Forrest City is a city in St. Francis County, Arkansas, United States, and the county seat. It was named for General Nathan Bedford Forrest, who used the location as a campsite for a construction crew completing a railroad together with Memphis and Little Rock, shortly after the Civil War. The population was 15,371 at the 2010 census, an addition from 14,774 in 2000. The city refers to itself as the “Jewel of the Delta”.

On October 13, 1827, St. Francis County, located in the east central share of Arkansas, was officially organized by the Arkansas Territorial Legislature in Little Rock. Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate General and first Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard, became excited in the area around Crowley’s Ridge during the Civil War. In 1866 General Forrest and C. C. McCreanor decided to finish the Memphis & Little Rock Railroad from Madison located on the St. Francis River to DeValls Bluff upon the west bank of the White River. The route traversed the challenging Crowley’s Ridge and L’Anguille River bottoms. The first trains came through in 1868.

General Forrest progressive built a commissary upon Front Street. Colonel V.B. Izard began the task of designing the town at the similar time. Most residents were calling the area “Forrest’s Town,” later to be known as Forrest City, incorporated May 11, 1870. The county seat was initially located in the now defunct town of Franklin until 1840 in the same way as it was moved to Madison. In 1855 it was moved to Mount Vernon where the court home burned in 1856 destroying county archives prompting a move encourage to Madison. The county seat was moved to a wooden structure in Forrest City in 1874, which burned hurriedly thereafter, again destroying county records. In 1889, the city was the sight of a race riot that resulted in the expulsion of African American leaders.

In 1940, Forrest City was a End for the Choctaw Rocket, a passenger train operated by the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad. Service was discontinued in 1964.