Shannon Hills (Saline County)

Latitude and Longitude: 34°37’12″N 092°23’44″W
Elevation: 331 feet
Area: 2.64 square miles (2020 Census)
Population: 4,490 (2020 Census)
Incorporation Date: August 25, 1977

Historical Population as per the U.S. Census:

1810

1820

1830

1840

1850

1860

1870

1880

1890

1900

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

1910

1920

1930

1940

1950

1960

1970

1980

1990

2000

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

1,556

1,755

2,005

2010

2020

3,143

4,490

Shannon Hills is a city in northern Saline County, adjacent to the southern portions of Little Rock (Pulaski County). Incorporated in 1977, Shannon Hills is largely a bedroom community, with few businesses and no industry.

The population of northern Saline County centered around communities such as Benton (Saline County) for much of the county’s history. The area that would become Shannon Hills remained unclaimed and undeveloped until after World War II. Around 1960, plans were announced to create a housing development at that location, and a dedication ceremony was held to mark the ground-breaking. Of the houses standing in Shannon Hills, almost none were built before 1960; roughly ten percent were built in the 1960s, thirty percent in the 1970s, few in the 1980s, about twenty percent in the 1990s, and about thirty percent since 2000. Paving of roads such as Chicot, Sardis, and Vimy Ridge allowed the construction of houses in the area. Residents voted to incorporate as a city in 1977 for two reasons: to provide city services for themselves and to avoid annexation into Little Rock, as happened to nearby Mabelvale (Pulaski County) at around the same time.

During the tornado outbreak of March 1, 1997, much of Shannon Hills was devastated and had to be rebuilt.

Shannon Hills received some unwanted notoriety in the first decade of the twenty-first century. In 2004, police chief John H. Brown Jr. was arrested, charged with sexual assault of a minor, and convicted. Ironically, Brown previously had made news by assisting federal officials in detecting and arresting sexual predators who used the Internet to entice minors. In 2009, Mayor Larance Davis (who had served in that office for nearly ten years) resigned after it was revealed that he had filed no income tax returns since 1996. The Federal Bureau of Investigation discovered this omission while investigating the finances of the city government. In 2013, the police department was embarrassed by the revelation that they had failed to complete necessary paperwork regarding the qualifications of their officers.

The city of Shannon Hills has never had a post office, and it shares a zip code with Mabelvale. It also has never had its own school system, being divided between the Bryant (Saline County) and Pulaski County Special school districts. Robert L. Davis Elementary School, part of the Bryant school district, is located in Shannon Hills. The school is named for an African-American man who lived on the property before the development of Shannon Hills began.

The city of Shannon Hills has full-time police, water, and street departments; a volunteer fire department; and an appointed planning commission. The few businesses in Shannon Hills include a pharmacy, a grocery store, a dentist’s office, and a restaurant. There are also two Baptist churches and a daycare center. The population of Shannon Hills grew from 2,005 in 2000 to 3,143 in 2010.

For additional information:
Boozer, Chelsea. “Shannon Hills Police Found Short of Standards in Audit.” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, March 2, 2013, p. 2B.

City of Shannon Hills. http://shannonhills.ar.gov (accessed August 6, 2022).

Steven Teske
Butler Center for Arkansas Studies

Last updated:
June 16, 2023
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Comments

    (2013) Robert L. Davis, an elderly black man, lived alone in a small, unpainted, shanty-like house. His little home was on a sizeable tract of family land off Vimy Ridge Road. Also, not far from his land was another large parcel of land owned by another elderly family on Alexander Road. This was about 30 or 35 years ago.
    Two individuals, one being a housing developer, were instrumental in having a sewer improvement tax passed, not only applicable to frontage acreage, or per residence, but for EACH ACRE owned! These two tracts of aforementioned family land went up for public auction because neither Mr. Davis nor the other elderly landowner could pay the exorbitant taxes. The private individual and the developer each eventually acquired the land that was of interest to them.
    Before losing his land, Mr. Davis donated 20+ acres on the east side of Vimy Ridge Road in Saline County to the Bryant Public Schools. The elementary school in Shannon Hills is built upon this land, and this very nice elementary school is appropriately named in Mr. Davis’s honor, “Robert L. Davis Elementary.” (Note: The land of the two families adversely affected by the sewer tax was is not part of the city of Shannon Hills. Only Mr. Davis’s land to the east across Vimy Ridge Road was in Shannon Hills, which is the portion Mr. Davis was fortunately able to donate to the Bryant School District.)

    Mr. Anonymous

    When I was about six, I walked with my grandmother and mother through the woods to the location where the pharmacy and grocery store now sit. At that time, it was a cleared field off Sardis Road with the other boundary being the old Rock Island Railroad tracks. There was a ceremony for the coming of the new township/development. They selected me from the crowd to draw a name for the giving away of a free lot—I actually drew my grandmother’s name! My grandparents eventually sold this lot, and a carwash and dairy bar were built on it. This added to the little town square, which eventually consisted of a grocery store, Howards Discount (now a daycare), Laundromat, Pizza Hut, cable TV franchise, pharmacy, automotive repair shop, City Hall, and police department.

    E Roberts
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