Woodson, AR

Woodson sits in southern Pulaski County on a map first drawn by timber, rail, and Main Street. The community grew around Pennington’s Mills, a post office established in 1855, and became a railroad stop and sawmill town before incorporating in 1882. Local history remembers the place as Wood Hollow and ties the name to Ed Wood Sr., who came from Alabama around 1880. That gives Woodson a distinctive beginning: a Black community with a timber-and-rail past, a sawmill at its center, and a name still linked to the Wood family.

The town charter eventually dissolved, but Woodson’s local map kept its landmarks. In 1962, Woodson Baptist Church and Woodson Negro Elementary School stood among the community’s principal landmarks, and residents gathered around a decision to close part of Main Street. The school later closed as nearby Black schools consolidated to Wrightsville. Today school connections run through Pulaski County Special School District, including Daisy Bates Elementary and Mills University Studies High. The local scoop is a place whose civic status changed while its church, school, rail line, and Wood Hollow name kept the history visible.