24/7 Biohazard and Crime Scene Cleanup in Weiner, AR

Weiner is a city in Poinsett County in northeastern Arkansas, part of the Jonesboro metropolitan area, recognized principally for its rice farming, its duck hunting, and its unusual name, according to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas.

Weiner's name has nothing to do with food: when the St. Louis and Southwestern Railroad built through in 1881, its depot was named Weiner after a St. Louis railroad official, and the town took the station's name.

Before the railroad, the prairie settlement was called West Prairie, with a post office of that name established in 1874; the township is still officially West Prairie today.

The first known settlers were the John P. Phillips family, who arrived from Macon, Georgia, in 1866 and made their living hunting, fishing, and raising cattle on the prairie.

Weiner was incorporated on December 2, 1907.

Rice experiments began near Weiner in 1907, and by 1950 farmers had cleared the surrounding timberland into rice fields; the tall concrete rice dryers in town became a local landmark, and rice farming remains Weiner's major industry.

Since 1977 Weiner has hosted the Arkansas Rice Festival on the second Saturday of October, featuring a rice tasting, rice cook-offs, and a Miss Rice Festival pageant.

In the 1950s Weiner was called the "Duck Capital of the World" after Wallace Claypool's private hunting preserve, where a photograph showing more than 500,000 ducks became a widely displayed print; hunters still come for nearby Lake Hogue and the Bayou DeView Wildlife Management Area.

The 2020 census counted 647 people in Weiner, living in 337 households, near the city's historic range after a peak of 760 residents in 2000.

Several German families settled in Weiner and nearby Waldenburg in the late 1800s, and St. Anthony's Catholic Church, built in 1906 by eight families, anchors a community that had seven churches by 2009.