Now & Then | Still adjusting to changes in roads

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Several days ago we took a drive out to Jacket, Mo., which is just over the Missouri line, a mile north from the farm where I grew up. On the way back to Pea Ridge, coming past the old Taylor place, not far from the Pea Ridge City Park, I noticed a road sign saying “Speed Zone Ahead.” This is on Hayden Road, otherwise known as Arkansas Hwy. 265, or to old-timers like me, the old Jacket Road.

For several moments, contemplating that sign, I marveled that we have come to a time when the old Jacket Road needs a speed zone ahead warning.

Who would have thought it?! Heeding the sign, we are to slow down to 40 miles an hour as we enter the north edge of town.

When I was growing up, you risked jolting your vehicle apart or messing up a shock absorber on the chugholes if you got up to 40 miles an hour on the Jacket Road. It blows my mind to be warned to slow down to 40 on the Jacket Road!

Actually I do remember once exceeding 40 miles an hour on the old road. In 1958 I came into possession of a 1949 Pontiac sedan.

It would be my transportation to college at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. Unusual for Pontiacs, this one was a six-cylinder. Most Pontiacs in those days had flat-head straight-eight engines. I thought my old six was pretty peppy, and I said so to my brother Ben. In those days, Ben was always ready for the challenge of a good drag race. He was driving our old family car, a 1947 Chevy Fleetline. So, he and I lined up our cars at the top of the rise north of the Taylor place. Although I got the lead at the start, by the time we passed the Taylor house in second gear, I was beaten by the old Chevy. I never had much motivation for drag racing after that. I did later learn that Ben was winning some drag races running my ’51 Ford.

Of course it is pretty nice to have a nice, smooth road, whereas we used to have the gravel and the dust. Today the curves are gradual, the corners are banked, the hills are leveled, and the low places are filled in. Other roads that I always knew as gravel roads are also now paved and improved. I remember when Blackjack Corner was almost a square corner, and when Arkansas Hwy. 94 went around Shady Grove schoolhouse on the east and north sides. Now State Hwy. 94 is a fine paved highway and Blackjack Corner is almost as expansive as Rainbow Curve in Bentonville. I’m thinkingtoo of Patterson Road. Like Hayden Road, Patterson is a fine paved road today.

And, just look at what happened to It’ll Do Road! I guess it didn’t do as it was after all, so they widened it, relocated part of it, paved it all the way through and now it is a thoroughfare between Blackjack Corner and Arkansas Hwy. 72. Or, consider Weston Street, still a street, but wide as a boulevard.

Of course, we still have some roads which take us back 60 years. On that day when we were coming from Jacket, we had driven across from Shady Grove and State Hwy. 94 by way of old Gates Lane. Gates Lane is almost unchanged from the road it was when I was riding my bicycle on it as an 8-year-old boy in 1948.

The difference is mainly that now it has many more driveways branching off.

The road still has its red clay patches, its numerous potholes and a few mudholes. Interestingly, Lucas Lane is improved today, even though it remains as a gravel road. In the old days, driving Lucas Lane often meant driving in the creekbed. It was basically impassable when the creek was running high.

Lucas has been relocated to higher ground in places, and I would guess that the school bus can get through even after a big rain. Other nostalgia roads to me are Ryan Road south (the old highway to Rogers) and Sugar Creek Road (the old, old road to Bentonville).

When I drive those roads, it is 1946 again.

Sometimes old roads disappear. At one time there was a road north of Pea Ridge, which basically ran beside the Otter Creek stream. It was probably never much improved, being a horse and wagon road, but it is shown on an early 1900s map of our area, and would have entered Pea Ridge near Morrison Spring, running past Doug and Rosella McKinney’s house, up Clark Street to Yates Street, and into North Curtis Avenue. Pea Ridge also once had a road out of town from the far north end of Davis Street, which ran past the school grounds, then east down the slope to Utah Smith’s house, over a bridge and up the hill, where it joined what is now Patterson Road. I guess we’re always getting used to changes in the roads and streets.

◊◊◊

Jerry Nichols, a native of Pea Ridge, is a retired Methodist minister with a passion for history. He is vice president of the Pea Ridge Historical Society. He can be contacted by e-mail at [email protected], or call 621-1621.

Community, Pages 5 on 07/21/2010