Crime Scene and Trauma Cleanup in Atkins, AR

Atkins is a city in eastern Pope County in the Arkansas River Valley, and it is part of the Russellville Micropolitan Statistical Area.

The town was named for Elisha Atkins, a Boston businessman and sugar importer who invested his own money in 1872 to finish the Little Rock and Fort Smith Railroad after its funds ran out a few miles short of the site.

Atkins was platted in 1872 at a railroad crossroads, and its first home — built that year by Benjamin Towler Embry — is still inhabited today.

Atkins was incorporated on November 3, 1876, with James Franklin Darr elected as its first mayor.

The 2020 census counted 2,859 residents in Atkins, spread across about 6.13 square miles.

Atkins has long been known as the pickle capital of Arkansas: the Goldsmith Pickle Company built a plant there in 1945 with money raised locally, and the business — later the Atkins Pickle Company — sustained the local economy for more than half a century.

The town celebrates that heritage with Picklefest, held annually on the third weekend in May since 1992.

Lake Atkins, a 752-acre reservoir created in 1956 from Galla and Horsehead creeks, is a popular fishing destination known for bream, crappie, catfish, and largemouth bass.

The Atkins Chronicle, a weekly newspaper founded in November 1894, has operated continuously ever since and is the oldest business in town.

An EF4 tornado tore through the southern and eastern edges of Atkins on February 5, 2008, killing five residents, destroying nearly forty homes, and damaging many businesses and a church.