Marion District Court is one of the state district courts in Crittenden county. IS 55 meets with US 64 in Marion while SR 72 and SR 118 poke their way through portions of the town.

Although explorers from both Spain and France visited the area and even stayed for a while; around 1803 the Louisiana Purchase made it a part of the United States. At first the county commissioners selected Greenock as the county seat but impassable roads to that city caused the commissioners to reconsider and they chose Marion. In the Spring of 1865, the residents of Marion witnessed what may have been the greatest maritime disaster in American history. The steamboat Sultana exploded into a fiery inferno with a reported 1,800 deaths.