24/7 Trauma and Biohazard Cleanup in Keiser, AR

Keiser is a second-class city in Mississippi County in the Arkansas Delta, a compact farming town on State Highway 181.

Keiser is one of the towns created by Lee Wilson & Company, the timber-and-farming empire of entrepreneur Lee Wilson, who drained the region's swamps, built levees and railroads, and founded towns across Mississippi County.

Unlike most Wilson towns, which were named for members of Wilson's family, Keiser was named for Wilson's friend John Keiser, whose father Fred had worked on the local drainage and levee projects.

Before it was Keiser, the railroad stop was called Savage Crossing, a nod to the untamed swampland and hardwood forest that covered the area into the early twentieth century.

Keiser's first general store reportedly operated out of a railroad boxcar before permanent buildings rose around the depot on the rail line between Wilson and Jonesboro.

A school built in 1929 on land donated by Lee Wilson — now an elementary school in the South Mississippi County School District — and a Depression-era water tower built by the Public Works Administration both stand on the National Register of Historic Places.

Keiser did not officially incorporate until November 1933, decades after the logging camp became a town.

Since 1957, the University of Arkansas System's Northeast Research and Extension Center has operated a 750-acre research farm at Keiser, with a regional headquarters built there in 1980, studying cotton, soybeans, rice, corn, and sorghum production.

A large city park dominates the southeastern corner of Keiser.

Keiser is the birthplace of country singer-songwriter Narvel Felts, born in 1938, and of songwriter Ed Bruce, born in 1939.