Blood, Trauma, and Biohazard Cleanup in Arcadia, MO

Arcadia is a small city in Iron County nestled in the Arcadia Valley of the St. Francois Mountains, about 90 miles south of St. Louis at the junction of Missouri Highways 21 and 72.

The Arcadia Valley, roughly six miles long, was named by 1839, supposedly after a New England settler's wife compared its pastoral beauty to the mountainous Arcadia region of Greece; Connecticut native Colonel Cyrus Russell bought a large tract in the valley in 1838.

The town of Arcadia itself was laid out in 1849 and named after the Greek region of Arcadia, and a post office has operated there since 1871.

Arcadia was one of the first settlements in what became Iron County and briefly served as the county's first seat after Iron County was created in 1857, before that honor was transferred to the new town of Ironton.

Arcadia's population was 618 at the 2020 census, and in 2010 its 608 residents lived in 293 households.

The city's landmark is Arcadia Academy, built in 1846 as a Methodist high school by the Reverend Jerome C. Berryman; its buildings served as a Union hospital during the Civil War from 1861 to 1863.

In 1877 the Ursuline nuns bought the academy for $30,000 and ran it as a prestigious Catholic girls' school and college for more than ninety years, adding the St. Joseph Chapel in 1908; the campus is now a National Register historic district operating as a bed and breakfast, restaurant, and event venue.

Arcadia is a gateway to the Fort Davidson State Historic Site in neighboring Pilot Knob, where about 1,000 Union soldiers held off some 12,000 Confederates at the Battle of Pilot Knob on September 27, 1864.

The St. Francois Mountains around Arcadia include Taum Sauk Mountain, at 1,772 feet the highest natural point in Missouri.

Missouri's first working iron furnace, Ashebran's furnace, was built on Stout's Creek near Arcadia around 1815, and the valley's towns grew up during the iron-mining boom of the 1840s and 1850s.