In the first decades of the 1800s, Americans entered the rugged lands of Arkansas, which, before then, had gone largely unexplored by the majority of the outside world. They established new towns and developed commercial enterprises alongside Native Americans indigenous to Arkansas and other tribes and nations that had relocated there from the East.

This history is also the story of Arkansas's people, and is told through numerous biographies, highlighting early life in frontier Arkansas over a period of two hundred years. It provides a categorical look at commerce and portrays the social diversity represented by both prominent and common Arkansans-all grappling for success against extraordinary circumstances.