The A and M College Memorial Arch

You are passing a landmark on the campus of Arkansas State University in Jonesboro. This stone Memorial Arch was a gift from a graduating class, back when the school was known as First District Agricultural and Mechanical College. That is why the words A and M College are still carved across the top. When it was dedicated, the arch was the formal entrance to the whole institution, the gateway every student walked through.

The school had been founded in nineteen oh nine as an agricultural high school, and it grew into one of Arkansas's major universities. The campus around the arch kept expanding for a century, but the arch gave it a fixed heart. Today the arch anchors the old heart of the campus, a small gateway that has outlasted nearly everything built around it.