money from the locals to investigate the mine. He has relatives in Madison County, Arkansas and in Oklahoma. He was a Sioux Indian from Nebraska, if I remember correctly, who was a Union Civil War veteran.”

Today gold, not silver, is mined in Silver Hill in the form of tourism dollars as thousands of floaters canoe, raft, and kayak down America’s 1st National River, The Buffalo National River! Silver Hill is home to both Buffalo River Outfitters and Silver Hill Float Service.