Airport

North Little Rock Regional Airport at 8200 Remount Road sits on 800 acres, formerly part of Camp Robinson. The U.S. Army deeded the first 570 acres to the city in 1950.

The airport opened in 1960 with a 3,000-foot runway, adding lights in 1962 and an administration building in 1963.

A base for corporate jets in recent years, the airport housed more than 200 aircraft, as of 2024, averaging more than 56,000 take-offs and landings a year on two runways.

Newest additions include a 15,000 square foot corporate aircraft hangar and new administration building to give the airport a modern make-over.

Offering aircraft sales and rentals, flight instruction, fuel supplies, and maintenance, the airport also provides space for the National Weather Service, Central Arkansas Water, UA-Pulaski Technical College, and a training facility for the North Little Rock Fire Department.

Before permanent bridges spanned the Arkansas River, there were public and private ferries. About 1820, Edmund Hogan started the first ferry service between the fledgling town of Little Rock and the north side. Ferries operated for another 70 years before going out of business.

Central Arkansas now has nine Arkansas River bridges, including six downtown.

Oldest is the Baring Cross railroad bridge, opened December 22, 1873, though it has been rebuilt a few times. From 1877 to 1891, it had an upper “highway” deck for wagons and pedestrians. For safety, the highway deck was moved to track level and then removed in 1908.

Two other railroad bridges, the Junction Bridge in 1884 and the Choctaw/Rock Island Bridge in 1899, have been converted to pedestrian bridges. The Rock Island Bridge was renamed the Clinton Presidential Bridge.

Built in 1897, the free bridge (no toll) was replaced in 1924 by the first Main Street Bridge (rebuilt in 1972). The Broadway Bridge, built in 1923, was demolished in 2016 and a new bridge by the same name now serves the metropolitan area.

The Interstate 40 Bridge through downtown opened in 1961 and was rebuilt in 2025. Interstate 430 (1974) is on the city’s west side and Interstate 440 (1979) is on the east side. The Big Dam Bridge for pedestrians and bicyclists opened at Cook’s landing, near I-430 in 2006.

North Little Rock historically has had numerous viaducts crossing over railroad tracks. The Main Street viaduct, first built in 1907 and rebuilt in 1927, spans railroad tracks between Eighth and 13th streets.

Arkansas River floods have replenished the bottomlands for agriculture but wreaked havoc on north side settlements. Their influence in history can’t be underestimated.

The flood of 1833 reached the highest point on record.

“All the plantations on the north side of the Arkansas, for several miles above and below this place are under water,” the Arkansas Gazette reported under the headline, “Distressing Freshet” on June 19, 1833.

“Scarcely an acre of land under cultivation has escaped,” the newspaper wrote, “and a number of out-houses have been swept off, and we are really distressed to learn that the whole of Maj. Danly’s dwelling-house, about a mile and a half above town, has been swept off, and a deep channel cut through his plantation, through which the water runs with great velocity, sweeping the plantations below of Mr. Scott, Col. Walker, Mr. Cook and Mr. Rorer.”

David Rorer’s ferry terminal and roadhouse on the north side, opposite Little Rock, was also a casualty of what the Gazette said was the highest water in anyone’s recollection.

In 1840, another severe flood washed away the nascent town of DeCantillon on the north side, between today’s Main Street and Broadway bridges in Riverfront Park.

Almost every year the floods came, though the frequency has declined since construction of the McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System in 1971.

North Little Rock’s most disastrous flood came in April 1927. Rising water from as far north as Canada moved into the Mississippi River Valley that spring, accompanied by storms, tornadoes, and torrential rain, to create what is known as the Great Flood of 1927. Herbert Hoover, the secretary of commerce and future president, called the flood “America’s greatest peace time disaster.”

The Mississippi River flowed over most of eastern Arkansas and backed up the Arkansas River and its tributaries. Destruction was unparalleled in terms of cost and loss of life, though no deaths occurred in Central Arkansas.

In North Little Rock, flood water, combined with downpours of rain, saturated homes and businesses in downtown, Melrose Circle, Baring Cross, Military Heights, and Dark Hollow. High water cut the city off from Levy and Park Hill. The river also washed away the south spans of the Baring Cross Bridge and destroyed some 200,000 plants and 20,000 shrubs and evergreens of the Joseph W. Vestal & Son Florist Company in Baring Cross.

Although the flood in 1927 measured a foot lower at its crest than the 1833 “freshet” that overran farms and plantations, it caused far more damage, in excess of $300 million across several states. The homeless were 750,000 overall and the death toll reached 313.

In one night, April 16 and 17, the Arkansas rose two feet, menacing nearby homes and flooding businesses on East Washington, but it would be a week before the waters crested at 10 feet above flood stage. On the 17th, North Little Rock Mayor Ross Lawhon declared an emergency and asked for volunteers. “Every man that could be found was sent out on the work,” the North Little Rock Times reported on April 20.

City Police Chief Henry Hilliard cracked down on “joyriders” who stopped traffic on the Main Street and Broadway bridges to watch people climb into rescue boats below. Officials warned outsiders to stay away unless they had a good reason to come. “Every person entering North Little Rock by auto without urgent business will be detained,” the Times warned. “The car will be parked and the driver and occupants will be put to work.”

Most of the businesses on Washington Avenue and the first few blocks of Main Street were under several inches to several feet of water by April 19. Work crews, who had not quit or slept for two days and two nights, feverishly sandbagged and shored up the dike protecting Vestal’s greenhouses. “Martial law was virtually in effect in North Little Rock, as officials called every able-bodied man for rescue work [at Vestal’s],” historian Evelyn K. Eubank wrote.

Utilities and phones quit working, numerous streets closed, and schools and businesses, including the railroads, ceased operation. Health authorities issued a boil order because of contamination from broken sewer lines. As security, the Arkansas National Guard and local volunteers from the Gordon Gale American Legion post guarded abandoned stores and homes.

Soon, the Broadway Bridge closed and most roads were impassable. The Arkansas-Missouri Highway offered the only lifeline out. Conditions worsened with a torrential rainstorm in the early morning of April 20 that threatened this north-south land bridge and swallowed homes in low-lying Dark Hollow, Melrose Circle, Baring Cross and Military Heights.

“The heavy rain has flooded most sections of the city — practically the whole town now is isolated,” Times wrote on April 20.

Flood victims escaped to higher ground, some never to return. Eubankrelated a story of one couple in Baring Cross, the J.E. Flakes, who had just made a down payment on a bedroom suite and two rockers in a home in the 300 block of Parker. When the water rose later that week, they fled in a flat-bottomed boat. “All of the dwellings under water were left with deep mud and had to be hosed out,” Eubank said. “Since insurance companies did not cover flood damage at that time, [the Flakes] had to complete payments on the furniture they lost and make a new start.”

On April 21, the rampaging river tossed aside a train of 15 coal-filled freight cars anchoring the Baring Cross Bridge and ripped down the south spans. That same day, the levee saving Vestal’s broke. “Waters rose to varying heights in the greenhouses, in many places covering the tables,” the Times said on April 27.

Downtown commerce carried on, nevertheless, as businesses adapted by stacking sandbags and building ramps. Customers could “bank by boat,” Twin City Bank advertised. People shopped or got to work by boat, and wooden walkways constructed above the water helped them move about while the flood waters receded.

In time, the mud was cleaned off and the city dried out.

Yet more floods followed in 1933, 1935, and 1937. Finally, relief came with federal money to build a flood wall. Congressman David D. Terry secured $400,000 to build the wall, which was completed in 1939. While it stifled flooding, the onslaught of river floods continued in 1941, 1943, 1944, 1945, and into the 1950s and 1960s.

Floods in the spring and fall of 1973 overran Baring Cross and the East End. The river rose in 1986, 1990, 2007 and 2015, imperiling property near the shore and leading to relief efforts. In May 2019, one of area’s highest floods ever forced the city to install flood gates for the first time since 1945.

History warns that the water will rise again.

–Cary Bradburn