Arkansas Post National Memorial

In the summer of 1686 Henri de Tonti arranged for Jean Couture, Jacques Cardinal and four other Frenchmen to open a trading post at the Quapaw town of Osotouy. Called aux Arcs, it could not have survived without Quapaw supplies and military help, according to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas. The National Park Service calls it the first semi-permanent French settlement in the lower Mississippi valley. The post moved along the Arkansas River several times, was garrisoned by France from 1731, passed to Spain after 1763 and was transferred to the United States in 1804.

Slavery was part of the post early. Nearly 100 enslaved people and indentured servants arrived in 1721 for John Law's company, and in 1817 Frederick Notrebe set up a cotton plantation worked by enslaved people. In 1819 the post became the capital of Arkansas Territory, until the capital moved to Little Rock in 1821. Confederates built Fort Hindman here in the fall of 1862, and on January 11, 1863 Union forces attacked; after heavy gunboat fire the Confederates surrendered, and the fort and the remaining French and Spanish houses were destroyed.

Osotouy is now associated with the Menard-Hodges site, about 25 miles away by road, which the Park Service owns and has left undeveloped. At the memorial, a museum covers more than 300 years of human history, a 20-minute film plays on request, and over three miles of paved and unpaved trails cross the town site and hardwood forest. The Spanish Fort Carlos III was partly reconstructed in 1964. Admission is free; call 870-548-2207 for current hours.