Public parks recalled through the years

A memorial park is a good idea

In the earlier days of my life, I don’t recall there being many public parks around Pea Ridge for things like family picnics or children’s play outings. We used to do picnics on Big Sugar Creek just above the old Jacket Bridge. But the area that was good for picnics and gatherings was taken up by the new bridge by which we cross Big Sugar today on Missouri Highway KK. Our other picnics might be at Grandma’s house on the hill in town (now the Laughlin House), or for big family gatherings we would go to Lake Atalanta in Rogers.

The picnic parks that I recall in the 1940s and 1950s were usually outfitted with defined areas for groups to use, but as I recall there were no reservations or fees involved. If a spot was available when you arrived, you went ahead with your picnic. If somebody already had your spot when you arrived, you looked elsewhere for an alternative. Some of our spots really had no facilities in place. There might be an observable place where others had a camp fire for cooking. A few places had permanent picnic tables. I don’t remember any pavilions. There might be tables constructed with seating, but usually we brought folding chairs with us. If there were no tables, we either did our picnic on a blanket or oil cloth on the ground or brought fold-up tables to use on the spot.

In my early life, Bentonville still had the leftovers of Park Springs. Park Springs, in the early 1900s, especially in the “late ‘teens,” had been a popular resort spot, with healthgiving spring water (which was a big draw in those days), a very nice hotel, and even a trolley rail line to bring vacationers to the hotel. In my years, the hotel and rail line were gone and the site was mostly unmaintained, but a family could still have a picnic there. Park Springs was about seven blocks north of old downtown Bentonville.

I don’t recall Lake Atalanta Park as having much in the way of play equipment or game areas. There was a nearby swimming pool and restaurant, Lakeside, and a popular skating rink, but those were separate businesses and not part of the park as such.

I kind of considered my Mom’s old school playgrounds at Valley View as a park. The school had been closed in 1948, but into the 1950s the playground equipment was still in place, and we could stop by there if I could persuade Dad and Mom to spend a little time there. Valley View School was located on what now is called Price Coffee Road in the Little Sugar Creek Valley off Arkansas Hwy. 72 northeast of Bentonville. Valley View always had really nice playground equipment, swings with strong chains and professionally made seats, great teeter-totters, a merry-go-round, and high slides. All those would probably be considered too dangerous for children’s playgrounds today, but they were great fun.

I was living elsewhere in the state when the Pea Ridge City Park was formed, so I don’t know the date when it opened. I had always known the location as the O.R. Morrison farm. The farm involved not only the City Park area but all of the housing development to the west of the park, all the way over to Chapman Street/Easterling Road. I had always known Mr. Morrison. He and Mrs. Morrison often attended the Thursday night singings at Shady Grove Schoolhouse (SCUD). Also, he was one of the early men in the community who knew how to wire for electricity. So, when we got electricity on the farm in 1945, my Dad arranged for Mr. Morrison to help us wire the house, install lights and receptacles, and to teach Dad how to do the wiring for the outbuildings on the farm. Mr. Morrison was also our school bus driver for many of our years in school.

To me, the Pea Ridge City Park was, and is, a Cadillac park. It has had equipment for children’s play, walking and biking trails, tennis courts, pavilions for outdoor eating, public restrooms, practice fields for baseball and football and other sports, and so on. Now we even have a splash park for the kids, which I understand has become really popular. It is a right “uptown” park.

I rather wish we could establish a nice public park on the original school grounds in downtown Pea Ridge. In a sense it has already begun forming. The War Memorial established by the Veterans of Foreign Wars is already drawing people to visit and view.

We also need activity areas, a pavilion, walking areas, a few picnic tables, some playground equipment, and probably some fencing enclosures. The west half of the grounds was once the elementary school playground, so it seems to me that to convert to a Memorial Park would be a real asset to the Pea Ridge community.

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Editor’s note: Jerry Nichols, can be contacted by email at joe369@centurytel.net, or call 621-1621.