07/07/2026
📌 Arkansas Post National Memorial — Gillett, Arkansas
📍 34°00'53.10"N 91°20'41.62"W
At first glance, this LiDAR scan appears to show little more than a narrow peninsula surrounded by water. But look closer, and the landscape begins to reveal the ghostly layout of one of the oldest European settlements west of the Mississippi River. Faint, remarkably straight lines preserved beneath the vegetation trace the streets, roads, and property boundaries of the final townsite of Arkansas Post. Archaeological investigations and LiDAR have identified the footprint of the Arkansas State Bank, Montgomery's Tavern, the Fur Trading Factory, Frederick Notrebe's cistern and Notrebe's Gin, and the American Townsite, all arranged along the historic street grid still visible in the terrain today.
Founded in 1686 by French explorer Henri de Tonti, Arkansas Post became the first permanent European settlement in the lower Mississippi Valley west of the river. Over the next 150 years, however, the settlement was relocated several times as the Arkansas River continually changed course. French, Spanish, and later American settlers rebuilt forts, homes, warehouses, and government buildings to remain alongside the shifting channel. During its long history, Arkansas Post served as a French trading post, a Spanish colonial outpost, the site of an American Revolutionary War engagement, the first territorial capital of Arkansas, and later the location of the Battle of Arkansas Post (Fort Hindman) during the Civil War.
The LiDAR shown here captures the landscape of the last occupied townsite, not the earlier locations of the post. Many of the original French and Spanish forts—including Fort Carlos III, Fort San Esteban, and Fort Hindman—were eventually lost as the Arkansas River eroded its banks and abandoned old channels. Although those forts now lie beneath former river courses, archaeological excavations have uncovered the remains of the colonial village, building foundations, thousands of artifacts, and evidence of nearly three centuries of continuous Indigenous, French, Spanish, and American occupation.
Today, LiDAR allows us to see what is almost invisible from the ground: the preserved street grid of a vanished frontier town. When paired with archaeological research, these subtle lines transform into the recognizable layout of a once-thriving settlement that played a pivotal role in the exploration, colonization, and early history of the American South.
