The City of Bull Shoals, Arkansas is located in north central part of Arkansas on Bull Shoals Lake in Marion County at 36° 22’51” N 92° 35’ 8” W. Bull Shoals Lake covers 1,050 miles of shoreline with 71,240 acres of lake area. A gentleman by the name of C.S. Woods, Sr. came to Arkansas in the early 1940s and sold land all across northern Arkansas for $1.25 to $3 an acre. Woods incorporated his efforts in 1945, raised $10,000 from investors and bought land from 17 farmers on Newton Flat (the original name of the area), totaling about 1,200 acres. He established the town in 1946. With his son, Charles Jr., the two men did much of the work themselves by clearing brush for future streets and sketching street plans on brown paper bags. The street plan was the first official document of the town, filed August 15, 1956.
Much of the information on this page was provided by Anna Harper from The History of Bull Shoals: the best little town by a dam site a book written by her husband, Robert Harper.
The book describes the inhabitants of the land even before the Louisiana Purchase, and spans all the way to the "firsts" of Bull Shoals - first marriage, first churches, first hospital, first clubs, etc.
The book is available at the Bull Shoals Public Library.