Louisiana Purchase Survey Marker
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"To millions of Americans the Louisiana Purchase is symbolized by the great open landscapes of the far West. And yet it is anchored in an Arkansas swamp. Just off U.S. Highway 49 in Monroe County a boardwalk reaches into a heavily wooded marsh. At its end a granite marker rises from dark water and duckweed. Here in 1815 two government agents established the initial reckoning point for all the territory purchased from Napoleonic France by Thomas Jefferson in 1803. This marker in a region most associated with cotton cultivation and the blues reminds us that the Louisiana Purchase - and the story of the expansion that followed - cannot be claimed by any one part of our nation. Its implications and lessons have as much to do with the American South as with the West. More broadly, the Purchase is a reminder that this critical time in American history must always be understood within events and forces spanning the continent and in some cases the globe."
Elliott West, Professor of History
at the University of Arkansas
"Let the land rejoice, for you have bought Louisiana for a song."
Gen. Horatio Gates to President Thomas Jefferson,
July 18, 1803
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