Arkansas v. Mississippi
Headline: Court confirms surveyed boundary between Arkansas and Mississippi along a former river channel, upholding the commissioners’ report and ordering permanent monuments and a filed map to mark the state line.
Holding: The Court overruled Mississippi’s objections and confirmed the commissioners’ report, establishing the surveyed middle-channel boundary and directing the permanent monuments and map be the official state line.
- Creates an exact, monumented state boundary affecting land ownership and state control.
- Requires clerks to send authenticated decrees to each Governor; map omitted from mailed copies.
- Splits survey costs between the states, with Arkansas credited for prior payment.
Summary
Background
The States of Arkansas and Mississippi asked the Court to approve work by three commissioners who were appointed in March 1920 to locate the exact boundary where the Mississippi River had changed course. Field work was delayed by high river stages until August 1920; the commissioners met at Friar Point on August 4, inspected the ground, and prepared a unanimous report, map, and financial statement describing a line that follows the deepest water of Horseshoe Lake (also called Old River or Pecan Lake) and a connecting channel formed after the 1848 avulsion.
Reasoning
The central question was where the state line should run after the river’s abrupt change. The Court applied the rule that when a former navigable channel ceases to be the main channel because of an avulsion, the boundary follows the middle of that former navigable channel. The Court overruled Mississippi’s exceptions, accepted the commissioners’ measurements and monument placements, and ordered the map filed with the decree. The commissioners relied on physical evidence such as high banks, differences in timber age, old meander lines, and accretion to locate the line.
Real world impact
The decree establishes a clear, mapped state line marked by concrete monuments, settling which state controls the land and waters along that channel. The Court allowed the commissioners’ expenses of $6,116.45 as costs to be shared equally, but credited Arkansas because it had already paid. The Clerk is ordered to send authenticated copies of the decree to each Governor, though the report’s map itself is omitted from those mailed copies.
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