Livestock Show Area

The Livestock Show Area is a neighborhood anchored by the Arkansas Livestock Show Association's Arkansas State Fairgrounds.

This neighborhood of Little Rock received $1.3 million in federal revitalization funding between 1957 and 1960. More than fifty homes were constructed in the neighborhood on eighty acres in an area bounded by Wright Avenue, Park Avenue, Roosevelt Road, and Thayer Street. Many houses were refurbished instead of bulldozed, though clearance efforts removed over one hundred and seventy buildings. The effort was coordinated by the Urban Progress Association's Central Little Rock Urban Renewal Project.

A Coliseum urban renewal project, involving 202 acres on the west side of the fairgrounds, was sponsored by the Little Rock Housing Authority between 1965 and 1970. During this phase of urban renewal critics charged the Housing Authority with trying to "scare the whites out."

References

• Bob Stover, "Sweeping 'Renewal' Ending Quietly," Arkansas Gazette, November 2, 1977.
• Matilda Tuohey, "Little Rock Has Massive Urban Renewal Program," Arkansas Gazette, February 17, 1963.