LITTLE

ROCK  , the capital of Arkansas, U.S.A., and the county-seat of Pulaski county, situated near the centre of the state and on the S. bank of the Arkansas river, at the E. edge of the Ozark foothills . Pop . (189o) 25,874; (1900) 38,307, of whom 14,694 were of negro blood, and 2099 were foreign-born; (1910 census) 45,941 . Little Rock is served by the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific, the St Louis South Western, and the St Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern railways and by river boats . It occupies a comparatively level site of 11 sq. m. at an altitude of 250 to 400 ft. above sea-level and 5o ft. or more above the river, which is crossed here by three railway bridges and by a county bridge . The city derived its name (originally " le Petit Roche " and " The Little Rock ") from a rocky peninsula in the Arkansas, distinguished from the " Big Rock " (the site of the army post, Fort Logan H . Roots), i m . W. of the city, across the river . The Big Rock is said to have been first discovered and named " Le Rocher Francais " in 1722 by Sieur Bernard de la Harpe, who was in search of an emerald mountain; the Little Rock is now used as an abutment for a railway bridge . The state capitol, the state insane asylum, the state deaf mute institute, the state school for the blind, a state reform school, the penitentiary, the state library and the medical and law departments of the state university are at Little Rock; and the city is also the seat of the United States court for the eastern district of Arkansas, of a United States land office, of Little Rock College, of the St Mary's Academy, of a Roman Catholic orphanage and a Roman Catholic convent, and of two schools for negroes—the Philander Smith College (Methodist Episcopal, 1877), co-educational, and the Arkansas Baptist College . The city is the seat of Protestant Episcopal and Roman Catholic bishops . Little Rock has a Carnegie library (1908), an old ladies' home, a Florence Crittenton rescue home, a children's home, St Vincent's infirmary, a city hospital, a Catholic hospital, a physicians' and surgeons' hospital and the Arkansas hospital for nervous diseases .

A municipal

park system includes City, Forest, Wonderland and West End parks . Immigration from the northern states has been encouraged, and northern men control much of the business of the city . In 1905 the value of factory products was $4,689,787, being 38.8% greater than the value in 19oo . Cotton and lumber industries are the leading interests; the value of cotton-seed oil and cake manufactured in 1905 was $967,043, of planing mill products $835,049, and of lumber and timber products $342,134 . Printing and publishing and the manufacture of foundry and machine shop products and of furniture are other important industries . Valuable deposits of bauxite are found in Pulaski county, and the mines are the most important in the United States . Originally the site of the city was occupied by the Quapaw Indians . The earliest permanent settlement by the whites was about 1813–1814; the county was organized in 1818 while still a part of Missouri Territory; Little Rock was surveyed in 1821, was incorporated as a town and became the capital of Arkansas in 1821, and was chartered as a city in 1836 . In 185o its population was only 2167, and in 186o 3727; but in 1870 it was 12,380 . Little Rock was enthusiastically anti-Union at the outbreak of the Civil War . In February 1861, the United States Arsenal was seized by the state authorities . In September 1863 the Federal generals William Steele (1819—1885) and John W .

Davidson (1824-1881), operating against General Sterling Price, captured the city, and it remained throughout the rest of the war under Federal control . Constitutional conventions met at Little Rock in 1836, 1864, 1868 and 1874, and also the Secession Convention of 1861 . The Arkansas Gazette, established at Arkansas Post in 1819 and soon after-wards removed to the new capital, was the first newspaper published in Arkansas and one of the first published west of the Mississippi .