24/7 Trauma and Biohazard Cleanup in Edmondson, AR

Edmondson is a town in Crittenden County on Arkansas Highway 131, about three miles south of Interstate 40 and a short drive west of Memphis, Tennessee.

The settlement was named for Andrew Edmondson, who arrived in the area from Virginia in the 1840s; a post office bearing the family name was established in 1859.

Before the Civil War the Edmondson area was described as a terrible canebrake full of bear, panther, wolves, possum, and squirrel, and the land was cleared for cotton plantations.

The Memphis and Little Rock Railroad reached Edmondson on March 15, 1868, and Black railroad workers, lumbermen, and farmers built homes around the new depot.

In 1902 Black residents organized the Edmondson Home and Improvement Company, which platted lots and sold land and homes to African Americans at low prices, shaping Edmondson as a Black-founded community.

Edmondson was incorporated on August 22, 1911, and according to local historians its town officials have always been African American.

The 2020 census counted 243 people in Edmondson, a steep drop from 427 in 2010 and 513 in 2000, when the census recorded 174 households in the town.

About 70 percent of Edmondson's 2020 residents were Black or African American, continuing the town's identity as one of the Arkansas Delta's historic Black communities.

Edmondson rebuilt after a series of disasters: floods in 1912 and 1913, a destructive storm in 1916, a fire that destroyed much of the town in 1927, and the great Flood of 1937.

The Southern Tenant Farmers' Union held an outdoor rally in Edmondson in July 1936 after being denied permission to meet in a local church, drawing national attention to the plight of Delta sharecroppers.