Biohazard and Crime Scene Remediation in Plumerville, AR

Plumerville is a small city in southern Conway County, Arkansas, on U.S. Highway 64 about six miles west of the county seat of Morrilton.

Plumerville traces its name to Samuel Plummer, who bought 160 acres on the 'first high ground' north of the Arkansas River in 1833.

The Military Road from Little Rock to Fort Smith made Plummer's land a stagecoach stop — tradition dates the stage stop to 1858 — as well as a stop on the Butterfield Overland Mail route, with a telegraph line crossing the property.

When the railroad negotiated a right-of-way across Plummer's land, Plummer's Station became a full stop on the new line in 1873, and Plumerville incorporated on November 25, 1880.

Plumerville drew national attention in 1889 when John Middleton Clayton, a former Arkansas governor's brother contesting a congressional election, was assassinated at a Plumerville rooming house; Frederick Douglass cited the town's political violence in a speech later that year.

Prosperous farm years made the Bank of Plumerville the target of three successful robberies.

Around 1906, Plumerville lit its streets with natural gas that had been discovered while the city was expanding its water system, and one of those original gas street lamps still stands on Springfield Street.

The Great Depression, the Arkansas River floods of 1927 and 1937, and the relocation of U.S. Highway 64 north of town sent Plumerville into a long decline.

By 1931, Plumerville had one of only four high schools in Conway County; its schools merged into the South Conway County School District in 1979, and the Arch Ford Education Service Cooperative — serving twenty-six school districts in seven counties — is now based in the former high school.

The circa-1925 Plumerville School Building still stands in town, remodeled in 1939 to serve as a school.