Sometime back one of the major car makers were promoting their new automobiles by using the phrase, "Travel New Roads!"
Of course, the suggestion was that you travel those roads in a new Chevrolet. I guess that was a pretty good advertising strategy. We hear all kinds of appeals to buy certain makes of cars. One of the recent ones is "Feel Alive!! Drive a ....!!" OK, I'm pretty much trying to feel alive without having one of those, although no doubt they are fine cars.
I'm right fascinated with the roads that our cars travel, both the new roads, and the old roads that used to be. But, right now, I'm thinking about roads that used to be. One of them I don't actually remember. I only learned about it by seeing a 1903 map of Pea Ridge and the area north of town. That was a road that began at the little bridge on today's Greene Street, and ran northeast down the valley of the small stream that carries the water from the Greene Street spring and the water rolling down the ravine which drains the area around McCulloch Street and Dodge Street. The road once went along the hill on the west side of the stream to today's McClure Street, and then followed the path of the north end of today's Clark Street. The stream emptied into Otter Creek just north of town, but the old road continued northward with Otter Creek, running sometimes beside the creek and sometimes using the creek bed as the roadway. This was basically in the times before automobiles.
Horses and wagons in those days were probably better suited for negotiating those old creek bed roads than were motor cars or motor trucks. The old Otter Creek road continued downstream for about two miles from Pea Ridge, and then moved into the hill west of the creek bottom, coming across a part of the farm where I grew up, and joining the road which is now Hayden Road (Arkansas Highway 265) in the middle of our farm. The point of entry of that old road to the larger road would be just over a mile north of the Pea Ridge City Park, where today's road swoops right, then left, and continues on to the Missouri line.
The other two roads I want to talk about are roads that I remember very well.
The first is the road to Bentonville from Pea Ridge, which we know as Arkansas Highway 72. State Hwy. 72 took on its current locations and configuration about 1950, a time when our first really big road improvement project was going on in northwest Arkansas. Until that time, even State Hwy. 72 was entirely a gravel road, and at points it traveled different paths from what we see today. The stretch which we now call Slack Street is basically still in the same location that it had before 1950. However, once one arrived at the road we now call Dove Road, at the Oak View Animal Clinic, the highway turned sharply south, traveling what is now Dove Road, then turned right on what is now Blue Jay Road. That came together with what we now call Mariano Road, and the traveler turned sharply south to another 90-degree corner, then right over to the area of today's Center Point Construction Co., then turned sharply south again. The portion of State Hwy. 72 that runs at a southwesterly direction from It'll Do Road is an all new location for the highway. The Jac's Ranch corner just before Plentywood Road was also a sharp 90-degree corner in earlier times.
In the old days of horses, wagons and buggies, there was no need for gradual turns. Most turns were sharp left or sharp right. Again, at the bottom of the hill where Sugar Creek Road intersects the highway, the highway took a sharp right, joining Sugar Creek Road for an additional quarter mile stretch which no longer exists. Then, the highway turned directly south, crossed Little Sugar Creek at a bridge farther west from today's John Black Memorial Bridge. From that old bridge, the road continued directly south farther up the valley, on a path along the fence line of the pasture often populated today by a herd of goats, and then climbed the steep hill westward along a path near that of today's roadway.
The highway to Rogers was also quite different from today's roadway. First, to leave Pea Ridge, you traveled south from the downtown intersection to today's Patton Street, then west to Carr Street, then south, turning right as though to go to Bentonville, but then turned south again on today's Ryan Road. Ryan Road was Arkansas Hwy. 94 until 1950. Other than the paved stretch beginning at State Hwy. 72, Ryan Road remains much as it used to be in the old days. It is a glimpse into the 1940s. But, when Ryan Road reaches Sugar Creek Road today, it terminates. In the old days the road continued south across the field, crossing a bridge some distance west of today's State Hwy. 94 bridge, and continued southward. The path of the old road is now a driveway which joins State Hwy. 94 near the hill which rises to Tuck's Chapel Road. That portion of State Hwy. 94 which now climbs the hill is new as of 1950. Previously, the old road continued on the floor of the valley for some distance farther south, often utilizing the "dry stream bed" as the roadway, and climbed the hill to Tuck's Chapel Road on what today is called Old Pea Ridge Lane. The other section of State Hwy. 94, which is very different today, is in what I call the Brush Creek swoop. At Brush Creek, the highway takes a swoop to the right and down, then rises by way of a leftward loop. In the old days, that leftward loop rising to the upper level didn't exist. Instead, the highway made a sharp turn left at Brush Creek Road, cutting through the hill through a cut which is still visible, but is no longer used.
Several houses now sit along the old section of highway on the hill, but their access is from the top, no longer from the lower level. The south entry of the Brush Creek Development is a portion of the old highway.
New roads sometimes bring weird changes, such as those to the Pea Ridge National Military Park, but often they bring real improvements. The 1950 changes gave us smooth paved surfaces, gradual curves more suitable for speedy automobile travel, eliminated mud holes, did away with road dust, and in some measure took shorter, more direct routes.
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Editor's note: Jerry Nichols, a native of Pea Ridge and an award-winning columnist, is vice president of Pea Ridge Historical Society. He can be contacted by e-mail at [email protected], or call 621-1621.
Editorial on 05/22/2019