Reprinted here by special permission of the author, Cindy Beckman, a retired Conway High School history teacher who writes local history.

In 1871, a small, ingenious, far-sighted man named Max Frauenthal came to Conway with the railroad crew and purchased a lot in the southeast block at Front and Oak. Although the city’s founder, A.P. Robinson, had intended for most business activity to occur along Main Street between Railroad Avenue (Parkway) and Court Street, Frauenthal built his mercantile store in the alley where the farmers left their horses and Continue reading →