The Point of Rocks

The site called the "little rock" was first definitely recorded by Benard de la Harpe, a French officer sent in 1722 to explore the Arkansas River, who identified rocky country and, a league farther upriver to the right, a rock he called "French rock," now called "big rock." People traveling by land also used the rocky outcroppings as landmarks, and Indians, trappers, traders, and early settlers on the Southwest Trail from St. Louis to the Red River and Mexico crossed the river in this vicinity. The landmark marking the low-water ford became known as "little rocks," "the rock," "the Little Rock Bluffs," and "point of rocks," and today it is called "the Little Rock." In 1818 the rock served as a survey point for a line running south from "the point of rocks" that formed the east boundary of property ceded by the Quapaws to the United States government. Rail tracks and bridges built during the last half of the Nineteenth Century greatly changed the riverfront's appearance, and today only the top surface of the "little rock" remains visible, overshadowed by man-made landmarks.

Little Rock, Arkansas · United States