All roads lead to Rudy
Population: 130
Municipal Building: P. O. Box 16 Rudy, AR 72952 479-430-7033 Email: rudycityclerk @ gmail. com
Post Office: 224 N. Railroad Ave. Rudy, AR 72952 800-275-8777
Rudy is a small town in Crawford County, Arkansas, located at Exit 24 from Interstate 49. The town has two convenience stations at that exit, according to James Jones, mayor of Rudy for the past seven years.
Other businesses located in Rudy include Infinity Sports & Outdoors and the A to Z complex of stores, Jones said.
“ We’ re a small country community – centrally located – so it doesn’ t take long to get anywhere from here,” the mayor said.
“ As Mayor Jones says,‘ All roads lead to Rudy,’” agreed Chris Keith, Crawford County judge.
Rudy was incorporated in 1937 and had a population of 130 residents as of the 2020 U. S. Census, Jones said.
Rudy has a city park that has seen many improvements in Jones’ time as mayor. The city park now has ball fields, playground equipment, a walking trail, public restroom facilities, fences and is ADA compliant, Jones said. The park has better drainage than some in surrounding cities, Jones said, so teams come from all over to practice at the Rudy ball fields when their own fields are too wet.
Directly adjacent to the city park is Rudy’ s community center. Residents can reserve the building for public or private events. The town celebrates the Fourth of July every year, Jones said, typically drawing about 2,000 people from all over the county. Rudy also hosts what it calls a farmers market every two weeks in the summer, but Jones said he would describe it more as an arts and crafts fair.
Rudy may be small, but the town is just the way residents like it, Jones said.
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That feeling is what drew him to the community while he worked for 26 years as a forest ranger before becoming mayor, he said.
“ We’ re a community that wants to stay as simple and rural as we can,” Jones said.“ We help each other. We’ re all that way.”
Rudy only has 12 town ordinances, Jones said. Residents pay zero city property taxes. That keeps the cost of living low for residents, many of whom work in Northwest Arkansas, Jones said. Even though they have a commute to work, they prefer to live in Rudy due to that lower cost of living and lower housing prices, he said.
That doesn’ t mean the residents of Rudy are naïve about the changes they expect in the near future.
“ We do expect quite a bit of changes with the completion of I-49,” Jones said. Truck traffic, for example, is one of the things Jones expects to dramatically increase in the coming years. He expects the increased traffic to also bring more businesses to the area. He also“ expects to see more single-family housing coming,” he said.
Lastly, Jones said he anticipates annexation projects in Rudy’ s future as well. Those will likely focus on the Arkansas 282 area which includes the older part of town, he said. That could help straighten out some of the crooked town boundary lines, Jones said. But Jones has no plans to rush any changes.
“ One of our state representatives called Rudy the fastest-growing community, but we don’ t want to grow faster than we can take care of things,” Jones said.
“ We like being a place where everybody knows their neighbors,” Jones said.“ We are a city that likes to live and let live.”