Main city: Altus
Timezone: Central
Phone type: Landline
Operator: Centurytel Nw Ar-russelvl DBA Centurylink-russellv

Altus, a city in Franklin County, Arkansas, United States. It is part of the Fort Smith, Arkansas-Oklahoma Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 817 at the 2000 census. When the Iron Mountain Railroad laid rails up the Arkansas River Valley in the 1870s from Little Rock to the Oklahoma border at Fort Smith, Altus was the highest point on the track. In recognition of this highest railroad elevation between Little Rock and Fort Smith, the station was originally known as Summit. The town's initial development was due to railroad efforts encouraging German immigration to settle lands adjacent to the railroad. In 1903, the railroad mainline was shifted to a more favorable alignment along the Arkansas River. The track through Altus was removed in the 1930s, but the railroad station has been preserved as a commercial establishment. ^source

Area code 479 is the telephone area code serving thirteen counties in northwest Arkansas, including the cities of Fort Smith, Fayetteville, Springdale, Rogers and Bentonville: the second, third, fourth, eighth and tenth-largest cities in the state, respectively. It was created in 2002 in a split from area code 501. ^source