Emergency Biohazard Cleanup Services in Almyra, AR

Almyra is an incorporated town in Arkansas County on the Grand Prairie of eastern Arkansas, sitting on State Highway 130 halfway between Stuttgart and DeWitt, the county's two seats.

Almyra was platted in 1890 by the Stuttgart Town Site and Development Company where the Stuttgart and Arkansas River Railroad (later part of the Cotton Belt) crossed the farms of J. I. Porter and Martin Baker; the rails were completed in 1891.

The town was named for Almyra Sayre, J. I. Porter's sister, who lived on a farm just south of the new community.

The first house completed in Almyra was built by George and Mary Place, who ran a boardinghouse for railroad workers; C. M. Hillman became the town's first postmaster on August 5, 1891, and a schoolhouse was finished that November.

A Methodist church was built in Almyra in 1901, the same year a hotel opened, and the town incorporated on July 5, 1904, with Dr. W. H. Boswell elected its first mayor.

Rice built Almyra's economy: a handle factory opened in 1904, a rice elevator began operating in 1908, and a large brick schoolhouse was erected in 1915; by 1927 the town had hotels, restaurants, a theater, machine shops, and daily bus service to Stuttgart, DeWitt, and Gillett.

During World War II, a relief airfield with two runways was built on 640 acres three miles west of Almyra to support the Stuttgart Army Air Field; after the war the town bought it, and it still operates as Almyra Municipal Airport, used heavily by crop-dusting planes.

Almyra's schools were consolidated into the DeWitt school system in the late 1940s, and Almyra students today attend DeWitt School District schools in DeWitt, including DeWitt High School.

The 2020 census counted 256 people in Almyra, down from 283 in 2010 and 319 in 2000; official census counts peaked at 323 in 1920, although local estimates once put the boom-era population as high as 800 to 1,000.

At the 2000 census, Almyra's 319 residents lived in 124 households and 93 families.