24/7 Trauma and Biohazard Cleanup in McCaskill, AR

McCaskill is a small incorporated town on U.S. Highway 371 in Redland Township, in northern Hempstead County.

The town grew up around 1900 after the Prescott and Northwestern Railroad — a lumber line dominated by the Ozan Lumber Company — reached the area to haul timber, peaches, and other produce to market.

A post office opened in the community in 1908 under the name Dixon and was renamed McCaskill in 1912; the name may come from the McCaskill Truck Growers Association, formed in 1911 by local farmers including Daniel Berryman McCaskill.

McCaskill became a noted cantaloupe-shipping center, sending out more than twenty freight cars of cantaloupes in 1912 alone.

McCaskill incorporated as a town on September 20, 1920, the same year the Bank of McCaskill opened.

In 1924 a former stockholder dynamited the bank building at night; the bank survived the blast but closed in 1930, and its cashier was convicted of embezzlement.

In 1942 the U.S. Army established the Southwestern Proving Ground on some 50,000 acres between McCaskill and Hope, bringing more than 500 civilian jobs to the area until it was decommissioned after World War II.

Peaches were once a mainstay of the local economy, but the last harvest of peaches was carried out by the railroad in 1955, and the rail tracks through town were removed in 1994.

McCaskill peaked at 236 residents in the 1940 census; the 2020 census counted just 57 people, down from 96 in 2010 and 84 people in 28 households in 2000.

The town's school district consolidated into the Blevins school district in 1931, though the four-room brick schoolhouse in McCaskill continued in use as a junior high school for a time.