Town name apparently not linked to amphibian abuse

Since I have been vacationing in Arkansas I have pondered the origin of the oddly-named Toad Suck, Ark.

Now I don’t plan on visiting Toad Suck anytime soon, but I was interested in just how the town got that name. And bless Al Gore’s heart for inventing the Internet, I found one explanation.

It seems that when steamboats cruised the Arkansas River the captains would tie up when the water wasn’t at a favorable depth at as spot that now is occupied by Toad Suck Lock and Dam. While awaiting better waters the captains would visit a local tavern and “suck on a bottle ’til they swell up like toads,” according to the Web site of Cory and Jill Imboden. The couple are 2009 co-chairs of Toad Suck Daze, which is a 3-day festival in Conway, Ark., that benefits educational scholarships.

That is a much better explanation — the Toad Suck name origin — than I had envisioned. I saw perhaps toads being used for nefarious purposes such as people who lick certain hallucinogenic frogs as described in this article from Pennsylvania.

Of course, those steamboat captains might have seen objects which weren’t really there, pink elephants come to mind, after binging on rot gut for an extended period. But I suppose that is an entirely different matter altogether.