A detour in 2008 led to memories and reflections on roads in and around Pea Ridge.
Recently (in 2008), I was driving south out of Pea Ridge on South Curtis, on my way to a noon meeting in Rogers. At Harris Street I came upon a roadblock, and was told by the man re-directing traffic there that some kind of incident was being handled on the hill leading down to Little Sugar Creek (Easley Hill). Traffic was being shuffled onto West Harris Street, through the Shepherd Hills subdivision, then south on Ryan Road and east on Sugar Creek Road back to Arkansas Highway 94.
As I started on the detour through Shepherd Hills, I was thinking that I had never driven through this new subdivision, so I was catching up on "the latest developments." Years ago, in the 1940s, what is now West Harris Street was a little grassy lane leading to a small house belonging to a Mr. and Mrs. Watts. I was not even sure if a lane over to Ryan Road had remained open through the years.
Soon, after negotiating a few turns on the new paved streets in Shepherd Hills, I reached Ryan Road and was turning left to go south. Suddenly, like a flash, it was 1946, and I was on my way along "the Road to Rogers."
I can't remember if the road was a numbered highway in 1946. Does anyone remember?
It is a gravel road, of course, as I suppose it has always been, and as I passed over the small creek which crosses under the road and flows off to the right, I thought, "Wow, this scene is as picturesque as it was years ago when this road was the main road to Rogers!"
Then I began meeting a row of late model cars and trucks, and my glimpse of 1946 became mixed with the scenes of 2008. I sort of marveled at this line of new vehicles, snaking up the hill to Pea Ridge on this little narrow gravel road which once was THE Rogers road. And here I was, in my not-so-new Dakota pickup, meeting these late-model trucks on a '40's model road, hurrying to Rogers, trying to meet my today's schedule. But, I soon reached Sugar Creek Road, and my flash of 1946 vanished. The "old" road ahead was now a pasture, with cows, and I had to turn left and go east a ways to Arkansas Highway 94. I was back in 2008.
These days, we seem often unaware, or unmindful, of remnants of our earlier days which remain among us through the changing years, remnants that influence who we are and how we live as a people. Compared to other countries in the world, where old things and new are more obviously together in their societies, we are such a new land. And, since we don't pay much attention to the "what used to be," we often are not very appreciative of the things people endured and accomplished in order for us to reach the standard of living we now enjoy.
Today, I was remembering 1946 on the old road to Rogers, now known as Ryan Road. If I had thought back in time just a bit more, I might have visualized tired and worn soldiers, following General Van Dorn, marching up the road in a hurry during the wintry night of March 6, 1862, on their way to Elkhorn Tavern and the Battle of Pea Ridge. And, a few miles east down Sugar Creek Road, I might have visualized General Curtis and the Federal Army, dug in for battle above Brightwater, not yet aware that their foes were attempting a flanking movement via Twelve Corners, aiming to launch an attack from the north and west.
Or, if I had thought back to the 1830s, I might have visualized a band of Cherokee Indians, trudging down this road on their way to Bentonville and to the reservation in Oklahoma, one of the routes of the Trail of Tears.
Or maybe I should have imagined back to the 1820s, when this old road may have been just a trail, and an Osage Indian hunting party could be seen making its way down to the bright stream that we now know as Little Sugar Creek.
Lots of momentous earlier lives and events have shaped our times and this geographical space we occupy. To me, at least, the ebb and flow of life through the years in Pea Ridge Country is pretty fascinating!
Editor's note: This column was originally published Jan. 30, 2008. Jerry Nichols, a native of Pea Ridge and an award-winning columnist, was vice president of Pea Ridge Historical Society. Opinions expressed were those of the writer.