Town’s charm lures new residents

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

— In the past seven decades, Pea Ridge has multiplied in population with the largest jumps in size from 1940 to 1950. Although the city’s population more than doubled this past 10 years (from 2,346 to 4,794), it more than tripled from 1940 to 1950 with a growth from 72 to 268 residents. From 1960 to 1970, it nearly tripled with an increase from 380 to 1,088.

Other northeast Benton County cities have grown, but not by as much and much of that increase has been by annexation of additional land and the residents on that land.

Pea Ridge Mayor Jackie Crabtree said he had not seen the demographics associated with this year’scensus results, but said most of the growth in Pea Ridge “was just population growth; we haven’t done that much annexation over the years.

“People just know it’s a good place to live,” Crabtree said.

The additional population has created more work for city employees and more strain on city services.

“It’s just like anything else, when you add more to it, there’s more responsibility. There are more things to deal with,” he said, adding that he doesn’t believe the personality of the city has changed, that it’s still a friendly community.

Crabtree said the largest challenge has been the business growth and attracting new business to town to provide additional revenue for the city as well as services for city residents.

“It’s an ever evolving circle,” he said, adding that more business will provide more jobs and increase the tax base.

The additional revenue is not “new found money,” Crabtree said, but will just help “make up” what the city has been having to spend to meet the needs during the past 10 years as the population increased, but the numbers were not reflected in the census, and therefore in the city’s share of the tax money.

“The population increase gives us a better outlook for businesses that are looking to locate here.

They’ll look at the population size,” Crabtree said. “On the other hand, too, we’ve got the population now.

We need to make sure we’re doing the right things for the businesses that are already in town and meeting their needs. That’s our stability right there.”

News, Pages 1 on 04/06/2011