North Little Rock History Commission

North Little Rock History Commission The North Little Rock History Commission serves as the keeper of our city's unique and rich history. With archives stored at the William F.

The mission of the North Little Rock History Commission is to collect, keep, and care for materials bearing on the history of the city from the earliest times, and maintaining those materials in the archives of the City of North Little Rock. The Commission provides educational programs and services, and encourages and assists in scholarly research on the history of North Little Rock. The North Lit

tle Rock History Commission was established by city ordinance in 1975. Seven volunteer members, appointed by Mayor Eddie Powell, began collecting historical photographs, documents, objects and oral interviews for the city archives. Active for more than a decade, the commission resigned en masse in 1987, stating it had accomplished what it set out to do, after publishing “North Little Rock: The Unique City,” a history book authored by Commissioner Walter Adams with assistance from other Commission members Evelyn Eubank, Gene Hull, Grayson Dickson, Pat Davis, Earlene Butterworth, and Alfred Schultz. Mayor Patrick Hays revived the Commission in 1989, and two years later, Sandra Taylor Smith was hired as Director. Laman Library at 2801 Orange Street, the Commission opened an office in 1993 in the historic Barth-Hempfling House at 507 Main Street. In 1999, the Commission’s offices and archives were moved to the historic Park Hill Water Company building at 3427 Magnolia Street. The offices and archives moved again in 2003 to the second floor of the historic fire station and city hall building at 506 Main Street. After Laman Libray moved its Argent Branch location to the old post office building, the Commission took over both floors of the building allowing for more archival space and public space for exhibitions. In 2004, during the city’s centennial, the commission published a history book, titled “On the Opposite Shore: The Making of North Little Rock,” written by award winning journalist Cary Bradburn, who joined the staff of the History Commission in 2002.

06/13/2026

The photograph shows North Little Rock’s first public library, which opened at 211 North Maple St. on June 16, 1946.

Myrtle Deason served as the city’s first librarian. Supported by a one-mill property tax approved by voters in 1942, the library initially had 3,000 books and three employees.

The two-story brick house, built by Ike Davis as his home in 1911, had five rooms for the front desk, reference, and circulation on the first floor. A remodeled L-shaped room for the children’s department occupied the second floor. The property, now vacant, is owned by the Arkansas Municipal League.

By 1962, when this North Little Rock Times photograph was taken, the library was out of room. It had added 27,000 books to its collection and had a staff of 11.

On December 30, 1962, the city dedicated the opening of the more spacious William F. Laman Library at 2800 Orange St. The Library Board, formed in 1945, named the new building for Mayor Casey Laman on December 11, 1962. The library still uses the building, which has been expanded and renovated over the years.

Laman, who served on the Library Board for seven years prior to becoming mayor in 1958, led the campaign in 1959 to finance the new library with a voter-approved $1.1 million bond issue. Proceeds from the bond issue also paid for a new Police and Courts building at 200 West Pershing Ave.

The Police Department and District Court judges have since moved to the Justice Center at 2600 Poplar St. The North Little Rock School District owns the old Police and Courts building, named for Milton McLees, a longtime Municipal Court judge.

Well, it's time for another Flashback Friday post. This time we're visiting Main Street.Included in the collections of ...
06/05/2026

Well, it's time for another Flashback Friday post. This time we're visiting Main Street.

Included in the collections of the North Little Rock Heritage Center is this photograph of the Matthews Building in 1913. Property developer Justin Matthews, Sr., commissioned the building, which opened in 1910 and occupied the entire east side of the 200 block of Main Street.

A fire in 1918 destroyed the south half of the building. Another building replaced the burned-out portion. The city’s Urban Renewal Commission razed both buildings in 1976. The site is now a suburban bank branch and parking lot.

The photograph shows the north end of the Matthews Building at Main and Third (now Broadway). Pharmacists Edgar Moseley and Charles Butler operated the drug store. Thomas L. Plummer owned the hardware store. Between them were the Morrow sisters, Artie and Nellie, milliners who specialized in women’s headwear.

On the second floor were rooms of the Piedmont Flats, Oriental Flats, Manitou Flats, and Savoy Flats. Also in the block were Acker & Ryan men’s clothes, Samuel L. Trotcky shoes, Woolworth’s, the Colonial Theater, Bailey Brothers barbers, and the U.S. Post Office.

Have a great weekend, everybody!

North Little Rock Tourism

We took a week off. Did you miss us?We're back with another Flashback Friday post. Hope you're ready for some baseball...
05/29/2026

We took a week off. Did you miss us?

We're back with another Flashback Friday post. Hope you're ready for some baseball.

This photograph of the Camp Pike baseball field is courtesy of the Arkansas National Guard Museum at Camp Robinson.

Opened in March 1918, the ballpark drew 6,000 fans to Major League exhibition games between the Boston Red Sox and Brooklyn Robins. On March 30, 1918, Babe Ruth of the Red Sox homered in the eighth inning and drove in the winning runs in the ninth.

Camp Pike soldiers built the ballpark and grandstands. Robert Allen, president of the Little Rock Travelers, came up with the idea to get around a city ban on Sunday baseball. The Travelers played 10 Southern Association teams in 1918-19 until the U.S. War Department stopped Sunday games because local authorities objected.

Have a great weekend, everybody! I hear we're supposed to get more rain. But you know what comes with rain, don't you? Greener grass and trees. Besides, it's cool and refreshing. But please remember to drive carefully in the rain.

North Little Rock Tourism

The North Little Rock History Commission is proud to announce that we will soon be opening our new permanent exhibit, "S...
05/22/2026

The North Little Rock History Commission is proud to announce that we will soon be opening our new permanent exhibit, "Stories from the North Side," in the Heritage Center, 506 Main St., right next door to the Argenta Plaza, in downtown North Little Rock. We are right in the heart of the Argenta Historic District and the Argenta Arts District.

We plan to open late Summer 2026 and we are in need of volunteers. Would you like to help us out? It'll be both fun and educational! If you would like to be one of our volunteers, please apply in one of these three ways. Or, you can always call the Heritage Center at (501) 371-0755 and ask for Kelli. She will help direct you on how to apply.

We need you!!

It's Flashback Friday time and it's time for some hoops!Eddie Miles, an outstanding basketball player at S.A. Jones High...
05/16/2026

It's Flashback Friday time and it's time for some hoops!

Eddie Miles, an outstanding basketball player at S.A. Jones High School in North Little Rock, led the Dragons to four state championships from 1956-59.

The Jones team competed in the Arkansas State Athletic Association, which governed black prep sports before 1967.

Miles, a 6-5 forward, played college ball for Seattle University. His talent took him to an NBA career with the Detroit Pistons.

S.A. Jones athletics thrived under the storied Coach A.B. Calvin, who guided the Dragons to 10 state titles in basketball from 1945 through 1959, and three straight state titles in football from 1950 to 1952.

Have a great weekend, everybody! Get out to the Old Mill this Saturday from 1:00-4:00 as we celebrate the Old Mill being a city park for 50 years! Party like it's 1976! Come on out and wear your "hippy" gear. We'll have a great time!

North Little Rock Tourism

And, from the Phenomenal Women Department, we bring you this week's Flashback Friday post.Rosemary Lawrence Hamel helped...
05/09/2026

And, from the Phenomenal Women Department, we bring you this week's Flashback Friday post.

Rosemary Lawrence Hamel helped start North Little Rock Adult Handicapped Services in 1972 and served as its first director. From 1992 to 2006, she led the Argenta Community Development Corporation, which delivered $12 million in private and public reinvestment to downtown North Little Rock.

Working with historian Sandra Taylor Smith and the North Little Rock Historic District Commission, as well as city government, bankers, and private investors, Hamel and the CDC restored more than 90 blighted properties and created 143 units of safe, affordable housing.

This was the genesis of Argenta’s renaissance. Many credited Hamel as the “driving force” behind it, yet she praised the efforts of others.

“She won’t take no for an answer,” Mayor Pat Hays said in 2005.

Beyond Argenta, she helped shape state and local policies to promote affordable housing and the preservation of neighborhoods at risk.

In 2006, Hamel received a prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award from NeighborWorks America in Los Angeles.

Hamel was living in Levy when she bought an apartment building on Willow Street in downtown North Little Rock in 1984. It was a time of “relative calm,” she recalled. By the late 1980s, however, conditions had changed. Gangs ruled the streets.

One night she found herself standing between a tenant with a baseball bat holding a thief in a headlock and another tenant brandishing a butcher knife.

“I was the only one present who wasn’t high on crack cocaine,” she wrote in a memoir.

After police officers arrived, they warned her never to come to Argenta without calling them first.

A 1956 graduate of Greenbrier High School, where she was student body president and a star basketball player on the school’s state championship team, Rosemary Lawrence earned a bachelor’s degree in speech and drama and a master’s in special education at Arkansas State Teachers College (now the University of Central Arkansas) in Conway.

After college, she directed special education programs in the Morrilton School District and at the Human Development Center in Conway. She married Harold Hamel in 1960 and the couple had two daughters. In 1972, she started the North Little Rock Adult Handicapped Services that provided semi-independent
residential living opportunities to developmentally disabled adults who would have otherwise been homebound or institutionalized.

Rosemary Hamel died in 2021.

Have a great week, everybody! Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there. You all deserve a beautiful, red rose.

North Little Rock Tourism

And they're off!! This week we bring you a racing good time with our Flashback Friday post.On May 11, 1892, Alonzo “Lon...
05/01/2026

And they're off!! This week we bring you a racing good time with our Flashback Friday post.

On May 11, 1892, Alonzo “Lonnie” Clayton rode Azra to victory, by a nose, in the Kentucky Derby. At age 15, he is the youngest winner of America’s most famous horse race. The 152nd renewal of the Kentucky Derby will be run on Saturday.

The photograph of Clayton is courtesy of the African American Museum and Library at Oakland, California.

As a teenager Clayton was a national figure, known as a come-from-behind artist who won high stakes races from New York to California. In 1895, he built a Queen Ann-style home in North Argenta, known today as the Engelberger House at 2105 North Maple Street in North Little Rock.

Clayton finished in the money in three more Kentucky Derbies in the 1890s, placing twice and showing once. By 1898, he had won dozens of high stakes races all over the country, especially in the rich venues of Saratoga, Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn, and Morris Park in Westchester County, New York.

Edward Hotaling, author of The Great Black Jockeys, credited Clayton as “one of the great riders of the New York circuit.”

After his career declined in the early 1900s, due to financial and legal issues, less success on the track, and the dwindling fortunes for Black jockeys in general, Clayton moved with his family to Los Angeles. He died at age 41 in 1917.

Have a great weekend, everybody!

North Little Rock Tourism

It's been raining all day here. We need the rain, though. Since many of you might be staying inside, this might be a g...
04/25/2026

It's been raining all day here. We need the rain, though. Since many of you might be staying inside, this might be a good time for another Flashback Friday post.

Pole vault practice was underway in a field near Argenta High School. The date of this photograph was between 1910 and 1920, courtesy of Clara Howell Anderson. The exact location and identities are not known.

Argenta High School was built at Fourth and Willow streets in 1912. However, the Northside High School at 13 th and Main (site today of the city’s new Central Fire Station) was also known as Argenta High School from 1902 to 1912. Thus, the photograph’s date relates to its location.

Trying to judge the height of the bar is guesswork. It sags in the middle. Judging by the heights of the athletes, the bar was at least 10 feet high. The vaulter here soared well over the bar. The dirt or sand in the “pit” looks softer than the ground around it, but was not the foam cushioning vaulters land in today.

Have a great weekend, everybody! Try to stay dry.

North Little Rock Tourism

Ready for another Flashback Friday post? We sure are!FDR AT CAMP ROBINSON ON APRIL 18, 1943U.S. President Franklin D. R...
04/18/2026

Ready for another Flashback Friday post? We sure are!

FDR AT CAMP ROBINSON ON APRIL 18, 1943

U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt visited Camp Robinson near North Little Rock on a chilly and wet Sunday, April 18, 1943, during World War II.

Courtesy of the Arkansas State Archives, photographs show the president, popularly known as FDR, meeting with reporters and visiting the camp.

Roosevelt’s trip by train, under the protection of U.S. soldiers, was part of a 13-state inspection tour of military camps, naval facilities and war factories from April 13-29, 1943.

Camp Robinson was the seventh of 19 stops through the South and Midwest, plus Mexico.

Roosevelt spent less than a day at Camp Robinson before departing for Camp Gruber near Tulsa, Oklahoma.

It was FDR’s second wartime tour of military bases, which included a notable excursion to Monterrey, Mexico, where the U.S. and Mexican presidents met for the first time in 34 years.

While in Mexico, the route was guarded by the Mexican cavalry and U.S. Army troops.

“Although there was general surprise shown at the president’s presence wherever he went, this trip was not a big secret as the inspection trip last fall” due to newspaper and radio coverage, according to a White House statement.

“Curious crowds were attracted everywhere along our route, particularly at the railroad stations in the Midwest, by the presence of the large or unusual number of military guards about the stations and tracks,” according to the White House.

“In the camps, many service men admitted that, although they had no definite information, they did have a pretty good idea who their visitor was to be,” the White House added.

Weather threatened on several occasions and FDR’s entourage passed through rain and hail storms.

Also on April 18, 1943, in the Pacific Ocean, U.S. Army fighter pilot Rex T. Barber, acting on naval intelligence that had decoded a Japanese message, shot down a plane carrying Isoroku Yamamoto, whose body was found the next day near Bougainville Island in Papua New Guinea. Yamamoto orchestrated the December
7, 1941, surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.

Have a great weekend, everybody!

North Little Rock Tourism

Address

506 Main Street
North Little Rock, AR
72114

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 5pm
Tuesday 9am - 5pm
Wednesday 9am - 5pm
Thursday 9am - 5pm
Friday 9am - 5pm

Telephone

+15013710755

Website

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