PEA RIDGE — I was 10 years old when we held the Pea Ridge Centennial in 1950. Although I am getting older and sometimes am a bit forgetful, the centennial celebration was one of those events that feels like it was just yesterday to me. I believe it was Aug. 5, 1950, that the celebration began, and it continued for nearly a week. There had been a great deal of build-up and advertising, not only in newspapers and on radio, and not only around Pea Ridge itself, but across the county and in the Missouri communities north of us. Several of the town leaders had put together car caravans to advertise the Centennial in Seligman, Washburn, Pineville, Anderson, and all around Benton County in Arkansas.
The turnout was tremendous. It was like having a fair in town, with a carnival, craft displays, garden produce, game booths, a Ferris wheel, and so on. It was the first time I mustered the courage to actually ride a Ferris wheel. I was never very comfortable being high in the air, and it seemed to me like 100 feet down to the ground from the top. It was probably about 40. The centennial celebration was the inspiration that led to the organizing of the Pea Ridge Community Fair, which has been going on nearly every year since then, soon to be a 62-year tradition.
Many of the men around the community let their beards grow for the Centennial, and many men and women dressed in old-time clothes to take part in the events. Some dressed like hill-billies, some like gentlemen in old-time suits, some like old-time storekeepers, some in coat-’n-tails like early preachers. I remember that in the evening there were skits, with local actors, sometimes portraying an old time school with school-marm in charge, old-time church with a circuit-riding preacher and a reed organ, and other things from the old days of Pea Ridge. Some of the Centennial events were filmed by Mr. Bill Thumann, who had probably the first and only 8 mm movie camera in town at the time. Mr. and Mrs.
Thumann lived at the west head of the main downtown street, across the street from the grocery store that had been operated by Kelly and Dona Armstrong. I’m not sure who was running the grocery there in 1950. I think the Armstrongs had sold the grocery by that time and had opened the little white cafe next door, but it would be several years later that the Richardsons became the grocery store proprietors. The old Thumann house was taken down just a few years ago.
Mr. Thumann’s movie rolls were almost lost after hispassing, but somehow Joe Hardy learned that they were about to be discarded.
Joe rescued many of the rolls and transferred them to VHS tape. The Historical Society has copies of the VHS tapes, and expects sometime soon to make copies on CDs or DVDs.
To me one of the grand events of the Centennial was the parade. As I recall, the parade began at the south edge of town, which at the time was at the Pea Ridge Canning Plant, across from the location of today’s Collier Drug Store. From that point south, there was no street in the old days.
It was in 1950 that Arkansas Highway 94 between Pea Ridge and Rogers was paved for the first time, and that project meant moving the path of the highway in several places. That was the origin of the street we now know as South Curtis Ave.
and the section of North Curtis running from Leetown Road to Patton Street.
The Pea Ridge Centennial Parade was the finest of parades, outstripping by far the Benton County Fair Parade. I remember boys and girls on decorated bicycles, bands of marching men portraying Confederate and Union soldiers, horse-drawn wagons and buggies, covered wagons pulled by white oxen, several Model T Ford cars and other antique cars, new 1950 model cars being shown by their dealers, and a magnificent performance by the Pea Ridge Riding Cluband several other riding clubs. My grandfather Scott Nichols marched in the parade as a Union soldier, since our Nichols ancestors were Union soldiers from Ohio. Interestingly, my grandmother Ellen Holcombe Nichols grew up in a Springdale family of Confederate officers. It has always been interesting to me that despite the Civil War politics, my grandparents had a long and happy marriage.
My boyish impression of 1950 was that it was a great year. I would be going into the fifth grade in the fall, and everything seemed to be improving about the whole world situation. Of course, before long there would be the Korean War, the severe drought years of 1953 and 1954, and other tough life situations to contend with. But 1950 was a great year to me.
The Depression had lifted, people were doing better, new houses were being built, new cars were being bought, and there was talk of jet airliners coming to the skies of the future. There was optimism.
I look forward to the return of optimism.
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Editor’s note: Jerry Nichols, a native of Pea Ridge, is an award-winning columnist, 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 12 on 07/25/2012