Visit the Louisiana Purchase Monument in Brinkley, Arkansas

In Arkansas on a dead-end road almost obscured by trees and weeds, an old wooden boardwalk winds its way into an almost impassable swamp. At the end of the 950-foot board-walk is a lonely granite stone that squats in the thick, black water, a silent reminder of a few days in the winter of 1815 during which a group of ordinary, mostly forgotten men made it possible for the united States to expand to the west.

In 1803 the US obtained from France land that became known as the Louisiana Purchase, 900,000 acres stretching from the Mississippi River west to the Rocky Mountains and from New Orleans northward to the Canadian border.

The next year, President Jefferson sent Meriwether Lewis and William Clark on their now famous exploration. They returned with exciting stories that captivated the nation. But Lewis and Clark were on a voyage of discovery; what the nation would soon need were people to settle the new frontier.

The War of 1812 provided them. The recent war with Britain left veterans who looked to the government for their promised compensation. Strapped for cash, the only possession the Madison administration had in abundance was the Louisiana Purchase.

In order for the land to be dispersed and sold in an orderly fashion, Madison ordered that surveys be conducted in the Mississippi Territory (now Arkansas), between the Arkansas and St. Francis Rivers. Covering two million acres, the survey was to evaluate the land for quality, physical features and existing settlements before being divided for distribution.

For a survey to be accurate it has to begin from a known spot on the earth. The challenge is for the spot to be marked not only for their surveys but also for future ones would be as accurate as possible. To find these spot two local geographic points, in this case the meeting of the largest rivers in the area is selected. A north-south line, called a meridian, and an east-west line, called a baseline, are surveyed until they cross. Where these two lines cross is carefully noted in the surveyor's field notes.

It was the job of these surveyors to determine an initial point, establish the Fifth Principal Meridian and extend the National Baseline west of the Mississippi. On October 27, 1815 the team of surveyors began their northern survey starting at the juncture of the Arkansas and Mississippi river and another team of surveyors went westward from the juncture of the Mississippi and St. Francis Rivers.

As each survey team went, one man would use a compass to establish a line of sight from the starting point, the chainmen laid out 66-foot length of chain called a Gunter's chain to measure distances. Flagmen marked the end of the chain. Axe men and mound builders blazed trees, erected posts, dug pits or built mounds to mark the corners of each surveyed section. The Deputy Surveyors were required to keep extensive notes.

For each mile of surveyed territory, distances in chains and links were noted between section corners and prominent landscape features. In addition to rating vegetation and soil quality, the Deputy Surveyor was also required to write a one-paragraph description of the natural and cultural characteristics he had encountered for each township (or six square miles) surveyed.

On November 10, 1815, the surveyor teams met at the intersection point. After working for 14 days and surveying through thick foliage and sometimes waist-deep marshland, in the middle of a swamp they marked two gum trees to mark the intersection of the Fifth Principal Meridian with the National Baseline.

For over 100 years the two disfigured gum tree were the surveyors only tribute. Then in 1921, a pair of local surveyors, in the area to resolve a border dispute between two counties, rediscovered the marked trees. Realizing the site's historical importance, a local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution placed the granite Louisiana Purchase Monument stone in 1926. There the matter rested until 1961 when the state legislature made it a historic landmark, but appropriated no money for development. The site remained largely forgotten to the public until 1993, when the federal government designated the Louisiana Purchase Initial Survey Point and the 36 surrounding acres a National Historic Landmark.

If you would be interested in visiting this beautiful monument it is located just south of
Brinkley, Arkansas. You take I-40 at Brinkley, and then take U.S. 49 21 miles south, then go two miles east on Ark. 362 to the park. In order to see the monument you have to walk along an elevated boardwalk above the swamp. The swamp area and the monument are just breath taking but don't take my word for it, visit it yourself.