History · Little Rock

Little Rock has 279 places on the National Register, 5 of them National Historic Landmarks

More historic than 84% of U.S. towns · #3 of 123 in Arkansas. What drives it

With 8% of its homes built before 1940 and 28 historic districts holding 5,241 contributing buildings. Most of Little Rock was built recently: 8% of its homes predate 1940 and the median home dates from 1978. Below: 6 old photos and papers, maps from 1886 on, the census since 1850, and every listing on the Register.

1820first post office

279on the National Register

8%homes built before 1940

6old photos & papers

30famous people

Add an old photo Share a memory

From Little Rock’s archive · credits on each photo

Quick answers

How Little Rock began

When was Little Rock founded?

1820

The Little Rock post office opened in 1820, the earliest record of the town by name. Wikidata gives 1821. Six smaller post offices, Woodruff (1850), Rosedale (1876) and Halstead (1878), opened inside today’s city and later closed.

First census: 2,167 in 18502020 census: 202,591206 years

How historic is Little Rock?

A⁻

More historic than 84% of U.S. towns, on its age, its old homes and the National Register.

What drives the grade ↓

Founding year: the first Little Rock post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Wikidata: 1821.The full story ↓

History grade

What drives Little Rock’s History grade

On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Little Rock is more historic than 84% of U.S. towns, #3 of 123 in Arkansas. Its National Register listings hold the grade up; its share of homes from before 1940 pulls it down.

A⁻

HistoryA character grade: shown, never part of Little Rock’s overall grade.

Founding era1820, from the first post office: founded 1776–1849, an older era than 75% of U.S. townsA⁻Homes built before 19408.0% of homes (±0.6) · typical AR town 3.1% · U.S. 8.4%C⁺National Register279 listings, 5,241 historic buildings, 258 per 10,000 residents · typical AR town 20.5 · U.S. 2.4A⁺

All U.S. towns we grade (21,289)Ahead of 84%

NewerOlder

Arkansas towns of 2,500+ (123)Ahead of 98%

Among the 400 U.S. cities of 100,000 or more, Little Rock ranks #102 on History.

Arkansas towns list more on the Register than most of the country (a typical Arkansas town has 20.5 per 10,000 residents, the U.S. 2.4), so Little Rock’s 258 sits above most of its state (99% of Arkansas towns have fewer) while its 5,241 historic buildings outnumber those of 100% of U.S. towns.

How sure. Graded on any two of the three inputs instead, the letter would range from B to A+. The pre-1940 share (±0.6 points) is firm at this size. The founding year is the first post office, not a stated founding date; Wikidata’s 1821 falls in the same era, so the grade doesn’t depend on which one is used.

Founding year: the first post office (other dates in Quick answers). Homes: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register: National Park Service, May 2026 list; each listing counted once (boundary changes and added documentation belong to their listing), and a historic district counts its contributing buildings. How TownRatings grades history →

What stands out about Little Rock’s past

Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.

A National Historic Landmark279 places on the National Register, 5 of them National Historic Landmarks.A historic districtThe Hillcrest Historic District takes in 1,159 historic buildings.Lost villages6 post offices opened and closed inside today’s Little Rock, and 79 old place names are still on the map.Mapped building by building6 fire insurance maps, 1886 to 1913, drew every building in Little Rock.

★ What stands out · On the National Register

279 listings protect 5,241 historic buildings

The country’s official list of buildings and places worth saving. 5 are National Historic Landmarks, the highest tier. Boundary changes and added documentation are counted with their listing.

places listed

279

National Historic Landmarks

Old State House

historic buildings protected

5,241

each building in a district counts

first listed

1969

Old State House

BuildingsDistrictsSitesStructuresObjects★ landmark

★ Landmark

Old State HouseBuilt 1800

★ Landmark

U.S. Arsenal BuildingBuilding

★ Landmark

Joseph Taylor Robinson HouseBuilding

★ Landmark

Little Rock Central High SchoolBuilt 1905

★ Landmark

Daisy Bates HouseBuilding

Mount Holly CemeteryBuilt 1843

Tavern, TheBuilding

Angelo Marre HouseBuilding

All 281 listings

National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places. Photos from Wikimedia Commons, credited on each place’s page.

Places that used to be

Lost post offices, old corners, places now gone and burying grounds

Little Rock’s post office has been open since 1820. Six other post offices opened and closed inside today’s town.

Little Rock

1820–today

Woodruff

1850–1850

Mabelvale

1873–today

Rosedale

1876–1878

Halstead

1878–1916

Ivesville

1885–1913

Piedmont

1892–1899

Genevia

1942–1979

18201920today

Hamlets and corners on the map

Allendale ManorAmerican ManorApplegateArbor CoveAzalea PlaceBase LineBeverly TerraceBiddleBreckenridgeBrittainBrownwood TerraceCandlewoodCloverdaleCollege StationColony WestDeer MeadowDouglas CornerDouglasvilleFairviewGeyer SpringsGillam ParkGuilfordGum SpringsHickory Hills

Gone or out of use

Belleview SchoolschoolBright Star ChurchchurchBrown-Ratcliffe MinemineCamp MarionlocaleDixie Number 2 MinemineDollar MinemineDunbar Junior CollegeschoolDunbar Senior High SchoolschoolEngland Open Pit MinemineEngland Outcrop MinemineEngland Shaft MinemineFourche DamdamFrazier SchoolschoolGarrett Landing StripairportHarley MinemineHatter SchoolschoolLittle Rock CollegeschoolLongley Churchchurch

19cemeteries and burying grounds inside Little Rock

AlexanderCalvaryChambersDawsonDouglassElmlawnFraternalHaven of RestLewisLittle Rock NationalLittle Rock NationalMartinMount HollyOakland and Fraternal Historic Cemetery ParkPilgrims RestRocky MountainRoselawnState HospitalUnion

See all 19

Alexander Cemetery · Calvary Cemetery · Chambers Cemetery · Dawson Cemetery · Douglass Cemetery · Elmlawn Cemetery · Fraternal Cemetery · Haven of Rest Cemetery · Lewis Cemetery · Little Rock National Cemetery · Little Rock National Cemetery · Martin Cemetery · Mount Holly Cemetery · Oakland and Fraternal Historic Cemetery Park · Pilgrims Rest Cemetery · Rocky Mountain Cemetery · Roselawn Cemetery · State Hospital Cemetery · Union Cemetery

US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).

The story

How Little Rock came to be

From Wikipedia’s history of Little Rock.

Read it all →

Little Rock was named for a stone outcropping on the bank of the Arkansas River used by early travelers as a landmark, which marked the transition from the flat Mississippi Delta region to the Ouachita Mountain foothills. It was named in 1722 by French explorer and trader, Jean-Baptiste Bénard de la Harpe. Travelers referred to the area as the "Little Rock". Though there was an effort to officially name the city "Arkopolis" upon its founding in the 1820s, and that name did appear on a few maps made by the US Geological Survey, the name Little Rock is eventually what stuck.

ChaptersPre-Columbian and European exploration Desegregation

Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

Timeline

Little Rock, 1800 to 1995

Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.

19th century
1800BuiltOld State House is built
1820Post officeThe Little Rock post office opens
1843BuiltMount Holly Cemetery is built
1850Post officeThe Woodruff post office opens
1850Post officeThe Woodruff post office closes
1864In the archiveU.S.A. Genl. Hospital
1871In the archiveSt. Johns' College, Little Rock, Arkansas, 1871
1873Post officeThe Mabelvale post office opens
1880Born hereDouglas MacArthur is born here
1881BuiltOld Post Office Building and Customhouse is built
20th century
1905BuiltLittle Rock Central High School is built
1935On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological Survey
1971Born hereJosh Lucas is born here
1980Born hereChelsea Clinton is born here
1982LandmarkLittle Rock Central High School named a National Historic Landmark
1985Born hereJohn Michael Jumper is born here
1994LandmarkJoseph Taylor Robinson House named a National Historic Landmark
1995LandmarkU.S. Arsenal Building named a National Historic Landmark

By decade

Little Rock, decade by decade

2 decades in the archive, from the 1860s to the 1870s. Scroll each row; tap a photo for its story.

1860s–1870s6 items

1864U.S.A. Genl. Hospital

"Mustered out" colored volunteers at Little Rock, Arkansas - A.R.W

1866"Mustered out" colored volunteers at Little Rock, Ark…

Arsenal Grounds at Little Rock—Band of the Nineteenth Infantry

1866Arsenal Grounds at Little Rock—Band of the Nineteenth…

1866Entry into

1871St. Johns' College, Little Rock, Arkansas, 1871

1879State Capitol

On the map

Little Rock on the map, 1935 to 1994

Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Little Rock. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.

1935Little Rock sheet · 1:24,000

U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Little Rock.

Every building

Little Rock, building by building, 1886–1913

Fire insurance maps drew every building, what it was made of and what it was used for, so insurers could price the risk of fire. Pick a year, then a sheet.

Little Rock fire insurance map, 1886, sheet 2

1886Sheet 2 of 16

Edition

Sheets

+15 more at the Library of Congress

BrickWoodStone

Sanborn Map Company, via the Library of Congress. Editions published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.

Then & now

Stand where they stood

No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as an old one and they appear here side by side.

Retake this viewU.S.A. Genl. Hospital, 1864

Find the spot, match the angle, and add your photo. It becomes the first then-and-now pair on Little Rock’s page.

Retake this view · +15

People over time

Little Rock, census by census

Grew from 2,167 people in 1850 to 202,591 in 2020, more than tenfold.

18 censuses, 1850–2020.

U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Little Rock’s Wikipedia page.

Famous people

30 famous people were born in Little Rock

Writers, athletes, leaders and more, ranked by how widely they’re known.

See all →

Douglas MacArthurUnited States Army general in WWI, WWII and Kor… · b. 1880

Chelsea ClintonAmerican author and global health advocate · b. 1980

John Michael JumperAmerican chemist and AI expert · b. 1985

Josh LucasAmerican actor · b. 1971

Joey Lauren AdamsAmerican actress · b. 1968

Joe JohnsonAmerican basketball player · b. 1981

Help out

Finish Little Rock’s story

Most archives stop around 1920. The photos from after that are in family albums, not libraries.

Decades since 1900 with photos

00s10s20s30s40s50s60s70s80s90s

0 of 10 decades. The empty ones are waiting for someone’s album.

Retake an old viewU.S.A. Genl. Hospital: stand where they stood+15 Share a family photoSign in to add one+10

Stories next door

History across the town line

Each neighbor’s History grade, on the same three inputs.

College Station1 historic placenot graded: under 1,000 residents or part of its town North Little Rock58 historic placesB⁻AlexanderIts storyD

Questions about Little Rock’s history

What year was Little Rock founded?

The Little Rock post office opened in 1820, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records). Wikidata gives 1821.

How does Little Rock rank for history?

Little Rock is more historic than 84% of U.S. towns, #3 of 123 in Arkansas. The History grade combines the town’s founding era, the share of homes built before 1940 and its National Register listings. It’s a character grade, so it isn’t part of the overall grade. How it works.

What is on the National Register in Little Rock?

279 listings, 5 of them National Historic Landmarks: 233 buildings, among them the Old State House (a National Historic Landmark since 1997), 30 historic districts with 4,967 contributing buildings, 5 sites, 9 structures, and 4 objects. 5,241 historic buildings in all.

How old are the homes in Little Rock?

8% of Little Rock’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate), against a typical 3.1% for an Arkansas town; the median home was built in 1978.

Memory lane

What the archives can’t tell you, neighbors can.

Town Square →

Start a conversation

Sources

Where this page comes from

Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).

From Wikimedia Commons (6), the National Register of Historic Places (281), Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikipedia for famous people, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock), the USGS Geographic Names Information System and Sanborn fire insurance maps (Library of Congress). Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.

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Little Rock has 279 places on the National Register, 5 of them National Historic Landmarks

How Little Rock began

When was Little Rock founded?

How historic is Little Rock?

What drives Little Rock’s History grade

What stands out about Little Rock’s past

279 listings protect 5,241 historic buildings

Lost post offices, old corners, places now gone and burying grounds

How Little Rock came to be

Little Rock, 1800 to 1995

Little Rock, decade by decade

Little Rock on the map, 1935 to 1994

Little Rock, building by building, 1886–1913

Stand where they stood

Little Rock, census by census

30 famous people were born in Little Rock

Finish Little Rock’s story

History across the town line

Questions about Little Rock’s history

Memory lane

Where this page comes from