A Growing City

In the early 1900s, life pulsated in the cafes, shops, theaters, meeting halls, saloons, billiard rooms, and skating rinks.

Within a few blocks, families bought groceries, medicine, hardware, and ice cream.

Horses, mules, and wagons ruled the road.

Change came by the 1920s, with the emergence of automobiles and concrete paving.

From 1910 to the mid-1940s, North Little Rock’s population doubled to around 22,000.

Teeming with rail yards, cotton oil mills, wood factories, livestock pens, and a major fertilizer plant, the city was a noisy, grimy hometown of hard-working people.

Soot from black coal smoke of locomotives covered most everything, with no exception for freshly washed clothes hung out to dry.

North Little Rock proudly called herself the “Industrial City of Arkansas.”

With most of the city’s population still clustered in the downtown, locally owned businesses thrived.

Charles J. Humphreys founded a drug store in 1882 and financed construction of four downtown buildings, including the historic Argenta Drug Company building in 1887 at 324 Main. He operated Humphreys’ Drug Store there until selling his stock in 1903 to J.T. Hall of Hall Drug Store. Humphreys joined his son, Solon, in the Argenta Building & Loan Company at 318 Main. Hall moved in 1916 from 324 Main to Third and Main.

Founded in 1909 by Dr. Edwin Sharp in one of Humphreys’ buildings at 403 Main, Argenta Drug Company moved to 324 Main in 1916, where it continues today.

Elmer O. Manees set up a mercantile store in Argenta in 1895. Hugely successful, he had two downtown buildings constructed in the 300 block of Main in 1912 and 1924. The buildings still stand, as does his former residence at 216 West Fourth, built in 1895 by Charles J. Humphreys.

The North Little Rock Times newspaper, managed for decades by John Pruniski, published its first newspaper in 1898 and stayed in business for 120 years.

Stanley Hardware began in 1901 in Levy and still exists today on MacArthur Drive. Flake Stanley, the first mayor of Levy, founded the store, which his brother Oscar Stanley took over a few years later.

Faucette Brothers Bank, founded by William C. and James P. Faucette in 1901, was incorporated as Twin City Bank in 1904. Mercantile Bank acquired Twin City Bank in 1995, followed by Firststar and then U.S. Bank. A second Twin City Bank formed in 2000, but its holding company changed the name to Centennial Bank in 2008.

Mechanics Lumber Company, founded by the Pfeifer family in 1902, remains in business as OneSource Home and Building Center.

Owens Funeral Home, founded by Robert and Judith Owens in 1910, moved into a new Spanish Revival building that the company erected at 500 Main in 1928. Denver Roller Funeral Home bought Owens in 1976 and moved it the next year to 5509 JFK. The funeral home’s name changed in 1987 to Roller-Owens. The 500 Main building was purchased at auction in 1977 by Gene Pfeifer. He sold it in 2005 to the Hardin and Grace law firm and Ken Davenport Construction, who renovated the building as law offices and residences.

Walter H. Koehler Sr. opened Koehler Bakery in 1919 at 711 Main Street, where the company’s main plant remained until 1972.
Long-term Black-owned funeral homes include Hubble at 1213 East Washington, founded in 1922 by Walter S. Hubble; Oscar T. Smith and Son at 1001 East Washington; and Ruffin & Jarrett, opened by John and Rose Ruffin and W.L. Jarrett at 420 East 14th.

Malco Theaters, co-owned by Moses McCord, Max Pruniski, and M.A. Lightman, opened the Rialto Theater in 1930 at 205 Main, with Black movie-goers restricted to the balcony. Malco built its corporate headquarters in 1936 at 203 Main. It owned theaters throughout the state. Other downtown theaters, established earlier, were the Princess (originally the Colonial) at 212 Main and the Ritz at 219 East Washington, which catered to Black residents. The Liberty Theater at 313 Main opened in 1940. The Broadway Drive-
In also started showing movies in 1940 at 3421 East Broadway. Scenic Drive-In was open in the 1950s and early 1960s at 3500 Old Conway Highway.

Ice houses, common before the prevalence of home refrigerators and freezers, sold blocks of ice for pickup or delivery. Residents used ice boxes, sometimes with a small refrigerator mounted on top, and bought ice from local companies named Crystal, Mountain, City, Model, Standard, Home, Twin City, and Delivery.

Mexico Chiquito, started by Blackie Donnelly and his wife in 1935 at Prothro Junction, is said to have originated cheese dip. The restaurant has closed, but its c heese dip recipe lives on. White Pig Inn, established in 1924 in Prothro Junction by the Seaton family, has also closed.

After the Great Depression in the 1930s and rationing in World War II, business not only revived, it boomed after 1945.

Returning war veterans, many of them taking advantage of the G.I. Bill to attend college, improved their lives. They married, started businesses, and had children, generating the Baby Boom.

The nation’s love affair with the automobile blossomed. With greater mobility and the unleashing of a pent-up construction industry, the economy heated up.

Annexations in 1946 tripled the territory and doubled the city’s population, as Levy, Scenic Hill, Fort Roots, Vestal Addition, Park Hill, Amboy, Dixie, Rose City, Tie Plant, Prothro Junction, Dark Hollow (though part of it was in the original city boundary), and north of Levy along Camp Robinson Road became part of North Little Rock.

Lakewood was added in 1951.

Suburban development, starting with the Justin Matthews Company in Park Hill in the 1920s, then resuming in the late 1940s, expanded North Little Rock’s residential and commercial footprint.

Lakewood’s development by Matthews’ heirs began in 1947, followed by Reed McConnell and Harry Pittard’s development of Glenview in 1956, the city’s first Black subdivision.

A public library opened in 1946 at 211 Maple, followed the next year by a smaller library for Black patrons at 812 West 13th. The city also acquired the first tract of what became Burns Park in 1949 and established a six-acre park for Black residents at East Seventh (now D.L. Lindsey Drive) and Beech.

Lakehill Shopping Center opened in Park Hill in 1956, anchored by Kroger. Pike Plaza at 2700 Pike, with 50,000 square feet, opened in 1959 and added another 4,500 square feet in 1962. Otasco, West’s Department Store, Sterling, Pike Lanes, and later Magic Mart and Weingarten’s were major retailers.

Winrock Enterprises developed Indian Hills in 1961, the same year the John Matthews Company began Delta Lawn in Rose City. In the mid-1960s, Winrock Realty Company introduced the Greenlea Lake subdivision in Rose City.

Thanks to a voter-approved millage tax and federal funding, North Little Rock built its first general hospital, Memorial Hospital, on Boone’s Hill overlooking Baring Cross in 1961.

By the 1960s, with construction of Interstate 40, motels outpaced aging downtown hotels. Bypassed by the interstate, tourist courts that had thrived east of downtown and in Rose City disappeared on Highway 70, once known as “America’s Highway.”

The Interstate 40 route also caused removal of a Black cemetery, Odd Fellows, off Pershing between Orange and Main. More than 700 graves, said to have been relocated, were never accounted for or found.

The city’s Urban Renewal agency spent close to $50 million in federal money between the mid-1960s and 1980, with the promise of eliminating slums. This led to infrastructure improvements and redevelopment in downtown, West Broadway, Pike Avenue, and historically Black neighborhoods in Military Heights, the Shorter College area, and Tie Plant in Rose City.

Work in Military Heights included four-lane Pershing Boulevard, a Police and Court building, Post Office, Health Department, community center, high-rise for the elderly and disabled, doctors’ offices, Holiday Inn motel, and other private projects.

The First American National Bank building (razed in 2024) and the existing Twin City Bank building were two prominent downtown redevelopments of Urban Renewal.

Donne L. Lindsey, a Dark Hollow resident in the 1950s and 1960s, opened Lindsey’s Barbecue in 1956. His nephew Richard Lindsey operated the business until retiring. Donne Lindsey’s son and daughter in law, Donnie Jr. and Eleanor Lindsey, have carried on the family tradition since opening Lindsey’s Hospitality House in 2005. Recognized by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the
restaurant ships its famous barbecue sauce nationally.

A.C. and Frances Lewis opened an Esso station on Locust Street in 1949. They operated the business on Locust Street until moving to a prime spot at Broadway and Locust in the early 1970s. In 1972, Arkansas AAA Destination magazine named Lewis’ service station as Garage of the Month for its good service record, noting that the station had been a member of AAA since 1966. The A.C. Lewis
Service Station remained in business until the early 1990s. The family business continues to this day as Lewis Towing Service.

Dexter Doyne had experience managing rental properties and doing remodeling jobs when he founded Doyne Construction Company in 1983. The general contracting firm has contracts valued at more than $5 million.

National and regional corporations, such as Kroger, Safeway, J.C. Penney, Mobil Oil, Otasco, and Western Auto, to name a few, had provided job opportunities for decades in North Little Rock.

Family-owned businesses, however, had maintained a significant share of the local market.

By the 1970s, that was changing. The big companies, including McDonald’s and Wal-Mart, were claiming an even greater market share.

The geography was changing, too.

McCain Mall in 1973 hastened an exodus of businesses from downtown and older neighborhoods.

At McCain and US. Highway 67, where there had been pasture land, two-story McCain Mall gave shoppers 850,000 square feet of enclosed, climate-controlled retail space, with more than 70 stores and parking for 4,000 cars.

One newspaper called the 56-acre development a “virtual new city.”

Major companies included Pfeifer-Blass (now Dillard Department Store), J.C. Penney, M.M. Cohn, and Sears.

Numerous shopping centers popped up all over the city. Established in the 1960s to 1990s were Levy Shopping Center, North Park Mall, Indian Hills, Rose City, the Other Center, North Heights, Vali Hi I and II, and Lakewood Shopping Center, among others.

Far from dying, local companies found their niche in the burgeoning suburban shopping centers of Park Hill, Lakewood, Indian Hills, Levy, Amboy, and Rose City.

North Little Rock’s downtown, given up for dead in the 1970s, has come back.

In the 1990s, downtown revived, with the Argenta Historic District and Argenta Community Development Corporation pursuing residential and commercial redevelopment, aided by financial support from city and state government, private investors, and tax credits.

The arena on East Washington and Dickey-Stephens ballpark on East Broadway anchor a thriving entertainment and restaurant district on Main Street, enhanced by the Argenta Arts Foundation’s art walks and the Argenta Downtown Council’s flower beds and Dogtown Throwdown events.

Argenta Plaza (next door), managed by North Little Rock Tourism, hosts concerts, festivals, ballets, the annual city Christmas tree lighting, Northern Lights holiday gala, and many other gatherings.

The atg Pavilion on the plaza’s north end pays homage to legendary musicians with Arkansas connections. North Little Rock artist Kevin Kresse sculpted busts of the musicians that are displayed in the pavilion. Two of the honorees are North Little Rock’s Pharoah Sanders and Al Bell, both graduates of S.A. Jones High School.

On the plaza’s east perimeter, tech giant First Orion houses a workforce in a 21st century glass-gleaming six-story building.

Apartments and townhomes have gone up on both sides of Main Street and on Riverfront Drive, boosting downtown’s residential population and increasing property values in the Argenta neighborhood.

The North Little Rock Event Center at 120 Main opened in 2026. Construction of two hotels were underway.

In addition to building activity in downtown, redevelopment is a theme throughout the city.

East McCain Boulevard has transformed in a few decades from farmland to a busy corridor of shopping centers, restaurants, motels, and offices. Memorial Hospital moved in 1999 to Springhill Drive, with doctors’ clinics locating nearby.

Among developments on East McCain are McCain Plaza, Market Plaza, Home Depot, Lowe’s, and a WalMart Supercenter.

In 2024, Baptist Health opened a family clinic at 4200 East Washington in Rose City.

Maumelle Boulevard, at the western end of the city, annexed in the mid-1980s, has likewise become a mecca of strip shopping centers and restaurants.

Reflecting the shift to on-line sales, massive distribution warehouses have found homes on Highway 70 to the east and Maumelle Boulevard to the west. On Pike Avenue, Federal Metals built a scrap recycling plant in 2023. Ben E. Keith food distribution center moved from Pike to a new and expanded facility at Highway 70 and I-440. The company established its Mid-South Regional
Headquarters there.

West of Pike, the Rockwater community development in Baring Cross features large homes along the river, as well as houses, townhomes, and apartments on the former Vestal Nursey property.

In recent years, several older shopping centers have spruced up appearances at Lakehill, Lakewood Village, the Other Center, North Park Mall, and McCain Mall. E-commerce has forced brick-and-mortar companies to adapt to a new and changing world that yet finds sustenance in the past.