The Arkansas Post, formally the Arkansas Post National Memorial, was the first European settlement in the Mississippi Alluvial Plain and present-day U.S. state of Arkansas. In 1686, Henri de Tonti established it on behalf of Louis XIV of France for the purpose of trading with the Quapaw Nation. The French, Spanish, and Americans, who acquired the territory in 1803 with the Louisiana Purchase, considered the site of strategic value. It was the capital of Arkansas from 1819 until 1821 when the territorial government relocated to Little Rock.
Partial reconstruction of the Revolutionary War era fort
Henri de Tonti
Annie Hatley, Depiction of Arkansas Post in 1689, Arkansas State Archives, 1904
Diagram of the 1760s era stockade.
Arkansas is a landlocked state in the South Central region of the Southern United States. It borders Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, Texas to the southwest, and Oklahoma to the west. Its name derives from the Osage language, and refers to their relatives, the Quapaw people. The state's diverse geography ranges from the mountainous regions of the Ozark and Ouachita Mountains, which make up the U.S. Interior Highlands, to the densely forested land in the south known as the Arkansas Timberlands, to the eastern lowlands along the Mississippi River and the Arkansas Delta.
Platform mounds were constructed frequently during the Woodland and Mississippian periods.
Arkansas statehood, 100th anniversary issue; released on June 15, 1936, on the 100th anniversary of Arkansas statehood. The old state house is depicted at center, the fort surrounding the Arkansas Post at left with the present day state capitol building at right.
Lakeport Plantation, built c. 1859
Cannons at Battle of Pea Ridge site