Louisiana Purchase Historic State Park!

What Is Louisiana Purchase Historic State Park?

This was the starting point of the Louisiana Purchase land survey!

What Makes It Historical?

On November 10, 1815, twelve years after the Louisiana Purchase and nine years after the Corps of Discovery returned, the US Government finally began an official survey of the 830,000 square miles purchased from France in 1803! Of course, folks had already started streaming into the new territory, especially in the wake of the War of 1812. A survey would guarantee that veterans of the war got their fair share of land!

The task fell to Prospect K. Robbins and Joseph C. Brown! Mr. Robbins was in charge of setting the north-south Fifth Principal Meridian, where the Arkansas and Mississippi Rivers met. Mr. Brown had to set the east-west Baseline, starting at the mouth of the St. Francis River. Where their two lines crossed became the initial point for the survey, marked by two sweet gum trees that they painted with blazes! Lucky for them, it was a very dry year, and so they camped here about a month, with Mr. Brown’s party heading west toward Little Rock on November 28th and Mr. Robbins’ party heading north on December 6th!

As the survey lines extended over the course of miles and decades, the initial point got lost! It wasn’t until 1921, when Tom Jacks and Eldridge P. Douglas were re-surveying the line between Phillips and Lee Counties, that they stumbled upon two sweet gum trees that still had blazes on them from 1815! The local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution arranged for a granite marker to be placed at the site, but their initial dedication ceremony on November 10, 1925 had to be canceled for flooding! After all, dry 1815 aside, this whole area is part of an increasingly rare headwater swamp ecosystem! Dedication was rescheduled to October 27, 1926, and the area surrounding the marker became a state park in 1961!

How Can I #HelpTheHelpers?

Volunteer with Arkansas State Parks!
Be a responsible visitor! Please respect the signs and pathways, and treat all structures and artifacts with respect. They’ve endured a lot to survive into the present. They’ll need our help to make it into the future!