Helena-West Helena

[Memphis Love]

I thought it was interesting that they wanted to create a "Blues Row" over there. It should be interesting and more upscale than most of Beale. Sounds exciting.

[Aporkalypse]

i don't think the company is out of Memphis, may be out of NY or something, but, yes, they're moving the name "King Biscuit" to Memphis. My understanding is that Helena will retain the festival, though, under a new name.

I stand corrected.

[Memphis Love]

there is a reason....money.

[TennBear]

At one point Helena was very important, it peaked a couple of decades after the Civil War. There was a significant civil war battle there. I don't know if it was as large as Memphis but at that time cities like Helena, Vicksburg, and Natchez were some of the most important in the South not on the East Coast.

Arkansas City is an interesting little town. It's tiny now but it had an opera and theaters amongst other things. It peaked at 13,000 and now has only 550 residents. It developed as an important river town but was lost when land travel became easier and no Mississippi River bridge was built there.

[Mith242]

Speaking about Helena being more important in the past, "Huckleberry Finn" had a section of the book set in Helena. The city was not named, but was discribed as being on a bluff above the river on the Arkansas side. The book is interesting in that it was really started and put down for years prior to completion. Samuel Clemens was bankrupt and pulled out the book and finished it quickly to make money fast. The early part of the book going down the river through to Cairo describes things in great detail and below Cairo, it is almost a dash to New Orleans. Memphis is not even mentioned in the book. It is overrated as a book, being called one of the great American novels when it is really an uneven literary mess.

[Memphis Love]

I traveled to Helena-West Helena recently and found it to be a great little town. If the citizens would only redevelop the Downtown (aka Cherry Street) the way that South Main is doing, the town would once again rise to prominence imo.

[Mith242]

I traveled to Helena-West Helena recently and found it to be a great little town. If the citizens would only redevelop the Downtown (aka Cherry Street) the way that South Main is doing, the town would once again rise to prominence imo.

[hogwash]

Helena-West Helena, along with Southern Financial Corp. put out an RFP for a Master Downtown Redevelopment Plan. Proposals are due tomorrow and a decision on a firm should be made in the coming weeks. Work on the plan will begin in about four months. The new plan will be pretty comprehensive including historic preservation, tourism, economic development among other things. We'll have to see in the coming years what comes out of this.

[Aporkalypse]

I still need to make it over there sometime. The bad thing is just about all of eastern Arkansas seems to be in decline. And it seems to closer you get to the river the worse it is. There's been a big population decline going on for a while now. It's only gotten worse the past decade or so unfortunately.

[Mith242]

That area just South of the SE corner of Arkansas (Lake Village, Eudora, etc) - the Louisiana cities of Lake Providence and Tallulah supposedly have the highest unemployment rates in the nation, up around 15%. There just aren't any good jobs down there to stay for. It's a little better in Arkansas but not much.

Arkansas tried so hard to get an auto plant in Marion and failed, though the Hino truck plant was a good grab. It's just tough to recruit to the Delta, especially the more remote areas far from Memphis and Little Rock.