Things to do in Little Rock

Culture · Park Street, midtown

The school where nine Black students were escorted past a mob by the 101st Airborne in 1957, still an operating high school, with a National Park Service visitor centre across the road.

Local tip: The visitor centre is free and the ranger talks are the reason to go — this is one of very few National Historic Sites that is also a working school, and the rangers are explicit about what has and has not changed since.

Landmark · East end of the River Market district

The presidential library cantilevered over the Arkansas River, in a 30-acre park with the restored Rock Island railway bridge running out from it as a pedestrian crossing.

Local tip: Skip the paid museum if you are short of time and just walk the park and the Clinton Bridge at sunset. The full-scale Oval Office replica upstairs is the exhibit people actually remember.

Nature · 20 minutes west of downtown

A 1,000-foot cone-shaped peak marking the first of the Ouachita Mountains, with a short brutal scramble to a 360-degree view over the river valley.

Local tip: Take the West Summit trail up and the East Summit down — the east side is a boulder scramble that is much harder in the wet. Go early in summer; there is no shade at the top and central Arkansas humidity is not a joke.

Nature · Both banks of the Arkansas River

A paved loop of some 15 miles linking Little Rock and North Little Rock across two dedicated pedestrian bridges, part of a longer 88-mile regional system.

Local tip: Start at the Big Dam Bridge, which at over half a mile is among the longest bridges in North America built purely for walking and cycling, and ride the loop anticlockwise so you finish in Argenta with somewhere to eat.

Food · Main Street, south of I-630

A few blocks of independent restaurants, a bakery, a bookshop and a farmers' market in what was a largely vacant corridor twenty years ago.

Local tip: The Bernice Garden farmers' market on Sunday mornings is the local institution here. This is the best walking-and-eating stretch in the city and it is entirely off the visitor track.

Culture · MacArthur Park, east of downtown

Reopened in 2023 after a full rebuild, in a park containing the 1840 arsenal building where Douglas MacArthur was born.

Local tip: Free general admission, which is unusual for a museum of this quality, and the pleated roof and the restored 1937 art deco facade are worth the visit on their own. The park around it is the oldest in the city.