Rockport, AR

Rockport is a Hot Spring County city in central Arkansas, with 676 residents in the 2020 census. Founded in 1846, it served as the county seat until 1879 and grew beside the Ouachita River, where large novaculite boulders made a natural crossing and gave the town its name. The Hunter-Dunbar expedition traveled the river rapids in 1804, and Military Road reached through Rockport in 1836. The river’s boulders still give the city a physical clue to the reason it grew here and stayed here. River stones still sit in the town’s story.

Rockport Methodist Church dates to 1836, and a Civil War skirmish took place here in 1864. Today Interstate 30 passes through the city near Exit 98, with Malvern immediately south and the Ouachita valley shaping the view between highway trips. The river, old churches, road history, and county-seat years give Rockport a deeper map than its size suggests. Rockport is an Arkansas city where novaculite, river crossings, military roads, and Hot Spring County history meet.