Like many of the smaller towns of Faulkner County, such as Vilonia and Greenbrier, Mayflower offers a rural lifestyle within a short drive of Conway and Little Rock, where many of its residents commute to work.

The area’s earliest European settlers were Loyalists, known then as Tories, who moved westward in order to flee the Revolutionary War.

Families such as the Flannagins and Massengills arrived around 1778 and settled near the mouth of Palarm Creek.

[5] However, local tribes of Native Americans had inhabited this region for centuries, principally the Quapaw.

[6] Like most of Arkansas, the land was heavily wooded and was therefore logged extensively until the turn of the twentieth century.

Cotton plantations existed during the American Civil War owing to the river bottom’s fertile soil.

This presents the largest source of the local economy today, although some small businesses exist in the town.

The Interstate 40/US 65 freeway passes along the eastern edge of the city, with access from Exit 135 (Arkansas Highway 89).