William Lewis

William Lewis was the earliest European settler on land that would become the city of Little Rock. Lewis made his living by trapping and trading along the Arkansas River beginning in 1812. He registered his claim in the Nashville, Tennessee, land office. He sold the claim two years later to Elisha White. The certificate was later resold to group of investors led by St. Louis land speculator William Russell.

References

• Ira Don Richards, Story of a Rivertown: Little Rock in the Nineteenth Century (1969), 6.