The Courtois Hills region is an area of the Ozark Mountains in southeast Missouri. It is one of several mountainous regions that surround the Ozarks's Salem (or Central) Plateau.

Geography

Although it does not contain the highest peak, the Courtois Hills has most rugged terrain and steepest average slopes of any region of the Missouri Ozarks. It, and the community Courtois, are named after

Courtois Creek Courtois Creek () is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed May 13, 2011 stream in southern Missouri, United States. It shares its name with the nearby town of Courtois and ...

(pronounced "Cote-o-way" or "Curt-o-way"), one of many waterways flowing through a narrow and steep-sided valley separated by sharp ridges. The region was named after this

Crawford County Crawford County is the name of eleven counties in the United States: * Crawford County, Arkansas * Crawford County, Georgia * Crawford County, Illinois * Crawford County, Indiana * Crawford County, Iowa * Crawford County, Kansas * Crawford Co ...

creek because it was one of the earliest settled valleys. The area contains significant outcropping of limestone, ridges of

chert Chert () is a hard, fine-grained sedimentary rock composed of microcrystalline or cryptocrystalline quartz, the mineral form of silicon dioxide (SiO2). Chert is characteristically of biological origin, but may also occur inorganically as a c ...

. It also contains several springs including Greer Spring,

Round Spring Round or rounds may refer to: Mathematics and science * The contour of a closed curve or surface with no sharp corners, such as an ellipse, circle, rounded rectangle, cant, or sphere * Rounding, the shortening of a number to reduce the number ...

and

Alley Spring Alley Spring is an unincorporated community in Shannon County, Missouri, United States. It is located six miles west of Eminence on Route 106. The scenic Alley Mill, or "Old Red Mill" is located there on a spring and is located in the Ozark N ...

near Eminence and Big Spring near Van Buren. Other common landforms are caves, sinkholes, and

solution cave A solutional cave, solution cave, or karst cave is a cave usually formed in the soluble rock limestone. It is the most frequently occurring type of cave. It can also form in other rocks, including chalk, dolomite, marble, salt beds, and gypsum. ...

s such as the Sinks natural tunnel on Current River tributary Sinking Creek.

Economy

Settlement was delayed by the difficult terrain. The western frontier of the United States had crossed the Mississippi River and reached the edges of the Courtois Hills by 1811. Settlers moved in to areas to the east, north, and west of the Central Plateau and its surrounding hills first. The plateau received very slow and gradual immigration later, with settlement of the Courtois Hills occurring last. Timber was once the largest contributor to the region's economy. From the late 1880s until almost 1920, the

Missouri Lumber and Mining Company The Missouri Lumber and Mining Company (MLM) was a large timber corporation with headquarters and primary operations in southeast Missouri. The company was formed by Pennsylvania lumbermen who were eager to exploit the untapped timber resourc ...

and several other large lumber companies operated in the region, extracting millions of

board feet The board foot or board-foot is a unit of measurement for the volume of lumber in the United States and Canada. It equals the volume of a length of a board, one foot wide and thick. Board foot can be abbreviated as FBM (for "foot, board measure" ...

of lumber from forests of short-leaf Southern yellow pine. The region's narrow ridges are often covered with oak. More recently, lead and zinc have been discovered and profitably mined. The terrain limits agriculture, as well as settlement, primarily to the valley floors. The best areas for agriculture are concentrated in the southern part of the region, where rivers have made the valleys wider. The Castor, St. Francis,

Black Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white have of ...

, and Current Rivers are such valleys. The numerous springs also provide an abundant source of water.

References

Geography

Economy

See also

References