Foreman, AR

Foreman is a Little River County city of 977 people in the 2020 census, set near the county's farming and timber country. The place began as Rocky Comfort, a settlement whose county-seat status shifted between Rocky Comfort, Richmond, and Ashdown before Foreman became the name in 1959. Cotton once dominated the surrounding fields; later cattle, timber, and industry changed the local economy. In 1957, Arkansas Louisiana Gas Company built a cement plant, now associated with Ash Grove, giving the city an industrial employer after decades of population loss.

ATTRBilly Hathorn / CC BY-SA 3.0

The town's older civic buildings carry that history. A 1902 jail now serves as a city museum, and the Episcopal church built in 1898 is another National Register building. Foreman School District provides elementary and secondary education, with Foreman Elementary and Foreman High School at the center of local life. Millwood Lake and the Little River bottoms put fishing, hunting, and wetlands close to town, while an old-fashioned downtown preserves the shape of the earlier county community. Foreman is a small southwest Arkansas city where county history, cement, school, and river country still sit within a few miles.