24/7 Trauma and Biohazard Cleanup in Success, AR

Success is a small incorporated town at the intersection of State Highways 211 and 328 in the northwestern corner of Clay County, only about three miles south of the Missouri state line.

Success began as a timber town that grew up beside the St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern Railway (later part of the Missouri Pacific) as the railroad opened western Clay County's forests to logging.

The settlement received a post office named Success in 1895 and incorporated as a town on December 18, 1903.

In its boom years Success had a sawmill, a stave mill, two banks, three doctors, two cotton gins, and several retail stores packed into a town that covers only about 0.22 square miles.

Two of the town's early frame houses survive on the National Register of Historic Places: the 1909 Waddle House, built by Dr. Martin Waddle, and the 1911 Baynham House, built by hardware merchant John W. Baynham.

Success reached its peak population of 436 in the 1920 census, when it still supported a bank, a sawmill, and general stores.

As the timber was cut over and farms mechanized, Success shrank steadily; the 2020 census counted just 98 residents, down from 149 in 2010 and 180 in 2000, when townspeople lived in 71 households.

The town's rural schools were eventually absorbed into the Corning school system.

As recently as 2010, Success still had a post office, a grain elevator, and a Baptist church serving its remaining residents.

Success sits at about 289 feet above sea level in the flat farm country of Arkansas's northeastern Delta fringe.