East Camden, Arkansas

East Camden, Arkansas
City
Location of East Camden in Ouachita County, Arkansas.
Coordinates: 33°36′33″N 92°45′05″W / 33.60917°N 92.75139°W / 33.60917; -92.75139
Country	United States
State	Arkansas
County	Ouachita
Area [1]
• Total	0.76 sq mi (1.97 km2)
• Land	0.76 sq mi (1.97 km2)
• Water	0.00 sq mi (0.00 km2)
Elevation [2]	131 ft (40 m)
Population  (2020)
• Total	798
• Density	1,048.62/sq mi (405.03/km2)
Time zone	UTC-6 (Central (CST))
• Summer (DST)	UTC-5 (CDT)
ZIP code	71701
Area code	870
FIPS code	05-20440
GNIS feature ID	2406413[2]

East Camden is a city^[3] in Ouachita County, Arkansas, United States. The population was 931 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Camden Micropolitan Statistical Area. East Camden was originally called Billkitts Rental Housing and began as a planned community created to support the nearby Shumaker Naval Ammunition Depot.^[4]

As he did for the rest of the facility, the depot's Chief Maintenance Engineer, A.T. Smith, designed the general layout of the town and named its streets. U.S. Senator John Little McClellan later arranged for Smith, who boasted the most intimate knowledge of the depot, to travel to Washington, D.C., and negotiate "over White House tea" with Lyndon B. Johnson to transfer ownership of the sprawling NAD complex to Johnson's Brown and Root.

Brown and Root's Highland Resources would later transform the depot into an industrial park catering primarily to defense contractors who could be enticed by the local eight-mile (13 km) long rocket range, the vast array of underground storage bunkers, highly specialized building infrastructure, low cost of labor and excellent railroad system. As part of the transfer agreement, the Brown Foundation also donated 70 acres (280,000 m²) of land and six buildings to establish a two-year technical college now known as Southern Arkansas University Tech.