County: Benton

Benton County Historical Society

The Benton County Historical Society (BCHS) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting, publishing, and otherwise preserving and disseminating the history of Benton County. The BCHS arose from a June 22, 1954, meeting of twenty-six people at the Masonic Youth Center in Rogers (Benton County). The records preserved over the years show that the attendees came from all townships of the county. At this meeting, temporary officers of the yet unnamed group were elected as follows: J. Wesley Sampier (chairman), Ray Henry and Louise Plank (vice chairs), and Huey Huhn (secretary/treasurer). These temporary officers had to nominate a slate of officers and draw up a constitution and by-laws. Word of mouth and notices in the newspapers promoted the first public …

Benton County Poor Farm Cemetery

The Benton County Poor Farm Cemetery, which contains an unknown number of burials, is located approximately one mile northeast of downtown Bentonville (Benton County) in the Allencroft Subdivision on the west side of Northeast Young Avenue and north of Northeast Carnahan Court. It is the most important physical onsite reminder of the Benton County Poor Farm, established in the mid-nineteenth century for the care of the poor. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on May 20, 2008. During the early history of the United States, the ever-growing population of poor citizens was regarded as a danger by many but was seen as a call to service by others. Many citizens and charitable organizations provided services to …

Bentonville (Benton County)

  Bentonville, the Benton County seat, has grown from a farming community to the home of the world’s largest retailer. Sam Walton, who started with a small store on the town square, built a retail giant but kept the Walmart Inc. headquarters in Bentonville. Bentonville is now one of the fastest-growing towns in the nation, largely because of the influx of Walmart Inc. suppliers. Some parts of the city are changing quickly, but preserved and restored buildings on the square and in adjoining neighborhoods help to maintain the look and feel of the historic town. Louisiana Purchase through Early Statehood The first white settlers in what is now Bentonville arrived just a few years before the town was established in …

Bentonville College

On March 15, 1894, what was described as a “mass meeting” of new subscribers to Bentonville College met in the county judge’s room of the Benton County Courthouse. The total number present was not recorded, but subscribers were private citizens. Lodges and civic clubs contributed to the college fund as well. Fifteen men formed the board of trustees. With a quorum present at the March 15 meeting, presiding officer James A. Rice presented articles of association, which were adopted. A corporation was formed under the name “The Bentonville College,” and the trustees were instructed to establish and maintain for a period of ninety-nine years a non-sectarian school for both sexes. The trustees were also charged with contracting for land, constructing …

Bentonville Confederate Monument

The Bentonville Confederate Monument is a commemorative sculpture erected in 1908 in the Bentonville (Benton County) town square by the James H. Berry Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) to honor local men who had served in the Confederate army during the Civil War. Eleven companies of infantry and cavalry were raised for Confederate service from Benton County during the Civil War, and in the early twentieth century, the James H. Berry Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy decided to sponsor a monument in their honor in the Bentonville town square. A. J. Bates, a Bentonville banker, donated $1,000 of the $2,500 monument cost, and James H. Berry—a former Confederate soldier, Arkansas governor, and U.S. senator, …

Bentonville Film Festival

The Bentonville Film Festival (BFF) is held annually in Bentonville (Benton County), with the main focus of the four-day event being to promote diversity in the entertainment industry. Bentonville, in northwestern Arkansas, was chosen as the location for the festival at the suggestion of leadership from founding sponsor, Walmart Inc. Through the BFF Foundation, in partnership with Walmart and presenting sponsor Coca-Cola, the festival is the culmination of year-round efforts to encourage inclusion by the entertainment media. The Bentonville Film Festival was founded in 2015 by Academy Award–winning actress Geena Davis. She earned an Oscar as Best Supporting Actress for The Accidental Tourist (1988) and is also known for her film work in Tootsie (1982), Beetlejuice (1988), Thelma & Louise …

Bentonville Schools, Desegregation of

Bentonville (Benton County) was one of the earliest school districts in Arkansas to admit African American students after the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its 1954 Brown v. Board of Education school desegregation decision. As Benton County was located in an area of low Black population, in practice this meant admitting the sole Black student living in the district to Bentonville High School. Even so, desegregation took place under a veil of secrecy. At the time of the Brown decision, Arkansas had a total of 423 school districts. Of these, 184 served only white students, eleven served only Black students, and 228 had both white and Black students. Many of the early moves toward school desegregation were in northwestern Arkansas, …

Bentonville, Action at

The Action at Bentonville occurred on February 18, 1862, as Brigadier General Samuel R. Curtis sought to maneuver Confederate forces from their winter encampment at Cross Hollows in the Boston Mountains. Curtis had entered Arkansas the previous morning in pursuit of Sterling Price’s Missouri State Guard, troops he had chased from southwest Missouri. Curtis’s Army of the Southwest rolled forward with little opposition until encountering Confederate regulars under Colonel Louis Hebert just south of Little Sugar Creek at a place called Dunagin’s Farm. Hebert’s force of infantry and cavalry, supported by artillery, fought a stubborn rearguard action that halted Curtis’s advance, costing the Federals thirteen dead and around twenty wounded while suffering as many as twenty-six dead on the Rebel …

Bentonville, Skirmish at

  A small engagement in extreme northwestern Arkansas, this skirmish was part of a larger scouting expedition launched from Cassville, Missouri. Gathering intelligence for Union forces in Missouri, this scout also disrupted Confederate operations in the area. On May 21, 1863, Colonel William F. Cloud of the Second Kansas Cavalry embarked from Cassville with his regiment on a movement into Arkansas. Crossing the state line, the expedition approached Bentonville (Benton County). A Confederate unit was in the town, and Cloud led his men in a surprise attack on the enemy. The Confederate soldiers fled in disarray, and the Federals captured fourteen of the enemy and killed one. Cloud was also able to recover three Federal soldiers who had previously been …

Bethel Heights (Benton County)

Bethel Heights was a city in southern Benton County, situated on Business Highway 71 between Lowell (Benton County) and Springdale (Washington and Benton counties) just east of Interstate 49. Although the community existed since the 1870s, it was not incorporated until 1967. In 2020, it was annexed by Springdale following a vote in both communities. Benton County had long been inhabited before European exploration and before the Louisiana Purchase added the area to the United States. Osage from the north hunted in Benton County even after the Louisiana Purchase, until a treaty with the U.S. government moved the tribe west to what is now Oklahoma. The first white settler to claim land in the area that would become Bethel Heights …

Blackburn, Sylvanus

Sylvanus Walker Blackburn is noted for building the first gristmill in Benton County, locating his mill on War Eagle River. After selecting a site, Blackburn built a home, followed by a gristmill, blacksmith shop, carpentry shop, sawmill, and school. Today, Blackburn’s two-story home still stands, while a 1973 reproduction of the mill sits on its original spot. War Eagle Mill is Arkansas’s only remaining working mill and is believed to be the only undershot waterwheel now in operation in the United States. This is also the site of the well-known annual Ozark Arts and Crafts Fair, generally known as the War Eagle Fair, established in 1954 and held in October. Born on February 15, 1809, Sylvanus Blackburn was the son …

Blagg, Thomas Elwood

Tom Blagg was a career soldier and intellectual with diverse talents. In two stints in the Vietnam War, he displayed courage and leadership that were especially evident in 1964, when he led his troops to victory in fierce fighting against a larger enemy force. As a professor at the U.S. Military Academy, Blagg taught cadets to write clear, coherent sentences and to appreciate literary masterpieces like Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. When the Pentagon needed a detail-savvy officer to organize a presidential inauguration parade, Blagg got the call. Along the way, Blagg befriended Colin Powell, who wrote fondly about their association in his memoir. They served together in the 1970s as colonels commanding brigades of the 101st Airborne Division. Later, …

Bond, Gary Pitt “Blackie”

Gary “Blackie” Bond, whose career spanned more than three decades at Rogers High School in Rogers (Benton County), was one of the most successful high school football coaches in Arkansas history. Gary Pitt Bond was born on March 30, 1936, in Ozark (Franklin County) to Pitt Bond and Hester Law Bond. Bond’s father gave each of his children a nickname, and Gary was given his moniker “Blackie” because he was the only one of the three boys who had dark eyes. He appears to have grown up in Ozark and likely played football at Ozark High School before heading to the College of the Ozarks (now University of the Ozarks) in Clarksville (Johnson County), where he enjoyed an outstanding playing …

Borhauer, Shirley Ursala Czosek

Shirley Borhauer was a representative from Bella Vista (Benton County) in the Eighty-third, Eighty-fourth, and Eighty-fifth Arkansas General Assemblies, serving from 2001 to 2006. Shirley Ursala Czosek was born in Chicago, Illinois, on October 2, 1926, to Edmund Stanislaw Czosek, a screw machine operator at the Felt and Tarrant Manufacturing Company, and Clara Victoria Mindikowski Czosek, who was a Democratic election judge in Chicago’s Ward 26. She had one older sister, Phillis Mildred Czosek Black. Czosek attended Chicago Public Schools and graduated from Blue Island High School in 1944. She worked in the office at the Dodge Chicago Aircraft Engine Plant, which made engines for B-29 bombers, and then entered the last class of the United States Cadet Nurse Corps and trained at the Little Company of Mary School of Nursing near Chicago. Graduating as …

Brown, John Elward

A prominent evangelist, publisher, radio pioneer, and educator in the first half of the twentieth century, John Elward Brown established John Brown University (JBU), one of the state’s leading private universities. He was also the leading figure in securing passage of a law prohibiting the sale of alcohol in Benton County, a ban that continued into the twenty-first century. John Brown was born on April 2, 1879, near Center Point, Iowa, the fifth of nine children born to Civil War veteran John Franklin Brown and his wife, Julia. The elder Brown, weakened by war injuries, could not perform arduous farm work, so the family subsisted on a meager soldier’s pension. At age eleven, Brown dropped out of school to work …

Bynum, Preston Conrad

Preston Bynum was a political leader in the later part of the 1960s into the early 1980s. In addition to his work in the Arkansas General Assembly, he also played a major role in the growth and development of a vibrant and competitive Republican Party in Arkansas. He later served prison time for bribery. Preston Conrad Bynum was born on June 8, 1939, in Pryor, Oklahoma, to Homer and Roma Bynum. He grew up in Siloam Springs (Benton County), where his father headed Bynum Motor Company. He was a 1957 graduate of Siloam Springs High School and was three times elected class president. In his high school athletic career, he earned three varsity letters in each of his four years, …

Camp Joyzelle

Camp Joyzelle was a summer camp for girls that operated for nearly three decades at Monte Ne (Benton County). Summer camps emerged in the late 1800s as a way to provide urban youngsters with wholesome, outdoor activities during the long summer vacation. Summer camping for girls became popular after World War I. Some camps were run by organizations such as the Girl Scouts, while others were similar to private schools and served mostly well-to-do families. Camp Joyzelle was a typical example of the latter. The camp was founded by Iris Armstrong, who at the time had a private dramatic academy in Little Rock (Pulaski County). Armstrong’s goal was to start a camp at which girls could be instructed in drama …

Carr, Eugene Asa

Eugene Asa Carr was one of four people who received a Medal of Honor for his role in the Battle of Pea Ridge. Carr also participated in the seizure of Little Rock (Pulaski County), was dispatched to Clarendon (Monroe County) to confront Confederate major general Joseph O. Shelby, and spent time in Helena (Phillips County) on Reconstruction duty. Carr spent more than forty-three years in the U.S. Army. Eugene Carr was born on March 10, 1830, in Hamburg, New York, to Clark Merwin Carr and Delia Ann Torry Carr; he had three siblings. At sixteen, he entered the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, and he graduated on July 1, 1850. Carr served a tour of duty in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, …

Cassville, Missouri, to Cross Hollow, Scout from

The scout from Cassville, Missouri, to Cross Hollow (Benton County) was undertaken in an attempt to capture Major William “Buck” Brown and his band of irregular cavalrymen as they destroyed telegraph lines connecting various Federal bases. By the summer of 1864, the only telegraph lines in Arkansas connected Little Rock (Pulaski County) to Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) and DeValls Bluff (Prairie County), and Fort Smith (Sebastian County) to Van Buren (Crawford County) and sometimes Fayetteville (Washington County), while other lines linked Fayetteville to Union bases in Missouri. All of the telegraph lines were in constant danger of being cut by Confederate guerrillas operating in Arkansas and Missouri. On June 7, 1864, Brigadier General John B. Sanborn ordered Lieutenant Colonel Hugh …

Cave Springs (Benton County)

The city of Cave Springs, nestled in the hills of northwest Arkansas, Benton County, is known more for recreational opportunities than for its role in industry or agriculture. Incorporated in 1910, the second-class city stands on Highways 112 and 264 and is often the first community seen by visitors to Arkansas who arrive at the Northwest Arkansas National Airport. Cave Springs is named for two caves and for the water source that flows from the northernmost of those caves. The north cave, which has been closed to the public since the 1980s, is said to consist of several rooms and to contain two beautiful waterfalls. It is home to many bats and to the largest known population of the rare …