The main competition to the Bowie knife from the late 1830's to the period just after the Civil War was the Arkansas Toothpick. The Arkansas Toothpick got its namesake as an ironic reference to the coarse, rough and tumble culture that populated the lowlands of Arkansas and the Mississippi delta in the mid 19th century. Travelling journalists from Europe often made up stories about how they commonly saw men and old boys picking their teeth with giant knives that they dubbed Arkansas Toothpicks. Like the Bowie it was frequently a large knife almost always double edged with a sharp acute point.