Mile 578.4 - Napoleon Light

RBD 578.4 Napoleon Light

In his rambling Life on the Mississippi Mark Twain digresses through several chapters with a drawn-out story reaching into a Bavarian mausoleum concerning the bereaved hamlet of Napoleon. Once numbering upwards of 1,000 inhabitants, Napoleon promised to become the largest city in the Lower Mississippi Valley, primarily due to its strategic location below the mouth of the Arkansas. The Union Army and then the destructive nature of the big river proved otherwise when a channel was cut through Beulah Bend and the river eagerly followed through and proceeded to eat everything along the western bank below, including Napoleon. The distressed inhabitants suffered the collapse of their village one building at a time, one street at a time, and eventually the whole town became submerged. All that remains today are stories and this light named in its honor. The town site itself is now covered by the sprawling top end of the Arkansas Bar. The last evidence of its existence was seen during the low water of 1957. Like its namesake marching into Moscow, Napoleon Arkansas arrived, conquered, and was then conquered.