Arkansas, the 25th state admitted to the United States, sits in the South Central region of the country. It borders Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, Texas to the southwest, and Oklahoma to the west.
Arkansas was part of the Louisiana Purchase, sold by Napoléon Bonaparte to Thomas Jefferson in order to raise funds for his campaigns in Europe. As such its name, like that of Illinois, is pronounced in a quasi-French manner, with the final “s” silent (the name actually derives from the language of the Quapah and Osage tribes, though). Interestingly, during its territorial days, Congress and official maps tended to spell it “Arkansaw”, with the spelling changed after it was divided from Indian Territory. To locals and the state government, the state's pronunciation and spelling is Serious Business (as in, codified into Law). Outside of Arkansas itself, American children first learning the states almost universally pronounce it just like Kansas with an extra syllable, which is also how the Spanish-speaking minority within the state habitually pronounce it.
Like much of the South, Arkansas tended to be a hot point during the Civil Rights Movement. In a specific case, the state’s segregationist Governor Orval Faubus refused to desegregate the state capital’s schools after the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education (a case which had begun in Kansas). Faubus’s intransigence provoked US President Dwight D. Eisenhower to send in the National Guard.note Reality is messy here. Faubus was first elected in 1954, after Brown, and he originally had a history of moderation with a rather populist economic platform. During his first term (governors' terms were two years then), he made no effort to stop Charleston or Fayetteville from desegregating, plus a couple of small towns like Hoxie in the northeast had already integrated before his election. But, Fayetteville was and remains the home of the state's flagship university, making it one of Arkansas's most important cities; seeing it “fall” to the forces of integration caused segregationists to threaten Faubus with a primary challenge. Faubus in turn agreed to block any more cities from integrating and coasted to reelection in 1956. Just a few months later, Little Rock's school board voted to do just that, forcing Faubus's hand, and everyone knows how that turned out. After Faubus's retirement in 1966, and increasing year-over-year, what had originally been a crass political calculation to keep his job became a large part of his self-identity, further cementing him as one of history's villains.
As a Southern state, Arkansas sided with the Confederacy during the American Civil War, but was one of the last states to secede – while slavery was legal (admitted during the Missouri Compromise years, its companion Free State is Michigan), it was not nearly as dependent upon it as neighboring Mississippi and Louisiana nor as intransigent on the issue as Texas. Half the state being unfit for large-scale agriculture played a large part in this, with pro-Union sentiment especially strong in the resource-poor Ozarks – incidentally, that area is home to the two most prominent battlefields in the state: Pea Ridge (Federal site) and Prairie Grove (a State Park).
Arkansas is largely associated with rural areas and small towns, despite being home to mid-sized cities like Little Rock (the capital), Fayetteville (the college town), and Fort Smith. As such in fiction it corresponds with the good and bad aspects of the South as well as those of the country. The region surrounding Fayetteville also boasts the birthplace (Rogers) and current HQ (Bentonville) of Walmart, as well as major meat producer/processor Tyson Foods (Springdale). That said, the majority of the state's 3,000,000+ people still live in rural areas, or suburban at best. Little Rock itself only passed 200,000 residents in the 2020 Census, with 2nd largest city Fayetteville passing 100,000 in or around 2023.note Arkansas, like much of the rest of the South, has experienced a decades-long population shift from the agricultural areas to less-productive but more economically dynamic areas, in its case from the southeast to the northwest.
Arkansas is also known even by American/Southern standards for its extremely varied geography. The state contains the majority and highest-elevated of the U.S. Interior Highlands Region, which rises sharply from the lowlands that dominate the rest of the South – even on satellite images, one can see a stark northeast-to-southwest line separating the lowlands from the uplands, practically cutting the state in two. Little Rock was intentionally founded at a spot where these areas meet. In addition to the elevation differences, Arkansas is inland enough and far north enough that it straddles major climactic zones in a way many Southern states don’t. There is a gap of less than 100 miles between mountain pine forests and cypress swamps. That plus a conservation-minded populace (even if for self-serving reasons – hunting is a popular local pastime, as are boating and hiking) has led to the creation of over five dozen State Parks since the 1930s, plus a number of Wildlife Refuges, National Forests, and America’s first National River. The Delta Region in the southeast is known to be one of the best duck-hunting spots in the country. Put bluntly, Arkansas has the motto “The Natural State” for a reason.
Finally, Arkansas prides itself on being the only state in which diamonds are found regularly – there is a kimberlite pipe just outside of Murfreesboro in the state's southwest. While no South Africa by any stretch, once every few years someone will dig up a decent-sized diamond. This is why the state flag has its distinct diamond-rhomboid motif; a diamond was also added to the state's regular car tags in the 2010's.
Works set in Arkansas:
- Bloody Mama
- Evening Shade
- A Face in the Crowd: Larry “Lonesome” Rhodes starts out there.
- The Legend of Boggy Creek
- Minari
- Mud
- One False Move
- Shotgun Stories
- Sling Blade
- Supernatural: Episodes “Folsom Prison Blues” and “Regarding Dean".
- Thelma & Louise: Starts out there, as both title characters live in an Arkansas town.
- Walk the Line: A good part of it is set there, since the movie is about native Johnny Cash.
Famous Arkansans:
- Joey Lauren Adams
- Maya Angelou: Although she preferred to not talk about it due to her traumatic childhood
- Ashlie Atkinson
- Wes Bentley
- Bobo Brazil: Born and raised in Little Rock, but later moved to Illinois and then Michigan.
- Rodger Bumpass
- Stacy Carter
- Johnny Cash
- Bill Clinton: 42nd President of the United States and the first Arkansan to run on a major party ticket since Al Smith’s running mate Joseph T. Robinson in 1928.
- Daniel Davis: Though you might not guess.
- Clark Duke
- Sid Eudy: Born in Washington but resided in Marion up until his death.
- Gossip: Formed in Searcy
- John Grisham: Though he tends to be more associated with Mississippi
- Tess Harper
- Louis Jordan
- Josh Lucas
- Corin Nemec
- Ne-Yo: Born in Camden but based in Las Vegas
- Mary Steenburgen
- Billy Bob Thornton
- Mary Kate Wiles: Born and raised in Fayetteville, later moved to California.