Little Rock’s West Ninth Street, sometimes referred to as the capital city’s “Little Harlem,” traces its history to the Civil War when the Federal army began erecting log cabins in the area for recently freed slaves. The area eventually become the vibrant center of the city’s African American community.

Arkansas’s immigrant population as always been relatively small but foreign-born immigrants contributions to the development of Arkansas’s economy is significant. Immigrants who settled in Arkansas include Germans, Italians, Poles, Bohemians, Chinese, Marshallese, Indochinese, Greeks, Latinos, Jews, and South Asians.

Mary Douglas Martin, a resident of Little Rock, journeyed to Chicago in 1893 with part of her family to experience the World’s Fair: Columbian Exposition. Martin recorded many of her experiences in a diary that she took along during the trip.

Downtown Little Rock has been home to more than a dozen movie theaters over the years, thought one would not guess it in this age of suburban cineplexes. The movement of people to western portions of the city and the resulting decline of downtown businesses led to the closure of these house of cinema.