Welcome to Pea Ridge, neighbor!

When I moved to northwest Arkansas in 1980, the entire county was a picturesque panorama of Americana. My friends in the city where I grew up thought I’d moved to the “ends of the earth.”

Tale of the Trout was the main nice restaurant in Rogers.

We moved away for a while and I returned in early 2006. During our absence, the area grew. And then, it kept growing and growing and growing.

Gone is the sleepy little bedroom community that was once Pea Ridge.

I first moved here in 1980 from northwest Louisiana and was enchanted by the quaint, small-town feel of Bentonville and Rogers. There was plenty of unoccupied space between the towns and cities of Benton and Washington counties and I-49 was not even on the average person’s thoughts. A return trip to northwest Arkansas was down U.S. Highway 71 with the hills and curves that made the two-lane challenging to someone from a flatter terrain.

Years ago (well, OK, decades ago), I remember suggesting to my husband that we go out for a hamburger. It was after 8 p.m.

He replied: “The Hi-DHo is closed.”

I countered: “We could go to Burger King.”

Burger King was in Rogers.

“You want to go ALL THE WAY to Rogers!?!” he exclaimed.

Having grown up in a city where travel times were measured in minutes not miles, I found the concept of traveling six miles for a restaurant to be acceptable. He did not.

That was one of the many differences I encountered upon my transition to Pea Ridge and the area.

I love the friendliness, the close-knit relationships, the familiarity exhibited here. Although there are many, many new people here, there are also people whose parents, grandparents and even great-grandparents lived here and were friends.

For a time, there was a sharp divide between the “natives” and the “newcomers.” Some newcomers were not accepted at all and considered a newcomer even if they’d been here for decades but had not been born here.

Regardless of the length of time you have lived here, for whatever reason, you’re here now and choose to call Pea Ridge home.

Contribute. Serve. Give. Be the best neighbor you can and help this fastgrowing community maintain that small-town feel that attracted you in the first place.

Welcome to Pea Ridge, neighbor.