Rison is a bedroom community for people who work in Pine Bluff (in neighboring Jefferson County).

Samuel Fordyce of Huntsville, Alabama, a former Union army officer, was authorized to determine the route of the railroad from Texarkana to Birds Point, Missouri.

Fordyce named the new station for William Rison, his former business partner in a banking venture in Alabama, who had fought on the opposite side of the Civil War.

The first home erected in the community the small settlement that grew up around the new station was built in 1880 by lawyer and farmer James McMurtrey.

In 1883, the Southwest Improvement Association, a subsidiary of the railroad company, presented a parcel of land for use by the inhabitants of the area that became Rison.

The emergence of the timber-related wood products business ultimately skewed that economic picture, with the corresponding rise of the merchant entrepreneurs also affecting it somewhat.

Sharecropping was the prevailing structure of the primary business enterprise in the county until the land became depleted by failure to rotate crops adequately.

Two years later, the Phoenix Hotel was built and served as a popular gathering spot for the local community.

During World War II, many Rison residents secured war-related jobs in nearby towns.

The Rison high school's football program was suspended until the end of the war due to a lack of players and coaches, as well as financial constraints.

One of Rison's citizens, Airman Roy Martin, was shot down over occupied France and classified as missing in action.

The French underground secured his freedom by hiding him in attics, barns, and other places not known to the German occupying forces.

When the news of Martin's survival reached Rison, a wild celebration broke out in streets and homes.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 2.6 square miles (6.8 km2), all land.