Entries - Gender: Does not Apply - Starting with R

The Red Apple Inn is one of Arkansas’s best-known resorts. Part of a development along the shores of Greers Ferry Lake near Heber Springs (Cleburne County) known as Eden Isle, the inn was the creation of Little Rock (Pulaski County) insurance executive Herbert L. Thomas Sr. and his wife Ruby Thomas. The Red Apple Inn opened in 1963, burned in 1964 from a kitchen fire, and reopened in 1965. Herbert Thomas hired architects for the inn, while Ruby Thomas supplied recipes used in the dining room. She later wrote a book titled Feasts of Eden: Gracious Country Cooking from the Red Apple Inn. The inn still uses many of her recipes. Herbert Thomas was born on February 14, 1899, in …

The Rock Island Argenta Depot at 1201 East 4th Street in North Little Rock (Pulaski County) is a single-story, Mediterranean-style brick passenger depot built in 1913 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places on September 21, 1989. Shorter College announced plans to convert the building into a technology hub. Though North Little Rock’s development was heavily influenced by railroads, it was not until 1913 that the Rock Island Railroad constructed the first depot to serve the community, possibly to ease local tensions after the Rock Island shops were moved across the Arkansas River to Little Rock (Pulaski County). The presence of a depot on the north side would pay off for the community when it made a successful …

Romance is an unincorporated community in White County. The area was settled around 1850 by pioneers from Kentucky before the Civil War. The families, who traveled in a caravan of about five or six wagons, included the Pruetts, the Owens, and the Hills. Looking for land suitable for building and farming, they settled in the fertile valley along the Des Arc Creek. Because the families had come from Kentucky, they called the area Kentucky Valley. In 1884, the residents petitioned for a post office, but the U.S. Post Office rejected the name of Kentucky Valley, wanting to avoid confusion. Local belief differs on how the current name was chosen. The most common story says that a schoolteacher named J. J. …