Emergency Biohazard Cleanup Near North Springfield Springfield, AR

Springfield is an unincorporated census-designated place in Conway County; it was first listed as a CDP in the 2020 census, which counted 223 residents across its 1.8 square miles.

Springfield began at the crossing of the Old Cherokee Boundary Line and a principal Western Cherokee relocation route, where the National Road took advantage of a large, reliable artesian spring; a small trading post served Cherokee settlers until they left Arkansas Territory after the Treaty of 1828.

The area's first post office, established around 1840 about 2.5 miles southwest of present-day Springfield, was called Stell's Mill, after the Stell brothers, who had settled near Cypress Creek in 1835 and ran a water-powered grist mill in the community locally known as the "Georgia Settlement."

On June 29, 1850, after a taxpayer petition, deliberations, litigation, and a new election, the Conway County seat was ordered moved from Lewisburg to Springfield; a twenty-three-acre tract was donated from public lands and 112 town lots were sold to fund a courthouse and jail, and the village that grew up had two stage line stops.

A tornado on April 12, 1858 destroyed much of the developing town, including the courthouse, which was rebuilt in 1859; during the Civil War two Confederate regiments were formed on Springfield's courthouse square, a Union company burned the courthouse in 1864 — though the county clerk, Joshua Moses, had anticipated the danger and preserved the county records at his home — and a new courthouse was completed in 1869.

The seat of Conway County returned to Lewisburg by the end of 1873, ending Springfield's roughly two decades as county seat.

The Springfield–Des Arc Bridge, built in 1874 over Cadron Creek near Springfield, is the oldest bridge in Arkansas and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Springfield's former courthouse was reused as the Springfield Male and Female College, which operated from 1887 to 1890.

Springfield's local schools were eventually merged with Morrilton's, and students today attend the South Conway County School District, including Morrilton High School.

Springfield is known today as the north access to Brewer Lake, a 1,200-acre impoundment of Cypress Creek that supplies water to Conway, Morrilton, Plumerville, and rural Conway County; its post office serves a fifty-five-square-mile area with about 1,600 people by ZIP code.