24/7 Biohazard and Crime Scene Cleanup in Pineville, AR

Pineville is a small incorporated town in northwestern Izard County that was once a center of commerce and trade for the surrounding White River valley farm country.

Early settlers such as brothers James, William, and Allen Whitfield were drawn to the area by its rich farmland, and by the 1830s a military road through the settlement connected it to the White and Black river trade routes.

Robert Calvin Matthews, who settled in the area by 1860, built the area's first house and, in 1861, its first store, stocking it with merchandise hauled by boat to Calico Rock and then overland.

Matthews raised troops for the Twenty-seventh Arkansas Infantry during the Civil War, and his store was burned and his house ransacked during the conflict.

On April 22, 1867, a post office named Pineville - for the many pine trees growing in the area - was established at Matthews's rebuilt store, with James B. Roe as postmaster.

The post office was renamed Whit in 1920 before reverting to the name Pineville in 1922.

In 1873 the town completed a two-story building that served as both a school and the home of Pineville Masonic Lodge No. 306, and in the early 1900s the Lacy-Pease Lumber Mill and, in the 1940s, the Ducker Planing Mill harvested area timber; Pineville's school was consolidated with Calico Rock in the 1940s.

Despite its long history, Pineville did not incorporate until October 11, 1973.

Pineville's population fell from 238 in the 2010 census to 154 in the 2020 census, and the town today consists of several small businesses, a city hall, a volunteer fire department, a post office, and churches spread over about 1.8 square miles.