Grounding

Not without going through a formal legal process, and even then, it depends on the nature of the road.

If a survey shows a road that appears to be in public use, that visibility is legally significant. It puts a buyer on notice that a public right may exist. Purchasing the land doesn’t extinguish that right, and the new owner generally cannot simply close the road unilaterally.

In Arkansas, if a road has become public — either through formal dedication, county maintenance, or long public use — closing it requires a formal vacation process. That means a petition, a public hearing, and a finding by the county that the road is no longer useful or that closure serves the public interest. A private landowner can’t skip those steps just because they now hold the deed.

This is directly relevant to Midway Bluffs. The filings in the active cases argue that Old Sunny Slope Road on the north side of the lake appeared on county and Corps maps going back to at least 1972, was maintained by the county, and was openly used by the public for decades. The legal position is that anyone purchasing land in that area would have had clear notice — from maps, from visible use, and from the road’s physical presence — that public rights existed. The complaint also describes the road as originally a county road, with adjoining property dedicated, condemned, or donated for public road use.

When a petition to keep the road open gathered over 750 signatures and was formally filed with the county, the county was obligated under Arkansas law to hold a hearing. According to the filings, that hearing never happened.

So the short answer is: buying land with a visibly public road on the survey does not give a new owner the right to close it. The public’s rights travel with the land, and extinguishing them requires a process the law takes seriously.

I can tell you more about the specific road history at Midway Bluffs or the vacation process under Arkansas law if you’d like.