According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 0.8 square miles (2.1 km2), all land.

The town of St. Joe, Arkansas, was founded a few miles north of the Buffalo River around 1860 by Bill Campbell, Ben Henley Sr., Dr. George Turney, Captain Harry Love, Decatur Robinson, and Matt Tyson.

Wagon trains traveled from the town to Springfield, Missouri, where produce was sold and goods were purchased and brought back to the stores.

The History and Folklore of Searcy County Arkansas states that St. Joe was originally called Monkey Run.

The area came by its current name around 1900, when six miners from St. Joseph, Missouri, received the largest quantity of mail to come into the post office.

The St. Joe Lime and Crushed Rock Company flourished with the mining boom, operating in a quarry just west of town.

[citation needed] It was during this period that the Henley Hotel, still standing to the north of Highway 65 across from the Depot, was built around 1914.

The town boasted four stores, two hotels, a blacksmith, bank, mills, cafes, and post office.

[citation needed] After World War I the price of zinc dropped and it was no longer economically feasible to continue mining.

The town continued as a local outlet for produce, cattle, cotton, and timber, but population and industry gradually diminished, and the railroad pulled out in 1946.

[5] Today, the 1920s era buildings, ghostly remnants of a more prosperous past, sit mostly abandoned, interspersed with a gas station, a post office, and the St. Joe school.

[citation needed] The revitalization of the town's pioneering spirit is evident in the restoration of its historic buildings and the creation of the Rural Help Center as a hub of community education and services.

St. Joe is one of thirteen communities participating in Ozark Byways which promotes small towns in the north central Arkansas region.

The nonprofit organization is staffed by volunteers and makes computers, internet, and training available to community members.

The North Arkansas Career Center teaches night classes for adults working toward their GED.