The Indian Territory Boundary Monument
Near Fort Smith, Arkansas
This stone marks one of the most consequential survey lines in American history, the boundary between Arkansas and Indian Territory. By the Choctaw treaty of eighteen twenty-five, the line was fixed to begin one hundred paces east of the first Fort Smith and to run due south to the Red River. The cubic stone monument was set in eighteen fifty-eight to commemorate that survey.
There was a problem. When government surveyors rechecked the line in eighteen fifty-eight, they found the original survey had not run due south at all, but slightly southwest. After long deliberation, officials chose to keep the old line and pay the Choctaw Nation for the disputed strip of land.
This line separated Arkansas from Indian Territory until Oklahoma statehood in nineteen oh seven.
