I have always been skeptical about the concept of time travel, such as taking a time machine into the past, or as some movies have portrayed, taking a trip into the future. It seems to me that there are problems about the idea of transferring into another time. For example, say I got transferred back to 1850, so as to see the first official U.S. Post Office in Pea Ridge. Well, actually, I wasn't there then, so how could I be back there now?
Nevertheless, for the purposes of this column today, I want to point out that if you want to see the way things were back in the 1940s or 1950s, you need only to take certain roads around our community; roads which have not changed all that much over these nearly 80 years. Yes, in the time between 1940 and 2017, many changes have been made in the roads and highways around the town of Pea Ridge and the country areas around it. Around 1950, we saw a strong move in the state of Arkansas to pave and improve the highways connecting our towns and cities. Arkansas Highway 94 between Pea Ridge and Rogers was widened and paved for the first time, and in some sections was entirely relocated, to provide a more commodious route, with improved bridges, more gradual turns, gentler hill climbs, and better intersections with the side roads. Speaking of the really old Ark. Hwy. 94, let me suggest that you take Ryan Road south from Arkansas Highway 72 (Slack Street) in Pea Ridge. Ryan Road is Old Arkansas Highway 94 to Rogers.
As you travel south on Ryan Road, after several hundred yards you will pass through a time portal which transports you back to a time 80 years ago. Your car or truck will stay the same; it won't convert to a Model T Ford or a Model A Ford or a 1930s Chevy, but you will be driving through surroundings much as you would have seen had you been driving to Rogers in the 1930s or 1940s, with the gravel roadbed, a few chug holes, a few patches where granite rock shows in the roadbed, with small bridges crossing a little creek multiple times, tree branches arching over the highway, and so on. The approach to Tucks Chapel Road today, however, is very different from the old days. From the Little Sugar Creek Bridge, which is at least a quarter-mile east of where it used to be, you drive at valley level until you come to the hill which climbs to the upper level. In the old days, that section of road up the hill was not there; the highway followed the ravine between the hills, and only as you neared the Tuck's Chapel road did the Pea Ridge highway make a very steep climb uphill to the intersection with Tuck's Chapel Road. That hill climb today is called Old Pea Ridge Lane, and it basically accesses only the Waggoner Farm and home. It used to be the main highway between Pea Ridge and Rogers.
We actually have several stretches of road around the area which preserve the character of the roads of the 1930s and 1940s.
For example, take Washburn Drive from Lee Town Road through the Battlefield View sub-division, and turn left on Greer Street. For a brief stretch you are transported to the 1940s. You will bounce your way down the hill at about 25 miles per hour, passing the city's limb pile, and suddenly you enter an improved stretch with a smooth chat roadway leading to the intersection with Ark. Hwy. 72, where you suddenly re-enter the year 2017. Or, take Gates Lane from the Shady Grove schoolhouse on Ark. Hwy. 94 West, or from the other end where Gates intersects with Hayden Road (Ark. Hwy. 265 N). Gates lane was my old bicycle riding road when I was growing up. Jackie Patterson and I used to develop our leg muscles by riding up and down the hills and grades on Gates Lane. One can also explore Lucas Lane, which takes off north from Gates Lane and eventually intersects with Hayden Road near the Missouri Line. Lucas Lane used to exist in two un-connected sections, the one leading to several farms north of Gates Lane, and the other running on the stream bed westward from Hayden Road. The two sections were connected by a new stretch of road opened about 1948 as a school bus route, when the Pea Ridge School began buying its own school buses.
Some other notable roads also take one back into the past. Two of the most outstanding are Sugar Creek Road which follows Little Sugar Creek through old Brightwater and westward to Ark. Hwy. 72 near Bentonville. Sugar Creek Road is one of the oldest stretches of road around our area. Its origin precedes the Civil War, and probably goes back at least to the initial white settlement of our area in the 1830s. Another even older road which still preserves much of the appearance of the distant past is the Old Wire Road, particularly the section north of the Pea Ridge National Military Park leading to Seligman, Mo., and the section running through Old Town Brightwater and into Avoca. On that road, it is easy for me to imagine meeting the Overland Stagecoach coming around the bend with a four-horse or six-horse team traveling at a gallop. In the early 1800s, during the horse-drawn era, Old Wire Road was THE main highway from Springfield, Mo., down to Fayetteville and Fort Smith, Ark.
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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, member of the Pea Ridge Alumni Association and vice president of the Pea Ridge Historical Society. He can be contacted by email at [email protected], or call 621-1621.
Editorial on 09/20/2017