[3] It was named for General Nathan Bedford Forrest, a notable Confederate war hero who later became the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.

Shortly after the end of the Civil War, he had a construction crew camped here, who were completing a railroad between Memphis and Little Rock.

Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate General and later the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, became interested in the area around Crowley's Ridge during the American Civil War.

In 1889, the city was the site of a white race riot that resulted in their expulsion of African American leaders.

The Imperial Council of Jugamos, a fraternal organization of African Americans founded in 1910 by Wallace Leon Purifoy had its headquarters in Forrest City.

[7] In 1940, Forrest City was a stop for the Choctaw Rocket, a passenger train operated by the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad.

Evidence that giant mastodons roamed the slope was revealed in 1949 when workmen excavating for sewer improvements found bones of the massive beasts within the city limits.

After school integration was ordered in the mid-1960s, Forrest City eliminated school-sponsored dances and social activities.

Forrest City is located on Crowley's Ridge, a geological phenomenon that rises above the flat Mississippi Delta terrain that surrounds it.