Little Rock is the capital city of the state of Arkansas. Once briefly named “Arkopolis,” the city received its current name from a small rock formation located on the south bank of the Arkansas River named “la Petite Roche” by a French explorer called Jean-Baptiste Bernard.
Interesting Facts About Little Rock, Arkansas
- The mill that appears in the opening scene of Hollywood’s classic film “Gone With The Wind” is located in North Little Rock. It’s the only structure in the entire movie still standing today.
- The previously mentioned mill is not, nor ever was a functioning mill. It is a sculpture created in 1932. Its original purpose was to serve as a tourist attraction.
- Until 2015, Little Rock was home to the famous Peabody Hotel, which hosted a world-renowned “duck walk” twice a day. The ducks lived in the hotel’s penthouse and were led by a “duckmaster” dressed in a red coat.
- Among the notable people born in Little Rock, we find General Douglas MacArthur. Strangely enough, even though former President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Clinton are intimately related to the city, neither one of them was born there.
- Little Rock boasts one of the strangest monuments in the United States. The monument to the first human dissection was placed in MacArthur Park in 1927 by the Arkansas Medical Society.
- Little Rock’s Central High School entered the national spotlight in 1957 when 9 African American children enrolled in what had previously been an all-white school and had to be escorted by the National Guard.