The story
Rush began with a mistake. Prospectors chasing legends of lost silver built a smelter along Rush Creek in 1886, and in an 1887 test run it belched green zinc-oxide fumes instead of silver. The silver was never there — but the zinc was, in enormous quantity, and the Morning Star Mine became one of the largest zinc producers in Arkansas. A single 13,000-pound zinc nugget from the mine won a ribbon at the 1892 Chicago World's Fair.
The town's peak came with World War I, when zinc prices soared and the war's demand pulled in thousands of workers — for a few years Rush was said to be the largest town in northern Arkansas. When the war ended in 1918 the price collapsed just as fast, the mines shut down, and Rush drained away over the following decades until the post office closed in the mid-1950s.
In 1972 the site was folded into the new Buffalo National River, and the Rush Historic District now preserves the remains: the stone Morning Star smelter, the general store, a blacksmith shop, miners' cabins, and the dark mouths of the mine adits in the bluffs.
What remains today
The stone Morning Star smelter ruin, general store, blacksmith shop, miners' cabins, and mine adits, preserved as the Rush Historic District.
Questions from the field
- Was Rush a silver or a zinc town?
- Zinc — though it was founded by prospectors chasing silver. A smelter built in 1886 to refine what they thought was silver ore produced zinc instead, and the Morning Star Mine became a major zinc producer.
From the field
The most valuable part of this record is the part only visitors can write.
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Primary sources for this record
- — USGS GNIS feature 57174
- — National Park Service — Buffalo National River, Rush Historic District
- — Encyclopedia of Arkansas — Rush (Marion County)