Biohazard and Crime Scene Remediation in Oppelo, AR

Oppelo is a small city in southern Conway County, Arkansas, best known to travelers as the turn-off and last gas stop at the intersection of Highways 9 and 154 on the way to Petit Jean State Park.

The community began in 1850 on property owned by L. B. Opolow, who brought a sawmill and timber operations to the area, and the town's often-mispronounced name (AH-puh-loh) evolved from his surname through several spellings.

Oppelo grew up around a large, reliable spring known as Oppelo Spring, where area women once gathered to socialize while doing laundry; the spring still feeds a stock pond about a mile west of town.

Oppelo's first post office opened in 1867 inside Flucks drug and general store and operated until 1913.

The city was not incorporated until January 24, 1966; the 2020 census counted 737 residents in Oppelo, while the 2000 census counted 725 residents living in 258 households.

Oppelo's children have attended school in Morrilton since the local district was consolidated with Morrilton in 1957.

Green Bay Packaging developed a large pulp and linerboard paper mill on the Arkansas River about two miles east of Oppelo in 1965, and the plant has long been a major employer and economic anchor for Conway and Perry counties.

Geologists know Oppelo for the Oppelo Breccia, the surface outcrop of an ancient volcano about a mile west of town that is one of only four significant igneous breccia outcrops in Arkansas; it was first reported in 1888 and studied by geologist Cary Croneis in 1927.

In the mid-1950s, Winthrop Rockefeller purchased a very large tract of land west of Oppelo for the cattle operation at the foot of Petit Jean Mountain that formed part of his Winrock Farms.