Fort Steele

After Union troops took Little Rock in September 1863, engineers built a ring of earthworks around it, and Fort Steele was the strongest. The square redoubt was completed in late December 1863 on ground roughly bounded by modern 15th, 16th, Gaines and Arch streets, and it mounted eight guns. Union engineer Junius Wheeler called it the key of the position. Maps from 1864 show at least seven redoubts around the city, and one more protected a railroad engine house north of the river. Newspapers reported remnants into the 1930s, but no above-ground trace is known to survive.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Mosaic Templars Cultural Center — 0.5 mi
  The state museum of African American history on the site of the Mosaic Templars of America headquarters, a Black fraternal order's 1913 building on West Ninth Street.
• Old State House Museum — 0.9 mi
  The oldest standing state capitol west of the Mississippi, where lawmakers met from 1836, enslaved people were auctioned in the east wing and Arkansas voted to secede.
• Arkansas State Capitol — 1.0 mi
  The neo-classical Capitol built from 1899 to 1915 on the old penitentiary site with state convict labor, free to enter, with the Little Rock Nine monument on the grounds.
• Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site — 1.0 mi
  The 1927 high school where nine Black students entered under federal troops on September 25, 1957, with a National Park Service visitor center across the intersection.

More markers nearby

• BISHOP CHARLES HARRISON MASON — 0.6 mi
• The Camden Expedition — 0.9 mi
• The Arsenal Crisis — 0.9 mi
• Pulaski County County Government — 1.0 mi