Unattended Death and Biohazard Cleanup in Monticello, AR

Monticello is the county seat and largest city of Drew County in southeast Arkansas, and the largest town in the region south of Pine Bluff.

When Drew County was formed in 1846, citizens decided a new town should be built as the county seat, and in 1849 Fountain C. and Polly Austin donated eighty-three acres for the Monticello town site.

Monticello is popularly believed to have been named after Thomas Jefferson's Virginia estate, and its first courthouse was built on the town square in 1851.

The city was incorporated on December 20, 1852, and grew into a commercial hub for southeast Arkansas built on agriculture, timber, and trade at the intersection of two major roads.

The 2020 census counted 8,442 residents in Monticello, down from 9,467 in 2010.

The Little Rock, Mississippi River, and Texas Railroad, later part of the Iron Mountain line, reached Monticello in 1880 and tied the town to long-distance markets.

The University of Arkansas at Monticello was established in 1909 as the Fourth District Agricultural School and opened its doors on September 14, 1910, on land donated from the William Turner Wells estate south of town.

The school became Arkansas Agricultural and Mechanical College in 1925, joined the University of Arkansas System in 1971, and took its present name, the University of Arkansas at Monticello, that year.

UAM is home to the only forestry school in Arkansas, its College of Forestry, Agriculture and Natural Resources, and the university owns more than 1,000 acres devoted to forestry research and instruction.

UAM's athletic teams are the Boll Weevils and Cotton Blossoms, a mascot adopted in 1925 when the boll weevil was devastating Southern cotton, and the teams have played at Cotton Boll Stadium since 1935.