The Louisiana Purchase Monument Restoration Project

Arkansas Parks & Recreation Foundation is partnering with Arkansas State Parks to restore and reestablish the Louisiana Purchase monument located at the Louisiana Purchase Historic State Park, located on Little Cypress Creek. The monument marks the “initial point” established during an original survey of lands added to the United States as a result of the Louisiana Purchase.

The monument was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on February 23, 1972, and on April 19, 1993, the National Park Service designated the point a National Historic Landmark.

The park’s complex plant community includes species normally associated with swamps, such as swamp tupelo, bald cypress, black willow, and buttonbush, in proximity with upland species such as sweet gum, mulberry, Nuttall oak, and sassafras. Many bird species—such as the prothonotory warbler, the belted kingfisher, the pileated woodpecker, and the barred owl—can be observed in the surrounding swamp area.

The park lies at the end of Arkansas 362, two miles east of U.S. 49, about nineteen miles southeast of Brinkley (Monroe County), and approximately thirty miles northwest of Helena.