Photo from the 1926 DAR ceremony dedicating the monument. Pictured (left to right) are: Mr. Tom Jacks, Mrs. E.D. Wall, Senator J.T. Robertson, Mrs. T.H. Caraway, Mrs. J.T. Robertson, Mrs. Paul Benham, Chapter Regent, David Wall, Martha Douglass, Mrs. Russell Dupuy, Mr. E.P. Douglass, Mrs. Sam Harrington, Senator T.H. Caraway, Mrs. Allen Cox, State Regent, Frances Lynch (Seated).  Photograph donated to the Louisiana Purchase by Eldridge Douglass, Jr.

Two Lines Mark the Future of the United States

The stone marker behind you marks the "Initial Point" for the survey of the Louisiana Purchase Territory. The east-west Baseline and north-south line, the Fifth Principal Meridian, are fundamental in land transactions throughout the western United States and are the reason this site has been designated a National Historic Landmark.

1815 compass as used by Robbins and Brown when establishing the Initial Point for the survey of the Louisiana Purchase Territory.

This stone marks the base established November 10, 1815 from which the lands of the Louisiana Purchase were surveyed by United States Engineers. The first survey from this point was made to satisfy the claims of the soldiers of the War of 1812 with land bounties.

Erected by the Arkansas Daughters of the American Revolution. Sponsored by the L'Anguille Chapter.

Hollow Tree

Hollow Tree

The heartwood - the central support of the original tree - has rotted away, but the tree is alive and continues to grow, now producing two new trees.

We don't know where the damage to the tree was due to disease, lightning, insects, or man; but when the tree's protective covering, the bark, was damaged, the hard, stiff, non-living heartwood was exposed to the elements and began to rot away. However, a section of the living tree - the outer few inches still protected by the bark - continued to transport nutrients from leaves to roots and back again - and has created this strange hollow tree.