September 18, 1964

The Beatles finished a concert at Memorial Coliseum in Dallas, Texas, and immediately boarded a plane owned and operated by Reed Pigman, who owned a ranch in Alton, Missouri, that would serve as a vacation getaway before the group’s final U.S. concert of the year, which would be in New York. Before traveling to Alton, the Beatles made a brief stop in Walnut Ridge (Lawrence County), whose airport provided the ideal spot for the group to change planes before heading to Missouri. Also, the Beatles could avoid the crush of screaming fans by landing at a secluded airport at the edge of a small town. The plane landed in Walnut Ridge shortly after midnight.