Arroll, Missouri

Arroll is an unincorporated community in southeast Texas County, in the U.S. state of Missouri.[1] The community is located on Missouri Route W, two miles north of the Jacks Fork River. The river can actually be accessed by driving south on Jacks Fork road to the “prongs” where the north and south fork meet up at the county bridge. Standing on the bridge facing the hogs back, the north prong is on the right and the south prong is on the left. This is generally accepted as the last floatable put-in on the Jacks Fork. The north and south prongs are navigable above this point only during rainy season and the property on the banks is privately owned so expect to encounter various “watergate” type fences. The only concrete dam on the Jacks Fork lies 3–4 miles west of Arroll, on Arroll road. It was used to generate electricity for the Gist/Kinard ranch years ago. The dam and concrete foundation of the generator house is still there but the house itself was swept away by a flood in the early 1980s. Just below the bridge is a popular local swimming hole named “the rock”. Arroll presently has a non-denominational church and public cemetery with a community center built on the church grounds. The cemetery is the final resting place of many of the founding families who settled the area. Arroll had two stores at one time. The old store building just south of the church was last operated by the Ralph Bashor family and closed in the late 1960s. The other store laid west across W highway from the church. It was last run but the Brooks family in the 1990s and burnt soon after closing. Arroll had a K-8 grade school until the late 1960s, when it was merged into the Summersville school district. Houston rural and Wafford were other small one-room schools located in the area. The Wafford schoolhouse has been gone for years, though the concrete foundation is still present. It laid approximately two miles west of Arroll, just southeast of the junction of Arroll road and Woolsey drive. The Houston Rural schoolhouse and cemetery is approximately five miles west of Arroll, on the north side of Arroll road. It can be easily seen from the road even though it was converted into a house in the 1990s by a member of the Curnutt family. In 2017, it received another facelift after the surrounding land was purchased by another local (Woolsey) family.[2]

History

A post office called Arroll was established in 1899, closed in 1914, reopened in 1938, and was discontinued in 1957.[3] The community derives its name from "Carroll" (the C was omitted by postal authorities in order to avoid repetition with another Carroll in the state).[4]

References

1. U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Arroll, Missouri
2. Missouri Atlas & Gazetteer, DeLorme, 1998, First edition, p. 64 ISBN 0-89933-224-2
3. "Post Offices". Jim Forte Postal History. Retrieved 28 December 2016.
4. "Texas County Place Names, 1928–1945". The State Historical Society of Missouri. Archived from the original on June 24, 2016. Retrieved December 28, 2016.