Businesses

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Entry Category: Businesses - Starting with K

K. Hall and Sons

K. Hall and Sons is a longstanding Black-owned business on Wright Avenue in the Central High School Neighborhood Historic District of Little Rock (Pulaski County). Originally founded as a produce store, it now also encompasses a restaurant and a wholesale food distribution business. The Hall family was inducted into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame in 2016. K. Hall and Sons was founded by Knoxie Hall Sr. and Estella Marie Crenshaw Hall. Knoxie Hall was born on September 13, 1924, while Estella Hall was born on November 24, 1927. They married on December 16, 1944, and went on to have seven children. Knoxie Hall owned and operated several different businesses, including a carwash and detail business and a farm. His experience operating …

Kansas City and Memphis Railway

The Kansas City and Memphis Railway Company (KC&M) at its brief peak in 1914 was the largest non-Frisco (St. Louis–San Francisco Railway) railroad in northwestern Arkansas, with 63.97 miles of standard gauge track. The railroad, based in Rogers (Benton County), was formed in 1910. It absorbed the Arkansas and Oklahoma Western Railroad, which ran from Rogers to Siloam Springs (Benton County), and the Monte Ne Railway, which ran from Monte Ne (Benton County) to Lowell (Benton County), in 1911. The business plan projected a western terminus of Wagoner, Oklahoma, and an eastern extension that would serve Huntsville (Madison County) and Little Rock (Pulaski County) en route to Memphis, Tennessee. The railroad was backed by prominent Rogers banker William R. Felker. …

Klipsch Group, Inc.

Klipsch Group, Inc., of Hope (Hempstead County), formerly Klipsch and Associates and later Klipsch Audio Technologies, is one of the leading loudspeaker companies in the United States and a world leader in premium-quality audio products. The company’s official motto, “A Legend in Sound,” has also been applied to its founder, Indiana native Paul Klipsch, who was eulogized as “a great inventor, engineer, scientist, pilot and legendary eccentric.” Holding patents in acoustics, ballistics, and geophysics, Klipsch had a revolutionary vision for audio design and founded the company that bears his name in 1946. As a boy, he enjoyed music and was fascinated with sound, although he was not satisfied with the sound of recorded music. At age fifteen, he built a …

Kream Kastle

The Kream Kastle is a family owned and operated restaurant located at 112 North Division Street in Blytheville (Mississippi County). It has achieved a regional and state reputation for both its food and for its history as a central meeting place in the Blytheville community and as part of the larger Delta culture. A son of first-generation Lebanese and Syrian immigrants, Steven Johns started the business in July 1952 in a small building with window service only. In its early days, the Kream Kastle was a high-volume/low-overhead hot dog stand. As the menu expanded, so did its transition to a full-fledged drive-in. Before outdoor speakers, Johns employed car hops who wore white uniforms in all weather. Later, covered parking and …

Kruse Gold Mine

William (Will) Henry Kruse (1860–1925) sought gold ore deposits in Rogers (Benton County) on his father’s eighty-acre farm. His hunt for the precious metal was triggered neither by scientific nor geological verification but rather inspired by psychic revelations he combined with automatic writings pointing him to a precise site where he believed wholeheartedly that he would find enough gold to end world misery. To this end, he established Kruse Gold Mine and spent the remainder of his life trying to fulfill the renderings of his visualizations. Will Kruse was born in Ohio, though his family moved to Le Sueur, Minnesota, the following year. In 1883, his father, Henry Kruse, purchased an eighty-acre tract in Rogers, eventually moving there in the …