Biohazard and Pathogen Disinfection in Tollette, AR

Tollette is an incorporated town in southern Howard County, Arkansas, lying along Arkansas Highway 355 about four miles south of Mineral Springs.

Tollette was established in the 1800s as an all-African American town by Sanford Tollette and his wife Caldonia Crofton Tollette, and it remains a largely African-American community today.

The town is named for Stephen and Sanford Tollette, the two oldest sons of Stephen Tollette, a freed slave who moved from Virginia to Arkansas after the Civil War and whose family helped organize the settlement.

By 1885 the Black farming community at Tollette reportedly consisted of more than 600 residents who had purchased farmland in the area after Howard County was formed in 1873.

When Sanford Tollette applied for a post office in 1891, he wanted to name it Toltec, but the postal service instead granted it under his own surname, Tollette.

Tollette was home to the Howard County Training School, a Rosenwald school built in 1927 that burned in 1936 and was rebuilt with help from the Works Progress Administration before desegregation and consolidation closed it in 1970.

Tollette was incorporated on July 27, 1972, partly in response to the loss of its school, and the new town government leased the abandoned school building while adding street lights, paved streets, fire protection, police protection, a daycare center, and a ballpark.

The town's signature celebration is Tollette Homecoming, a festival firmly established in 1960 that is still held in even-numbered years during August and later grew to include a blues festival.

The 2020 census counted 185 people in Tollette, down from 240 in 2010 and 324 in 2000.

In the 2010 census, Tollette's population of 240 consisted of 232 African Americans, seven whites, and one Native American.