A National Historic Landmark. Built in 1686. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1966.
From the record
“The Arkansas Post, officially the Arkansas Post National Memorial, was the first European settlement located along the Mississippi River, in the Mississippi Alluvial Plain, and in the present-day U.S. state of Arkansas. In 1686, Henri de Tonti established it on behalf of Louis XIV of France for the purpose of trading with the Quapaw Nation.”
Wikipedia article Arkansas Post, CC BY-SA 4.0.
One of 24 National Register listings published here for Arkansas County · listed in 1966 · category: District · built in 1686 · a National Historic Landmark.
National Register reference number. 66000198 - assigned by the National Park Service when the property was listed.
Fires near this property
2 since 2004
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 2 fires within 5 miles of Arkansas Post National Memorial
between 2004 and 2006, burning about 28 acres in total. None started naturally. None was recorded as arson.
Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted
here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
Reported cause
Fires
Debris and open burning
2
The most recent of
them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service
that recorded it.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The National Weather Service names
Gillett, the town this property stands in, in 38 storm reports between 1993 and 2025: 16 thunderstorm wind, 11 hail, 5 tornado, 3 flash flood.
No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office
filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date
opens the federal record of that event.
Moderate flooding at the Pendleton stream gage on the Arkansas River occurred for over three days. The crest in April was higher than the March crest, primarily due to the high Mississippi River stages. Property within the levee system, such as hunting and fishing camps, was flooded. The combined lower Arkansas, White, and Mississippi River floodplain contains some exclusive hunting camps and all were flooded by the three rivers within the vast expanse of floodplain. The crest at Pendleton was the highest since May, 1990, and the fourth highest of record.
The tornado moved from Desha County into Arkansas County about 8.3 miles south-southeast of Gillett. A few homes sustained minor damage, along with several camping trailers. Several sheds and outbuildings were destroyed. A mobile home and several metal shop buildings were also damaged. A number of trees and power lines were also blown down. The tornado eventually dissipated about 6.2 miles south-southeast of Tichnor.
A small F0 tornado touched down four miles east of Gillett. The tornado was only on the ground a few minutes before it dissipated. The only damage that occurred was that a few road signs were blown down.
A weak tornado touched down in Arkansas County, roughly 2.8 miles north-northeast of Gillett. Winds were estimated to be 90 mph. The tornado destroyed an old barn, estimated to be at least 100 years old. One outbuilding was destroyed and several others were damaged. Tin was blown off some barn roofs and a few houses had shingles torn off. Hundreds of trees were knocked down or broken off. A few power poles were also knocked down. The tornado dissipated about 5.5 miles southeast of Ethel, near Bear Lake in the White River National Wildlife Refuge.
A weak tornado was spawned in southern Arkansas County roughly 8.5 miles south of Gillett. The tornado moved to the northwest around the remnants of Hurricane Rita. Estimated winds with the tornado were about 60 mph. The tornado caused mostly tree damage in areas close to the Arkansas River levee. The tornado was on the ground for 7 miles before tracking into Jefferson County.
A weak tornado touched down over southern Arkansas County and tracked eastward for about 2.9 miles before dissipating. The tornado tracked from west to east just to the north of Highway 144 south of Gillett. The tops of several trees were snapped off along the first mile of the tornado track. Several farm sheds and a utility shed were damaged near the intersection of Highway 144 and U.S. Highway 165. Several large trees were also blown down along with minor roof damage to a house. Just to the east of U.S. Highway 165, another house was damaged and two nearby storage buildings were destroyed. Some trees were blown down, along with several downed power poles.
No historic map-sheet match is published
for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs
a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.
Browse the county's mapped places while that work is
pending.
Listed places nearby
2 within 8 miles
Other National Register properties close
enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both
positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties
to their map sheets.
Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.
Block
