Holla Bend National Wildlife Refuge in Arkansas encompasses 7,055 acres on a tract enclosed by the Arkansas River’s old and new courses, giving it the character of an island near Dardanelle. Its present landscape emerged in 1954 when the Army Corps of Engineers straightened the river’s navigation channel, cutting off the former main channel and creating the surrounding oxbow lake. The island formed by that change was transferred to the U.S. Department of the Interior in 1957 for use as a wildlife refuge. Formerly agricultural land abandoned after the 1927 flood, it now serves as an important winter habitat for ducks and geese along the Mississippi Flyway, with up to 100,000 waterfowl gathering there in colder months.