Biohazard and Crime Scene Remediation in Gillett, AR

Gillett is a small city in southern Arkansas County, set on the rich Grand Prairie soil along U.S. Highway 165 between DeWitt, the county seat, and Dumas.

The community began in 1881 with settlers from Fulton County, Illinois, followed in 1883 by German immigrants, many of them 'Russian Germans' whose families had earlier lived in Volhynia in western Russia.

Gillett was platted in 1888 on land owned by brothers Thomas H. and Henry Leslie and was first called Leslie Center, but when a post office application under the name Leslie was denied, residents chose Gillett in honor of railroad financier Francis M. Gillett, who oversaw completion of the railroad into town in 1895.

Gillett was incorporated on December 21, 1906, after an earlier incorporation petition in 1895 failed to be completed.

The 2020 census counted 564 people in Gillett, down from 691 in 2010 and a peak of 1,155 in 1920, when sawmills and the timber industry were at their height; the city covers about 1.00 square mile.

In the 2000 census, Gillett had 819 residents living in 356 households.

Gillett is famous across Arkansas and the nation for the Gillett Coon Supper, an annual raccoon dinner held on the second weekend of January since the Gillett Farmer's and Businessmen's Club took it over in 1947, with roots in an organized 1944 supper that raised money for the Gillett High School football team.

The Coon Supper draws nearly 1,200 people a year to the former high school gym — roughly double the town's population — and has become a rite of passage for Arkansans seeking statewide office, with proceeds funding scholarships for students from the old Gillett school district.

Gillett High School, once the smallest public high school in Arkansas, closed on June 30, 2009 after the district consolidated with DeWitt in 2003, though an elementary campus through fifth grade remains in the community.

Farming still defines Gillett, with rice, soybeans, corn, and wheat grown on the surrounding prairie.