Unattended Death and Biohazard Cleanup in Arkoma, OK

Arkoma is a town in Le Flore County in southeastern Oklahoma, pressed right against the Arkansas state line at the junction of State Highways 9A and 112.

Arkoma's name is a portmanteau of Arkansas and Oklahoma, reflecting its position straddling the border between the two states.

Arkoma was established around 1911 by Captain James Reynolds, a Civil War veteran who had married into the Choctaw Nation, who deliberately developed his land as a residential suburb of Fort Smith, Arkansas.

Reynolds built houses to rent and persuaded the Fort Smith Light and Traction Company to build an electric trolley line to his new town; the streetcars ran until 1917.

Arkoma was not incorporated as a town until 1946, more than three decades after it was founded.

Arkoma has always been a "bedroom community" — throughout its history most residents have commuted across the state line to work in Fort Smith, Arkansas.

Arkoma had a population of 1,806 at the 2020 census, living in 729 households, down from a peak of 2,393 residents in 1990.

Arkoma sits on the same side of the Arkansas River as Fort Smith and is bounded by the Poteau River to the west and north and by the Arkansas–Oklahoma state line to the east.

A school building constructed in Arkoma by the Works Progress Administration in 1936 was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.

Arkoma's own school district serves students from prekindergarten through twelfth grade, and in 2000 it enrolled about 422 students.