Biohazard Cleanup Near North Stephens Stephens, AR

Stephens is a city in southwestern Ouachita County and part of the Camden Micropolitan Statistical Area.

Stephens sits on one of the oldest settled tracts in Ouachita County: the original land grant for its site, 320 acres, was issued on February 19, 1846, to Benjamin Bell.

Stephens was incorporated on February 25, 1889, with Colonel Henry G. Bunn, later chief justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court, employed to obtain the charter, and Major T. J. Edwards elected the first mayor.

Stephens is an important city in the oil-producing region of southern Arkansas and is home to four oil fields that were still producing in the twenty-first century, according to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas.

The city's Security Bank, organized in 1946 by World War II veteran Floyd Bryan as Stephens Security Bank, was the first and only bank in the nation founded with a GI business loan from the federal government.

The 2020 census counted 770 people in Stephens, living in 376 households and 237 families across the city's 2.76 square miles.

Stephens grew with the south Arkansas oil boom, climbing from 379 residents in 1890 to 1,045 by 1930, and it reached its peak population of 1,366 in 1980.

Ouachita County, of which Stephens is a part, was formed in November 1842 and takes its name from the Ouachita River, with Camden as its county seat.

Before its incorporation, the community's post office had opened in 1883, reflecting the settlement that grew up around the Bell land grant.