Discreet 24/7 Biohazard Remediation in Chidester, AR

Chidester is a second-class city in northwestern Ouachita County, Arkansas, that owes its existence to railroad construction.

Farmer Jefferson Smith acquired land at the site in 1858, and in 1880 the St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern Railway bought land from Smith for a depot on its Barham Branch and laid out the town on it.

The city was named for John T. Chidester, a prominent Camden resident involved in stagecoach transportation whose extensive mail contracts included a route of the Butterfield Overland Mail Company.

Chidester grew rapidly after its founding and was incorporated on February 14, 1906.

Chidester was the childhood home of Sidney Umsted, the oil prospector who discovered the Smackover oil field.

Clay dug in the Chidester area was one of the rich clay sources for Jack Carnes's Camark pottery business in Camden.

The 2020 census counted 253 residents in Chidester, down from 287 in 2010 and 335 in 2000.

At its 1940 peak Chidester had 508 residents, about twice its present population, spread across an unusually large city area of 5.31 square miles.

State Highway 24 became Chidester's principal transportation route as highway travel supplanted the railroad during the twentieth century.

In 1949 the schools of nearby Reader were incorporated into the Chidester school system; Chidester's schools were later consolidated into the Fairview system in 1987 and then into the Camden school system in 1990.