RECOLLECTIONS
50 Years Ago Pea Ridge Graphic Vol. 3 No. 10 Thursday, March 7, 1968
Numerous taverns and relay stations were built along the Fort Smith-St. Louis route prior to the Civil War. One of the earliest was the Elkhorn Tavern built in 1833 near the cross roads and close to the east end of Pea Ridge-Elkhorn mountain. The Elkhorn Tavern was built three years before Arkansas became a state and was there when the Cherokee Trail of Tears passed through. The tavern was built on a claim of William Reddick from Tennessee. Reddick’s log cabin home stood a short distance southwest of the later day tavern. In the years between the war and the turn of the century, monuments were erected on the battlefield and veterans met there for an occasional reunion. Following World War I, the battlefield began to attract more attention and tourists started visiting the historic site. For a good many years, area citizens had been promoting the battlefield for a national park. It became a reality about 1959 when the Pea Ridge National Military Park was created.
Track season at Pea Ridge is about to begin according to coach Joe Johnston, when the junior high of Pea Ridge (both boys and girls) will have a practice meet with West Fork. A 15 cent charge will be made to both students and adults in an effort to raise funds with which to buy sweat suits. Johnston urges everyone who is interested in the local track program to be on hand.
40 Years Ago Pea Ridge Graphic-Scene Vol. 13 No. 10 Wednesday, March 8, 1978
Years have passed since the deaths of the last men and women who witnessed the Battle of Pea Ridge. With the passing of those who experienced it first-hand, the Civil War has seemed to become a more remote conflict relegated mostly to school textbooks listing only basic facts like generals’ names and battle dates. Personal, first-hand accounts of the hardship and suffering of the long war years will never again be heard now that the war generation is gone, but some of their descendents have made efforts to preserve such stories so that the survival struggles of the soldiers and farm families will not be so easily forgotten.
Mrs. Betty Gentry is one of only 11 women superintendents of the 294 national parks in the United States. As head of the Pea Ridge National Military Park crew, she is one of two women superintendents in Arkansas. Before coming to the Pea Ridge park, she was an interpretive specialist in the Southwest Regional Office in Santa Fe since 1974. She now calls Pea Ridge National Military Park home.
30 Years Ago The TIMES of Northeast Benton County Vol. 23 No. 10 Thursday, March 9, 1988
When Charles and Lillian Proper moved from Illinois to within a half mile of Pea Ridge National Military Park 12 years ago, Proper had no idea that his grandfather had fought in the Battle of Pea Ridge. “We moved down here three years before we knew we had anybody connected with that battle.” The retired carpenter, in the same trade as his grandfather, as he discovered during the interview for this article, and his wife were born in Blue Island, Ill. Mrs. Proper said that she and her husband had been to the battlefield before they discovered that an ancestor had fought there. Proper said, “We found out through a cousin, who said that he had some mementos from the battle. When he died, his wife mailed a bunch of things down here.” He said his grandfather was a volunteer infantryman. A document, dated Sept. 8, 1864, shows that Grandfather Proper was promoted to corporal at White River Landing. The document also shows that he served at the Battles of Pea Ridge, Prairie Grove, Chalk Bluff and Vicksburg.
20 Years Ago The TIMES of Northeast Benton County Vol. 33 No. 10 Thursday, March 12, 1998
Pea Ridge/Garfield Justice of the Peace Leo Lynch has introduced to the Quorum Court and ordinance that would limit certain elected Benton County officials to five terms. The ordinance, virtually identical to one being considered by the Quorum Court in Washington County, would limit the terms of the county judge, sheriff, assessor, county collector, treasurer, circuit clerk, county clerk, coroner and justices of the peace. He said, “What I found in industry is if after five years someone in a supervisory position doesn’t lead to a promotion or greater responsibility, then they are less effective. Lynch said, “What it would do is bring fresh ideas to the office.”
10 Years Ago The TIMES of Northeast Benton County Vol. 43 No. 10 Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Having grown up less than five miles west of Pea Ridge, Jackie Crabtree can say he’s been entrenched in the community for a lifetime. He can also say he’s seen more change over the past decade than he ever imagined close-knit Pea Ridge would experience. Crabtree can remember the population sign at the limits of Pea Ridge reading 168 in the early 1960s. It was a rural community, where livestock far out-numbered people, and barns were certainly more prominent than residential rooftops. While the population sign on Arkansas Highway 72 in Pea Ridge reads 2, 346, that number has long since been eclipsed. The Regional Planning Office estimates 4,300 residents now call Pea Ridge home, and motorists passing through are greeted by an ocean of rooftops, many of which weren’t there just a few years ago.
There was no snow. The temperatures Saturday hovered right around freezing, the winds blew the cold through layered clothing, and the sun failed to pierce the gray canopy of clouds. But their was no snow, which would have made weather conditions exactly like it was 146 years ago when the Union forces defeated the Confederacy in the Battle of Pea Ridge. As volunteers clad in period-appropriate guard commemorated the battle that preserved Missouri as a Union state, the land now labeled the Pea Ridge National Military Park, the weather wasn’t the only thing slightly amiss. Chief Ranger Steve Black said the lapses in historical accuracy were allowed, himself sporting a Civil War uniform, complete to his glasses, and a fanny pack carrying his emergency supplies. The event, he said, is intended to display pieces of the event, not recreate it entirely.