Emergency Biohazard Cleanup Near West Turrell Turrell, AR

Turrell is a city in northern Crittenden County in the Arkansas Delta, along Interstate 55 about 24 miles north of Memphis, Tennessee.

The 2020 census counted 517 residents in Turrell, down from 615 in 2010 and a peak of 1,041 in 1980.

Nearly nine in ten Turrell residents — 458 of 517 — were Black or African American in the 2020 census.

At the 2000 census, Turrell had 957 residents living in 326 households.

The community coalesced in the 1880s around the timber operations of Fletcher E. Turrell, a Wisconsin native who ran the Turrell-Lily Lumber Company, served as the first postmaster, and gave the town his name.

The railroad built through the area in 1883 sparked the settlement, and as the surrounding forest was cleared the land around Turrell became farmland.

Turrell was incorporated on November 12, 1926, and covers about 5.4 square miles along Arkansas Highway 77, just southeast of the Interstate 55/U.S. 61 junction.

Two BNSF Railway lines — the Thayer South and River subdivisions of the Springfield Division — converge at Turrell, funneling freight trains toward Memphis.

The Turrell School District was consolidated into the Marion School District in 2010, closing Turrell High School.

Turrell High School's Rockets boys' basketball teams won consecutive Class A state championships in 1999 and 2000, and the girls' team won a state title in 1987.