Souvenir Passport Offers Unique Opportunity
To Travel Arkansas, Celebrate Louisiana Purchase

LITTLE ROCK (April 15, 2003) – Using the commemorative “passport,” Arkansans have a unique opportunity to observe the state’s pivotal role in the Louisiana Purchase by traveling the state and enjoying many events and venues planned to celebrate the Purchase’s bicentennial.

The collectible passports are being distributed around the state at 28 must-see destinations, each with special events planned to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the Louisiana Purchase. Once a traveler has his passport, he can get it stamped at any of the 28 sites, making the passport a souvenir keepsake in its own right.

“The passport offers Arkansas families a great opportunity to travel the state, enjoy its natural wonders and celebrate the historical significance of Arkansas’s role in the Louisiana Purchase,” says Secretary of State Charlie Daniels, chairman of the Louisiana Purchase Bicentennial Purchase Committee of Arkansas. “Then, you can save the passport as a memento of your travels.”

Passport sites are located in each region of the state. In Little Rock, passport sites include the Arkansas State Capitol, Cox Creative Center, Historic Arkansas Museum, Old State House Museum and the Museum of Discovery. Other sites include:

• Plantation Agriculture Museum State Park in Scott
• Toltec Mounds Archeological State Park Visitor Center in Scott
• Arkansas Post National Memorial in Gillett
• Arkansas Post Museum in Gillett
• Central Delta Depot Museum and Visitors Center in Brinkley
• Clarendon Welcome Center
• White River National Wildlife Refuge in DeWitt
• Delta Cultural Center in Helena
• Lake Chicot State Park in Lake Village
• Louisiana Purchase Historic State Park near Brinkley
• City of Marianna
• Arkansas Museum of Natural Resources in Smackover
• Hot Springs National Park
• Lake Dardanelle State Park in Russellville
• Fort Smith National Historic Site
• Fort Smith Arts Center
• Shiloh Museum of Ozark History in Springdale
• Rogers Historical Museum
• Parkin Archeological State Park
• Old Independence Regional Museum in Batesville
• Village Creek State Park near Wynne
• Old Davidsonville State Park near Pocahontas
• Powhatan Courthouse State Park

“All the partners have brought such enthusiasm to celebrating the Purchase by planning special events throughout the year,” says Ann Clements, project director of the commemoration. “Museums are displaying exhibits and hosting lectures; several state parks are re-enacting period activities; and several communities are sponsoring festivals.”

A complete listing of events can be found at www.lapurchase.org.

The Louisiana Purchase and Arkansas’s Role
In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson finalized the purchase of the Louisiana Territory from France, doubling the size of the United States. The acquisition included 830,000 square miles of unmapped wilderness.

A survey of the new land began in 1815 in East Arkansas. The initial point of the survey (where the baseline and meridian cross) is located in a swamp at the corner of Lee, Phillips and Monroe counties. It is from this point that all land in the Louisiana Purchase was mapped – every legal description of the land west of the Mississippi depended on measurements taken from this point. Prospect K. Robbins and Joseph C. Brown conducted those surveys.

This starting point for the surveyors who explored and mapped the frontier is now the Louisiana Purchase Historic State Park, where visitors can walk along a boardwalk through the swamp and experience the sites and sounds of the wilderness, much like the original surveyors did.