24/7 Trauma and Biohazard Cleanup in Winthrop, AR

Winthrop is a small incorporated town in Little River County in the extreme southwestern corner of Arkansas, on Highway 234 about eight miles north of Foreman and fifteen miles northwest of Ashdown, the county seat.

Local residents recalled that the town was named by the Kansas City Southern Railroad company, which platted the town site in 1894.

Winthrop is perhaps best known as the kick-off headquarters for Winthrop Rockefeller's campaigns for governor of Arkansas in 1964 and 1966.

The settlement grew up around the Klondike Lumber Company's large sawmill, which operated at the site before 1894 amid abundant timber and well-drained sandy soils.

Railroad engineer W. C. Merrit surveyed the town site in the spring of 1894, the Kansas City Southern tracks were laid during Christmas week of that year, and the post office was moved to Winthrop on December 31, 1894.

Winthrop incorporated on May 12, 1912, and a small jail built that same year still stands in the twenty-first century.

At its early-1920s peak, when the population reportedly reached about 750, Winthrop supported a pharmacy, a bank, a hardware store, a blacksmith shop, a bakery, a barbershop, a shoe repair shop, and an ice house.

The brick schoolhouse built in 1913 served Winthrop until the district consolidated with the Horatio School District in 1992; the old school is now the Winthrop School Museum and doubles as city hall.

The 2020 census counted 116 residents in Winthrop, down sharply from 192 in 2010 and from a twentieth-century high of 336 in 1940; at the 2000 census the town had 186 people in 71 households.

After the lumber era faded, agriculture became Winthrop's main livelihood, with local farmers growing cotton, corn, peanuts, and oats.