North Little Rock is located in the central part of the state of Arkansas and a city of Pulaski County that sits along Arkansas River and is on the opposite of Little Rock. The area was first settled as De Cantillon in 1812 and was named Huntersville in 1853, and was eventually renamed as Argenta after the Hotel Argenta that was built in the latter part of the 1850s. The emergence of the Memphis and Little Rock Railroad kickstarted the development of the community that started in 1853 and has then become the site of the freight classification yards and the maintenance shops of the Missouri Pacific Railroad. The city has a well-diversified economy that is primarily based on transportation, food-processing, health-related services, and the distribution of agricultural supplies.