Bauxite

The wartime surge did not last. Output that passed six million long tons in 1943 slowed after 1944, and Alcoa shifted to mines in British Guiana and Jamaica as unions organized the work. Reynolds Metals closed and dismantled its Hurricane Creek plant in early 1982, the last year Arkansas bauxite was mined for aluminum metal. Estimated production from 1898 to 2009 was 110 million long tons, valued at about $1 billion, and the state supplied about 90 percent of domestic tonnage in the twentieth century. A contractor has custom-mined bauxite for non-metal uses since 1996.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site — 17 mi
  The 1927 high school where nine Black students entered under federal troops on September 25, 1957, with a National Park Service visitor center across the intersection.
• Arkansas State Capitol — 18 mi
  The neo-classical Capitol built from 1899 to 1915 on the old penitentiary site with state convict labor, free to enter, with the Little Rock Nine monument on the grounds.
• Mosaic Templars Cultural Center — 18 mi
  The state museum of African American history on the site of the Mosaic Templars of America headquarters, a Black fraternal order's 1913 building on West Ninth Street.
• Big Dam Bridge — 19 mi
  A 14-foot-wide walking and cycling bridge built onto Murray Lock and Dam, 90 feet over the Arkansas River between Little Rock and North Little Rock.

More markers nearby

• Bauxite, Arkansas — steps away
• The Battle of Hurricane Creek — 2.4 mi
• George M. Holt — 4.0 mi
• William Ayers Crawford — 4.0 mi