[GH85Carrera]

ARKANSAS-
The French settlers initially called the post Aux Arcs ("at the home of the Arkansas," as Arkansea was the Algonquian name for the Quapaw used by the Illinois and related tribes). The first structures erected at the site were a simple wooden house and fence. The small settlement was the first permanent French holding west of the Mississippi and the first European settlement in the Lower Mississippi Valley. There the French conducted the first documented Christian services in Arkansas.